Episode 8 of RuPaul’s Drag Race - Season 5, titled “Scent of a Drag Queen” definitely made it obvious who this season’s ‘true professional’ is. And it’s not who you think it is, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
The mini-challenge for this episode was silly. But I enjoyed watching it nevertheless, and wouldn’t be against similar programming on the show in the future. That said, for the mini-challenge, RuPaul had the girls play her version of Memory called “Watcha Packin?” The girls had to match two male models out of a group of 22 wearing the same Andrew Christian
briefs. Many of the girls couldn’t stay focused watching these shirtless male models drop their trousers to reveal packages in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Hell, I couldn’t even stay focused. One girl paid attention more than the others, that girl being Ivy Winters. As the winner of this week’s mini-challenge, she got to make a phone call home.
The main challenge this week is definitely one of the best of all 5 seasons I’ve seen so far. It’s up there with “The Snatch Game”, where the girls need to do more than just make themselves pretty. For this week’s main challenge, the girls had to create their own signature perfume. This entailed them creating the scent, designing the bottle for their fragrance, coming up with a concept, and directing a commercial to market their signature perfume. For the runway challenge, the girls had to create a look to wear to the launch party of their fragrance.
I love it when RuPaul makes the girls come up with their own material; I’m always fascinated by what’s in a drag queen’s mind, and how they present themselves without direction. Let’s start with Alaska, who was my favorite in every aspect of the main challenge, an opinion shared buy the judges as well. She called her signature fragrance, “Red for Filth”, which is a play on the words ‘read for filth’. Her commercial was the only one that had me gagging. My favorite parts in her commercial was when she sprayed perfume in her mouth before going down on the Pit Crew model, and when she just threw her arms up in the air with a facial expression that said ‘and what?’ when they said her perfume was “over-priced”. For the runway challenge, at first glance, I thought her look was a bit too simplistic with just red heels, red skirt, a black jacket over a crimson red bra, which she wore with a short crimson red wig. That said, I will also say Alaska’s execution of the look made it come alive on the runway. Her look also went with her over all concept, more so than any of the other girls. For this, RuPaul declared Alaska the winner of this week’s main challenge.
Second best in the main challenge was Jinkx Monsoon with her signature fragrance, “Delusion”. Her concept was that her perfume gave you the delusion that you were the ‘grand dame of the the ball’, instead of just a ‘bag lady from the hoe stroll’. For the runway challenge, Jinkx wore a Gatsby-inspired look that Michelle Visage complimented her on. I really thought other girls had better runway looks. However, it did fit with her overall concept, so she wins second best.
Detox came in third place with her signature fragrance, “Heroine”. She had a good commercial. I don’t know what was all said in the commercial, but I can’t forget the word ‘heroine’ be repeated in a deep voice over and over. It was so melodic that I felt like she was hypnotizing me into buying her perfume. If we were judging on runway looks alone, Detox would be in the bottom two for what she wore. Her dress looked like it was the first dress made by her 13-year old daughter in Home Economics class. Luckily for her, there were a couple girls that totally ‘fucked it up’. So Detox gets a pass this week.
Coco Montrese came in fourth with her signature fragrance, “Ru-Animal”, which isn’t very signature since she’s using RuPaul’s brand - but I’m not judging. Coco’s concept came off as cliche, and her commercial gave me a head-ache, literally. It was just too busy, with animal print on top of animal print, on top of animal print, on top of animal; it looked like it belonged on the Discovery Channel as opposed to Logo. For the runway challenge, Coco wore a black-and-white, animal-print, cat suit that fit her like a glove; this was the only redeeming element in her entire presentation.
Roxxy Andrews, Alyssa Edwards, and Ivy Winters had the three worst showings for this week’s main challenge with the signature fragrances, “Thick & Juicy”, “Alyssa’s Secret”, and “Dress Code”, respectively. I don’t have anything good to say about any of them, so I just won’t say nothing at all.
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