Episode 9: Queens of Talk

It’s Monday night again, which means it’s time for another edition of Talking Drag Race with Chiffon Dior! (Insert polite applause here.) We’re down to our final seven bitches so let’s get right into the thick of things, kittens.

Picture it. The Work Room. 2014 (technically 2013 when this was filmed but whatever). Seven drag queen enter the room, mourning the loss of their sister Laganja Estranga. Well, maybe mourning is too strong a word. They were OVER her weeks ago and don’t spend much time worrying about her before the shade begins to fly at one another yet again: Ben Delacreme is pretty sure that Joslyn Fox will be heading home this week, which means she won’t be … unless she does.

Boy Ru emerges to announce the mini-challenge. For some reason, Adore Delano is convinced it will involve boxing one another. (Nobody had a clue why she thought that. I can only imagine it was the little voices in her head that told her that. They seem fun.)

Instead the challenge involved playing a game of “Hungman” using letters on the rear ends of a slew of Pit Crew fellas. In terms of dignity, this is a step up from last week’s two mini-challenges. Meanwhile, Ru uses the moment to throw a little shade the legendary Lady Bunny‘s way.

“Lady Bunny is like school on Sunday … no class.”

It was a lot funnier when Fat Albert used that exact same line on Rudy back in the day.

Anyway, Ben won the challenge and earned a year’s worth of false eyelashes as a prize. Try not to be too jealous at home.

RuPaul then announced the guest judges: Chaz Bono, Georgia Holt (Cher’s mom, Chaz’s grandmother) and Paula Abdul. The main challenge was for the queens to pretend they were guest hosting Ru’s old talk show, the cleverly named “The RuPaul Show,” and to interview Chaz and Georgia.

All the girls immediately got to work on their interview questions — except for Joslyn, who instead spent time choosing a runway outfit after a few weeks of harsh critiques from the judges for wearing what I think were a series of bungee cords. Three guesses who had a comment about all this. Yes, Bianca Del Rio. (Thank Gaga for her or I would be poking my eyes out this season.)

“Joslyn runs to her closet to pick out three ugly dresses. I thought for sure she would have worn one of her nine bikinis. This is a special event!”

Adore was the first to interview Chaz and Georgia (who’s 87 and looks phenomenal, by the way). Georgia talked about literally singing for her supper because she grew up during the Depression, to which Adore responded with a clueless, “Party!” Sigh. I thought those who don’t know history were doomed to repeat it, but apparently Adore got out of going to summer school.

Next up was Bianca, who badly mismanaged things by talking only to Chaz, running out of time before she had the chance to ask Georgia any questions. This, however, was far from the most egregious offense of the night. Case in point: Trinity called Chaz “Chad” over and over. For the entire interview.

Courtney went next and killed it (it didn’t hurt that Chad … er, Chaz was a little sweet on her). Darienne followed — she got a little rattled, but in fairness, Chaz and Georgia really gave her nothing to work with. Ben then did a respectable job, which brought us to Joslyn. Oh boy.

Free advice honey. When you’re doing a fun, light-hearted entertainment interview, do NOT bring up abortion to Cher’s mom! That was painfully uncomfortable.

From there, it was on to the runway for some fierce animal-themed looks, including Darienne serving elephant realness and Bianca proving she’s a real .. ahem … cheetah, quipping, “Big cats are dangerous but a little pussy never hurt anybody.”

Ben channeled her best inner Jeff Goldblum as she came out with an amazing fly-themed costume.

Trinity served us straight-up rooster, while Joslyn wore as little as possible and put some feathers on her head. Oh, and Courtney Act did this. No big.

Courtney was named the winner of the talk show challenge, while Joslyn inexplicably survived — putting Adore and Trinity into the bottom two. They lip-synced for their lives to “Vibeology” by Paula Abdul, right in front of Paula Abdul. Irony can be super ironic sometimes.

The competition was close yet again but Adore eked out the win, making Trinity finally sashay away.

We’re now down to only six girls, and I’m now down to only five Ambiens. Time for a refill. See you next week, boys and girls!

Episode 10: How I Met Your Drag Mother

Hello, hello, hello! It’s time for another edition of the number one rated “RuPaul’s Drag Race” recap column on Blabberazzi, “Talking Drag Race with Chiffon Dior.” We’re coming down the home stretch for this season and the competition is hot and heavy. Lots of people think that, barring a Britney Spears-esque meltdown, Bianca Del Rio is headed to victory, but anything can happen in the magical world of reality television — so let’s head down to the work room, shall we, kittens?

Our surviving six-pack of divas returned and Courtney Act must have taken her sassy pills that morning because she began to throw shade all over the place, including at Bianca (which is just never a good idea). Before things got too catty, though, boy RuPaul presented the next mini-challenge: Putting on bodysuits, rolling around in paint and seeing who could come up with the best painting. (I’m not positive but I think a monkey with a typewriter came up with this season’s mini challenges.)

Anyway, Bianca won because someone had to, and as a reward, she got to set up the pairings for the main challenge of the evening: A wedding makeover. Six women entered the room and for once, the person with the power to pick the pairings didn’t give herself the hands-down prettiest one. Someone knows her “Drag Race” history.

Alas, Bianca’s strategy was all for naught as the shocking twist occurred when the male fiances of the women walked into the room and the real challenged was unveiled (so to speak): our queens had to transform these burly brutes into blushing brides, while they themselves were to portray the mothers of those “brides.”

Bianca quickly bonded with her future drag “daughter,” who was from Holland and completely comfortable with the concept of gay marriage, leading to this epiphany from Bianca: “I actually made a friend today. Me! A Friend!”

Meanwhile, Joslyn Fox struggled with her guy (a macho pro basketball player who was worried what his teammates were going to say about his transformation) and Darienne Lake had to deal with her guy wanting a goth wedding. Yeah, good luck with that.

Courtney and Adore Delano had their own issues, namely that they had to make dresses for their dudes and neither one can sew a lick. “I’m not Cinderella,” Adore said. “I don’t have mice to help me make this damn garment!”

The moral of this episode is like RuPaul always says, “If you can’t sew for yourself, how in the hell are you gonna sew for somebody else? Can I get an amen?” (I might have screwed that quote up a tiny bit but I’ve been drinking so we’ll just move on.)

Bianca was en fuego with the work room shade — for example, when Ru asked her how she was going to feminize her guy’s face, she deadpanned, “Well, I’m going to ask everyone to step back.” Then after Joslyn finished painting her drag daughter, Bianca compared her to the girl Gremlin from “Gremlins 2.” Ouch.

Moving on to the runway, Ru introduced the special guest judges: heir to Betty White‘s crown of the “Most Universally Liked Celeb” Neil Patrick Harris and his husband, actor David Burtka, who is famous mostly for being married to Neil Patrick Harris.

Long story short of the runway: Joslyn’s daughter’s makeup didn’t match her skin tone even slightly …

Ben’s daughter was a vision in peach …

Courtney showed up her daughter because she’s too darn pretty …

Bianca’s daughter was a dead ringer for her …

Darienne’s daughter was a little too goth for the judges …

and Adore’s daughter was just … no.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Bianca won the challenge and, along with it, a trip to Hawaii for herself and her couple. (Pretty sure the three of them don’t have to go together or that could be awkward. Then again, she IS besties with the guy she made over now, so.)

On the other end of the spectrum, Adore and Joslyn fell into the bottom two and had to lip sync for their lives to Aretha Franklin’s classic song “Think.” Joslyn didn’t really do too much while Adore (who kicked off her shoes and took off her lone earring but kept her wig on because we all know that is a major no-no) danced her ass off and made incredible eye contact with the judges, eye-effing the crap out of all of them — thus earning herself the win.

With Joslyn sashaying away, we’re down to our final five girls: Courtney Act, Bianca Del Rio, Darienne Lake, Ben Delacreme and Adore Delano.

I’m out like a fat kid in dodge ball. See you next week, kittens!

Episode 11: Glitterball

Hello again my little chickadees! It’s time for another bedazzled edition of “Talking Drag Race with Chiffon Dior,” which must make me Chiffon Dior. We’re in this season’s home stretch and Monday’s episode was a doozy, complete with the most shocking elimination of the year — one that is sure to be hotly debated in the days to come. But I’m getting ahead of myself now aren’t I?

Our story begins once again in the work room, where they give a token remembrance to their latest fallen sister, Joslyn Fox (honk honk), before the boy version of RuPaul makes his big entrance to reveal the next mini-challenge.

Finally, something good: Each queen had to reach into a box and pull out a male puppet version of their fellow queens, and then drag out the puppet. The gals then did a “show,” voicing the puppets to passive-aggressively bring up all the things about their puppet queen that annoy them.

“What do you use to cover up your eyebrows?” – Adore Delano
“Oatmeal” – Ben Delacreme puppet

Ben won the mini-challenge, and Ru announced the main challenge: GLITTERBALL! (I’m not positive but I think that was the gay porn version of the old James Bond film “Thunderball.”) It’s basically a sewing challenge divided up into three looks: “Banjee Girl Bling,” “Platinum Card Executive Realness” and “Dripping in Jewels Eleganza.”

If you’re wondering what “banjee” is, that’s what Urban Dictionary is for.

Anyway, as a reward for winning the mini-challenge, Ben got to assign the jewel colors for each queen’s costume theme. Adore was diamond, Bianca sapphire, Darienne topaz, Ben rose quartz and Courtney ruby.

Also, Ben was assigned the responsibility of coming up with the choreography for the big opening number to the GLITTERBALL. But since Ben isn’t really a dancer, she deferred to the other queens — and things quickly descended into chaos, mass hysteria, cats and dogs living together. Or as Bianca put it, “The ending is like we drank caffeine and took a Zumba class.”

Back in the workroom, Adore struggled to make a dress because she can’t sew for crap, but Bianca — whom we recently learned is secretly nice — helped her along. Meanwhile, Ru announced that the guest judges for the night would be a returning Khloe Kardashian (seriously Khloe, just apply for season 7, you know you want to) and fashion icon Bob Mackie.

Our heroines hit the stage to perform their opening number, but despite the chaos of the rehearsal, things went off smoothly. It’s almost like reality television tries to trick us or something.

Also, I feel dirty even saying it, but Khloe Kardashian looked totally adorable and didn’t bring up her camel toe even once this time, thus retaining her crown as the member of that family that I least want to hit in the face with a waffle iron.

Finally, the girls hit the stage to show off their three looks for the evening. The judges went gaga over Adore’s three looks …

… but nitpicked over Ben, Bianca and Courtney’s looks (nary a kind word was to be found about Darienne’s ensembles). Bianca in particular didn’t seem like being called out on wearing a similar cut over and over.

Perennial punching bag Adore seemed as shocked as anyone by all the love she got from the judges.

Next up was the “who do you think deserves to go home?” portion of the season. The ruling was unanimous as everyone picked Darienne — even Darienne picked herself. Sheesh.

Adore winds up winning the challenge, leaving Ben and Darienne to lip sync for their lives once again (a rematch of a few weeks ago wherein Ru spared them both). This time around? They got their groove on to Kelly Clarkson’s “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You).”

It was close, but based on the outrage online, most people felt like Ru sent the wrong queen home when Ben Delacreme was ordered to sashay away. But there was also sweetness when season 5 winner Jinkx Monsoon posted this for her fellow Seattle sister.

There is nothing in this world that can surmount my love for my sister and best friend @bendelacreme – you are a star and a class act.

— Jinkx Monsoon (@JinkxMonsoon) April 29, 2014

So we’re down to our final four queens: Darienne Lake, Courtney Act, Bianca Del Rio and Adore Delano. Place your bets because we’re getting ever so close to crowning a new winner (and I’m about a month away from pitching the idea of me recapping episodes of Big Brother to Blabberazzi management in a desperate attempt to stay relevant).

My bedtime snack of two Xanax and a glass of Chardonnay are kicking in — so until next week, kittens, I’m signing off.

Episode 12: The Final Three

Hello, hello, helloooooooo my dears! We are almost to the end of this long-ass journey together. Now, now … no tears. We still have a lot more shade and drama to go before we say goodbye, so let’s get right to it.

We started Monday’s show by finding out that vanquished queen Ben Delacreme left an epically long mirror message (roughly 20 words longer than anything Adore Delano has ever read) just so it would be a pain in the ass for Darienne Lake to clean off. Oh, the shade!

Later on, the queens, most notably Courtney Act, speculated that Bianca Del Rio might finally be getting rattled. Bianca, however, would have none of it.

Adore filled the awkward silence with patented catch phrase.

Sigh. I keep telling myself I was 23 once. Insert your own joke here. I’ll just sit back and sip my vodka for a bit.

Suddenly, shockingly, Ben Delacreme re-entered the work room!

No wait. It was Michelle Visage, summoned to reveal the final multi-part challenge to our fearless band of heroes. First, the traditional sit-down dinner with RuPaul herself (complete with requisite Tic Tac joke), then two separate “acting” challenges (and I use the word “acting” very lightly here) and, finally, starring alongside Ru in her brand new video, “Sissy That Walk.”

I look forward to some corner of the internet expressing faux outrage over the word “sissy.” Maybe they can protest Sissy Spacek while they’re at it.

Anyway, the gals start out by learning the “sissyography” for the video from hunky choreographer Jamal Sims, with whom Darienne seemed especially taken (look at him, who could blame her).

During Courtney’s dinner with Ru, she says she should win because she’s the best singer, the best dancer and the best queen there. Meanwhile, Darienne’s dinner opened up some old wounds as Ru mentioned Darienne had been asked to leave the house by her own mother. Heartbreakingly, Darienne said, “There are things that I get from RuPaul that I don’t get from my own mother.”

Next up was Bianca, who playfully feigned ignorance of the cameras filming her when Ru mentioned how she’s been surprisingly supportive of the other girls. And finally, Ru chatted with Adore about family dynamics — mainly how much she loved her mother and that she didn’t want anything to do with her father because he was cruel to her when she was younger.

From there, the final four were off to the green screen to sexily walk on treadmills while fans blew in their faces as they filmed their scenes for Ru’s new video. Isn’t it an amazing coincidence that Ru always just happens to be doing a new video at this time every year?

The ladies all impressed me with their treadmill choreography, especially since I can barely walk and chew gum at the same time. Bianca did express some concern about the process though: “It’s weird being on treadmill with heels on. Then you add a fan and I’m having Hurricane Katrina flashbacks.”

From there, the girls were spirited off to the acting challenges with director (and behind-the-scenes “Drag Race” power broker) Mathu Andersen. If you didn’t see it, you missed really, really hokey acting, even by “Drag Race” standards, and RuPaul wearing ridiculous costumes — even by “Drag Race” standards.

I’m not sure where Ru got that outfit but apparently he was a villainous extra in a Bruce Lee film at some point.

And then there was this look.

No word who won the acting challenges but I know it wasn’t the audience.

Back in the workroom ,the queens reflect on their experiences.

“This is the final game of the World Series….of drag.” – Darienne

Nice hockey reference that 95% of the audience won’t get. Sheesh! Let’s move on to the runway, shall we?

Although I was a bit underwhelmed by the runway looks, perhaps the bigger shocker of all occurred: Michelle Visage had nothing but nice things to say about everyone! Who saw that coming? Certainly not Courtney, who “fainted” on stage.

For yet another twist, Ru made all four girls lip sync for their lives at once, and by the time the final bars of “Sissy That Walk” finished, she’d made her decision: It was time for Darienne to sashay away, leaving a final three of Adore, Bianca and Courtney.

Now it’s up to the fans to flood all the various social medias of the interwebs with support for their favorite queen — which ultimately won’t mean a damn thing because the final decision is RuPaul’s anyway.

Next week is the stretch this out, milk it for all it’s worth filler show exciting recap show before the grand finale in two weeks. So make your voices heard like the voices I hear in my head when I don’t take my medication, boys and girls. We’re almost at the end of this journey — but with more “Drag Race” shenanigans to come, I’ll be back soon. Ta ta for now, kittens!

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The Finale!!!!

Well boys and girls, much like a bottle of Absolut, all good things must come to end — and so too must “Talking Drag Race.” But this is not a sad day. No, it is a day of celebration, a day to commemorate the crowning of the “RuPaul’s Drag Race” season six winner!

Now, if you’ve been following “Talking Drag Race” all season (hi mom!), tonight’s result should not come as a surprise. That’s right, the AMAZING Bianca Del Rio took home the crown! (More images and such here.)

It was a magical night in Las Vegas that featured not only the crowning but also an impromptu wedding (between Joslyn Fox and her boyfriend, presided over by RuPaul herself), a tearful reunion of sorts between estranged friends Adore Delano and Laganja Estranja, a heartwarming surprise for Darienne Lake as her parents appeared via video to express their support — and, of course, lots of shade being tossed around (including some aimed at Gia Gunn‘s perpetually wonky eyelash).

But ultimately, season six will be remembered as the season of Bianca. She owned the screen from the first moment she entered the work room — and never looked back. There were some awesome performances this year by Ben Delacreme, Trinity K. Bonet, Darienne, Adore and Courtney Act, all fabulously talented queens in their own right. But one by one they fell by the wayside, victims of Hurricane Bianca. Ultimately, I think the most deserving queen won (unlike some other seasons *cough* tyrasanchez *cough*).

So this brings me to the end of my run here at Blabberazzi and I would just like to take a moment to thank the management team here for giving me the opportunity to write this column. I would also like to thank everyone that’s been reading “Talking Drag Race” week after week, in spite of its incredibly uncreative title and possible seizure-inducing animated GIFs. If you’ve enjoyed my work, please check out my new website, www.NotSafe4Werk.com, where you will see many of the same jokes recycled over and over again.

Until we meet again, remember to have your drag queens neutered and spayed.

~ Chiffon Dior

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