‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Season 6, Episode 4: Rusicality
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“Rusical” is a term that engenders some strong feelings these days when it comes to the Drag Race fandom. I’ve written before about what an overly broad term it is — can you lip-sync a Rusical? does it have to be your own vocals, even if it’s a recording? — but once upon a time, it was not an established challenge. It was a singing task all its own, more in line with the “Superstar” performance challenge from season 3 or “Ladyboy” rocker chick episode from season 2. This was just the latest, and most ambitious, example of it yet.
Season 6’s “Shade: The Rusical” remains one of the best “Rusical” challenges ever, even though it bears relatively little similarity to the Rusicals that have come after. (For the best version of the modern archetype, I’d say look at season 12’s “Madonna: The Rusical” or All Stars 2’s “Herstory of the World.”) It’s not perfect, as the live singing leads to quite a few bum notes, and not all of the songs are great. But it does produce three terrific performances, is catchy as hell, and actually features all of the queens sufficiently.
But we can’t quite start with the maxi-challenge this week. We have to first talk about the mini-challenge.
So, if you watch any legally-available version of this episode, you’ll notice it’s quite a bit shorter than most season 6 episodes. It also doesn’t have a mini-challenge, with Adore Delano and BenDeLaCreme seemingly arbitrarily selected as team captains. Anyone who watched the episode at the time, however, will remember that there was a mini-challenge in this episode: a quiz task that asked queens to identify whether a photograph of a famous person was of a drag queen or a cisgender woman.
The name of this mini-challenge was “Female or S******?”, which, as you can imagine, did not go over great with the trans community, who already had major problems with Ru based on his past statements about trans people. The show not only excised the challenge from repeats and online postings of the episode, it also renamed what we now know as “RuMail.” (Note that for the first time this season, the old “You’ve got…” message is gone.)
Ru has wiped all his old tweets, but from what I remember at the time — I was an intern at The Advocate and was paying pretty close attention to the story—he was defensive about the change, and in an interview, he seemingly opposed Logo’s choice to remove the mail greeting and the challenge. Years later, when Ru’s comments in The Guardian about trans contestants would cause a massive controversy, his apology was seen as a surprising change from his previous, hardline stance.
If there’s an albatross that continues to hang around Drag Race’s neck, it’s the show and its host’s attitude toward trans drag queens. The casting of Gottmik on season 13 is a welcome change — and hopefully, a sign of even more progressive, inclusive casting moving forward. But watching this episode, and not watching the mini-challenge, is a stinging reminder of how this show has failed to represent for all in the past. It’s a scar, and as time has proven, that wound can reopen quite easily.
Back to the Rusical: The two teams each take on a certain act, with our former Idols Courtney Act and Adore Delano each taking on half the role of “Penny,” a fresh-faced queen looking to find her way in the world of drag. Courtney plays Good Penny, wondering if she fits in more with the comedy queens (Darienne Lake and Gia Gunn) or the comedy queens (Bianca Del Rio and Trinity K. Bonet). BenDeLaCreme plays a bad influence who convinces Penny to drink fish oil, firmly turning her over to the dark side — but making her a star in the process.
Speaking of: Courtney is an absolute star in this, while Bianca does well enough and DeLa stands out in a crucial supporting role. Darienne and Gia have problems working together; “Gia’s voice is kind of like if Fran Drescher got steamrolled by a dying duck,” Darienne says. Trinity, on the other hand, has the hardest time, from being picked last during team selection through the actual performance. Not only is she incredibly difficult during rehearsal, but she also fails to deliver on the night.
I feel for Trinity, who seems frustrated with her own failures and falls into a spiral of self-defeat. But at a certain point, you either have to suck it up and get to work, or stop trying. Trinity basically chooses the latter, to Bianca and company’s extreme frustration.
Act two is a similarly mixed bag, with Adore killing it as Bad Penny, quickly succumbing to her poor decisions and being upstaged by her trio of backup dancers. Among those, Joslyn Fox is most charming as a butch queen, while Laganja Estranja is technically best, and April Carrión fails to embody the vibe of a big girl. Milk gets a featured part, as a mysterious omniscient figure who is half Grizabella, half Angel from Rent, but is so off-key that she’s not really enjoyable.
Courtney beats Adore and DeLa out for the win, and it’s a deserved one. Though Adore gets points for being most improved, and DeLa is certainly on fire so far, this is Courtney’s breakout moment. I’m very much looking forward to reconsidering Courtney’s run on the show, as I’ve long felt like she’s a distant third in the final three. But she wins two challenges for a reason, and stuns several times on the runway. There’s a reason she’s among the top alumni to come from this show.
Trinity and April fall into the bottom two, an absolutely fierce battle to Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman.” April turns out a solid performance, and against most others, she probably would have stayed. Trinity K. Bonet is not “most others.” She tells us during rehearsal that she’s a lip-syncer, not a live singer, and boy does she make good on that promise. She turns in one of the best LSFYL performances ever, and quickly shoots back into Ru’s good graces.
April sashays away, and while I feel for her, there’s really no argument that her in-show performance merited sticking around much longer. Yes, she got a couple of bad breaks with casting, and I do still think she was unfairly blamed for said casting last week. At a certain point, though, you have to triumph in spite of that, not make excuses for it. She’s a terrific, stylish queen, and probably deserves credit for starting the trend of posting what you would’ve worn for each challenge on Instagram. Drag Race just wasn’t quite the right venue for her.
And Suddenly I’m the Final Thoughts:
- Sheryl Lee Ralph is such a terrific guest judge. She’s engaged, active, complimentary, and gives a very practical bit of advice to Trinity about her enunciation in an iconic way (“Put a cork in it! Literally!”). Then, she’s a kick during lip sync, “woah”ing along with the girls. A+ judging work.
- It’s a small moment, but I really like that Courtney pushes back against Lucian Piane’s criticism by clarifying what actually happened (just mush-mouthing two words) and standing firm in how strong she is in the performance. Lucian — and, later, Todrick Hall—are often guilty of exaggerating what happened in rehearsal for the Drama, but Courtney wouldn’t let that slide.
- This is a bit of a meme on the show’s subreddit, as fans often come in thinking they’ve discovered something, but to note it for the record: April is indeed wearing a Kandy Ho shirt a year before Kandy herself would be on the show. PR girls represent!
- I love that Gia’s explanation for Trinity being off is, “Is she frustrated sexually?” A quarantine mood! It’s another great episode for Gia quotes, from “What’s a Tony?” to “I’m feeling my oats! Let me feel my oats!” So sad to be losing her soon.
- At one point there’s an incidental music cue that’s just the score from Carmen?
- “Watch me be your star” from the end of Courtney’s part of the Rusical is, of course, a SMASH reference. So I am contractually obligated to stan.
- Our Lady J on the keyboard! Always great to see her. Wish she’d been featured even more.
- “She’s a man with one eye!” might be my single favorite line of the Rusical.
The next Drag Race Rewind recap, covering season 6, episode 5, will be available to Patreon subscribers next Tuesday, January 5.
