This was a fun diversion! Somehow, only four episodes into the current season, I looked at the addition of a bunch of new people to our cast and thought, Oh, thank God! We needed a little shake-up! And we got it in the form of a bunch of firefighters with varying levels of charisma, all getting made up to look like pop stars. Fun! For all the talk about strategy this season, the truth is that these non-elimination episodes are better when they stop trying to inflate the stakes artificially: It ends up feeling disingenuous and silly. The episode begins with a lot of chatter about alliances — Shannel says it’s getting “clique-y,” Vanjie gets vaguely annoyed, we move on.
The next day, Gottmik accuses Angeria and Shannel of being in an alliance with Nina because they were shouting for Nina during her bad lip sync, but they say, “No, we’re not in an alliance,” and we move on. Both Nina and Gottmik get to choose a queen to give a badge to, and both of them end up choosing girls who haven’t gotten any badges yet (with Nina choosing Roxxxy and Mik choosing Vanjie), and both girls happily accept and move on. None of it really matters.
Everybody continues to make straightforward choices, nobody is really hurt. Part of the issue is that, as a huge strategy-show person, it’s become clear that these girls are not adept at playing the game, and Drag Race does not know how to tell a story about strategy. The most interesting technique brought up this far in the game is Rox.
