TV Review: RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Season 2 Episode 8

The recent episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK was completely shocking, unexpected and hilarious and is now classed as one of the best/worst episodes of the whole franchise. Warning: Major spoilers ahead.

The search for the UK’s next drag superstar continues with judges RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Alan Carr, Graham Norton and this week’s extra special guest judge – the hilarious Dawn French!

Last week we saw the departure of Sister Sister, and we are now ready for the top five queens to fight for the crown. At the start we could already see the claws were out and the fact that Ellie Diamond has not won a challenge yet is causing somewhat tension between the competitors.

The mini challenge this week involved the queens getting into quick macho, butch drag while performing a pub comedy performance of Kitty Girl by RuPaul. I was DEAD at Lawrence Chaney, I could not stop laughing at his Ozzy Osbourne like performance.

This goes well with the main challenge this week, which involves the contestants putting on a comedy night celebrating the theme of love. The main focus of this has them writing a stand-up set all about life’s love from relationships to break ups and drama.

Once again there is more drama. Due to Ellie winning the mini challenge, she is in charge of doing the order of which drag queens perform in the standout. Let’s just say Awhora and Lawrence are NOT happy.

In the rehearsals, it’s clear that it could be anybody’s game, they all have such high quality comedic value so it’s exciting to see how this will play out.

Shortly after rehearsals, Tayce shares her story about getting an STI when she was younger and it was a pleasure to see somebody talking so open about it and about relationships in general while having such a real opinion about everything.

Now let’s move onto the main stage. I was fully laughing at Awhora, it was just so out there and the best dark humour, she left no stone unturned. So good. Ellie Diamond’s Dirty Diamond persona was just so well put together, RuPaul was absolutely gagging. Next up was Bimini and after her Katie Price performance in the Snatch Game I knew she would kill the challenge and she certainly did.

I expected a phenomenal performance from Lawrence but unfortunately, I felt so could’ve done so much better. Same goes for Tayce, she had so much potential to smash it but didn’t quite hit the mark. Neither did bad performances they were good they just weren’t the same as the others.

They need to do this challenge EVERY season!

On the runway, the category is “Stoned on the runway – dripping in jewels.” My favourites this week were once again Awhora and this week and Bimini who are two of the most fashionable queens from the UK.

This week I also loved Lawrence’s look which was so unexpected and the full pink look is so very out of the box.

My favourite looks this week:

Now let’s talk about the drama of untucked. The argument was so entertaining to watch. All of the drama was so emotive, it’s clear that the tension of the competition is getting to some of the drag queens.

The winner of the challenge this week was Bimini Bon Boulash for her great performance, however the other decisions were extremely questionable. Lawrence should’ve been in the bottom two with Tayce, not Awhora at all and Ellie should’ve been high and personally I’m shocked she didn’t win.

The lip sync song this week was “You don’t have to say you love me” by Dusty Springfield. Both Awhora and Tayce gave such dramatic and emotive lip-syncs, and both did amazing.

Now for the decision of the lip-sync – what an absolute joke for Awhora to be sent home, she did not deserve it at all. The decision this week has literally shocked me so much my rating of the episode has gone down.

I am still speechless by this decision and it has left a sour taste in my mouth for the rest of the competition. Very disappointing ending of the episode.

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK airs every Thursday on BBC iPlayer.

Episode rating: 6/10 (was 9/10)

By Jack Proverbs

Feature image: BBC

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