TV Review: RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Season 2 Episode 9

The end is near for this year’s series of RuPaul Drag Race UK season two. After last week’s shocking elimination, the drag queens continue to fight for their crown, and the claws are out in this comedy, acting challenge. (Warning: spoilers ahead).

Once again, the search for the UK’s next drag superstar continues with judges RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Alan Carr and Graham Norton.

In the first few minutes the drama from last week continues with Lawrence Chaney confronting Ellie Diamond about her strategic strategy from the previous week’s main challenge. The tension is TV gold – “It didn’t get you a badge though, was it worth it?”- Lawrence, I was like wow, she is going OFF on Ellie.

We all love the drama this season, more please!

The mini challenge this week is the infamous puppet challenge, where the contestants drag up a puppet which resembles one of the other constants and they get to do an hilarious impersonation of them.

Straight away it’s clear who the winner of this challenge was. Bimini Bon Boulash smashed it out of the park over their amusing, overexaggerated impression of Lawrence Chaney and his strong Scottish accent, one of the best puppet readings I have seen over the years.

Swiftly moving on to the main challenge this week, the drag queens paid tribute to iconic British soap operas in a challenge called “BeastEnders”. As an EastEnders fan from over the years, I was so excited to hear this. I need someone to do a Kat Slater impression and if they don’t, I will turn off the TV.

Then it’s confirmed one of the characters is based off Kat Slater, so I can indeed carry on watching the episode. If you know EastEnders then you’ll love this, the contestants are making impressions of EastEnders icons: Kat Slater, Dot Cotton, Sharon Mitchell and a female Phil Mitchell. Leopard print, shouting, fighting – bring it on.

Shortly after, the queens take part in a soap masterclass with the one and only Natalie Cassidy! (Sonia Fowler). Everybody loves Natalie Cassidy, a true British soap icon.

During the main challenge there were many stand out moments. Lawrence’s entrance was so iconic, in the final performance it was so good! Even if during rehearsals Lawrence struggled by forgetting so many lines. Ellie Diamond did well as Dot Cotton however I feel more drama was needed.

Meanwhile, the standout role throughout came from Bimini as Kat Slater, particularly during her scene with Tayce by performing the iconic “you ain’t my mother!”. This is the best 2004 Kat Slater impression; somebody needs to perform her on Snatch Game in the future.

Now my favourite part of every episode is the runway, with the theme this week – panto dames! My favourite looks this week come from Bimini Bon Boulash and Tayce who gave the best pantomime style looks and seemed to have genuine fun on the runway.

The judges’ critiques were fairly accurate this episode (for once) with the rightful winner of this challenge being Bimini Bon Boulash! This is their fourth challenge win; Bimini has proven why they are a front runner ever since landing in the bottom two during the first week. Clearly one of the best improvements in a drag queen over the course of a season.

The bottom two this week lip-synced to “Last thing on my mind” by Steps – great song, with both Tayce and Ellie Diamond performing a great lip-sync with tricks, reveals and effortless dancing. Twist time! Both of them were saved and got to go through to the final – well deserved after the performance and the lip-sync.

There we go we have a top four! Overall, this week was a decent episode, however I felt the challenge would’ve been more suited to have been held during the early part of the season.

Next week is the season finale and I cannot wait to see who will be crowned the winner, personally I believe its between Bimini and Lawrence for the crown, with my bets on Bimini for the win. Let’s see if I am right next week…

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

Episode rating: 8/10

By Jack Proverbs

Feature image: BBC

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