Drag Race Premiere: Runway Recap

Drag Race Season 5 is officially underway! The second episode begins tonight, but until then why not recap what happened last week? Now’s a better time than ever to get up to speed or else you’ll be left in the dust!

The premiere episode had a Hollywood theme to it, with the racers challenged to look their movie star best using secondhand fabric and props. With 14 contestants to go over it’s gonna get picture heavy up in here! And for those of you that don’t embrace the art of drag, nor appreciate me writing about it for you, I say this: OPEN YOUR MINDS. See these people as the beautiful women they are… mostly. Enjoy the illusion, and just have some fun. That’s all they’re doing it for anyway. Let’s do this!! =D

COMMENCE... SHAKE... DOWN.

Drag Race opens up its fifth season with Roxxxy Andrews. This is the first time we’re seeing these queens in the wild, apart from their staged stock photos. If anything we can already conclude that contrary to her stock photo, Roxxxy is not black. She’s Italian. Chalk up another strike against the retouchers.

Roxxxy looks really good this week. Though I can’t quite describe what she was going for here, whatever it is all comes together really nicely. Even the hair works! I may have underestimated her a bit, Ms Andrews may be one to watch. Still can’t get over that name though, even as I’m typing it now I need to remind myself to include all three Xs.

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Next up is the season’s resident wacko, Jinkx Monsoon. I’m getting a strong Greek goddess vibe from this dress, maybe she thought the goddess theme had to be infused in every runway look?

Jinkx had complete control over every ebb and flow of her dress, and every swish and turn made the blue streamers all over her erupt into flourish. Though this look is a bit on the safe side, for the first episode this is passable, as all you really want to do on the first episode is not be the first one to go home.

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OMG YES!! Detox brought it, and brought it hard.

Easily one of my favorite looks of the night. Detox brought amazing hair, body, attitude and face to the runway, shrouded in purple. There is just so much about her that I am enjoying so far, and she’s immediately a new top fave. Detox also has one of the most believable busts of any contestant I’ve seen. I know it’s all makeup on her chest designed to look like shadowing/cleavage, but the way she does it is so convincing! I think I might OD on Detox, if that’s even possible.

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This is not some dude in a dress. This is Anna Nicole Smith after TrimSpa.

Ivy Winters was one of the initial queens that impressed me in her stock photo, and luckily that beauty and poise translated onto this week’s runway. The wig is definitely imperfect and the dress is even simpler than Jinkx’s, but all of that doesn’t matter because Ivy is gorgeous. Although Detox’s makeup method of heavy lines and dimension is beautiful in its own way, Ivy’s ‘clean glow’ method is even more stunning. Seriously people, this is an art.

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Oh honey, she’s blending in with everything.

I’m sorry to say it but Honey Mahogany got bumped down a few notches on my favorites list. Maybe it’s the lack of a wig, or maybe it’s the uncanny resemblance to Milan from Season 4, but this look is not doing it for me. The skirt doesn’t match the rest of the outfit, and the top just has too much going on. Compare Honey with Roxxxy, and you’ll see how Roxxxy does the same kind of thing only miles better. It’s also strange how much better the eye makeup looks in the third picture than in the second.

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I’m so glad: Jade Jolie definitely redeemed herself from her stock photo where I thought her face was kinda… bad. And mad props to her for the inclusion of the NBC peacock on her dress!

Jade Jolie can be summed up as a critical meltdown at the Sweet ‘N Low factory under a double rainbow. She is so sweetly saccharin and cutesy-perfect that it almost makes you gag, and I love it! As irritatingly happy as she is, you can’t get mad at her. One gripe I do have about her look, though, is her headpiece. It’s just odd and it totally eclipses her hair, with her face barely finding its space on her body. It also concentrates all of the extra details around her head, with the rest of the dress (though stunning) looking barren in comparison. The NBC things are all she needed.

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I remember I was saying how much I liked Alyssa from the stock photo rundown. Well I changed my mind.

Alyssa has a chip on her shoulder the size of a blue whale. Apparently she was crowned Miss Gay America in 2010 but was revoked of her title due to unknown reasons (yet). The crown then went to next-in-line fellow racer Coco Montrese. (Oh, the drama will be fierce in this season.) But anyway, with those things in mind, Alyssa is a scorned queen who looks like she’s here to re-prove herself, and this translates into being bitter to the other queens and trying way too hard on the runway. Everything about her look and especially her body language (close your mouth, Alyssa!) comes off as wannabe badassery. She will do twice as well in this season if she tries half as hard.

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Well here’s a Penny for my thoughts! Hello my dear!

Penny looks a little like Divine, especially with the high-arch eyebrows and the roundness of her face. Then again, almost every plus-sized drag queen over the age of 35 looks like Divine… Anyway, the dress is simple as is the hair, but that’s fine! I love how the dress starts opaque up top and finishes translucent at the bottom, though it’s very hard to define her figure with nothing breaking it up. She really needed a belt or corset to help give her body some dimension, and also to frame the beginning of the translucent part of her dress. But you know what? She’s out there anyway and she looks like she’s having a good time, so more power to her!

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Aaaaannndddd… Action!

Coco took the Hollywood/film theme and ran with it. Though I LOVED the clipboard snap during her introduction, my love for Montrese stopped there. She’s actually much older, wiser and more seasoned than her busted stock photo made me assume, and you can tell that Coco knows what she’s doing. I still don’t like where she went with this though, it mocks Hollywood more than it honors it. Even though Alyssa and Coco competed for and technically won the same crown, so far I’m not impressed with either of them.

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Whew, 14 queens is more than I thought it’d be! I’m already starting to forget people and we’re not close to the end yet. Anyway yeah, Vivienne’s looking great!

Vivienne Pinay took the simple route, along with Jinkx, Ivy and Penny. Unfortunately there’s not much more to say, she’s a pretty lady wearing a pretty dress. Everything I wrote about Ivy applies here also.

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This is the face Alyssa Edwards was trying to make during her runway, with her mouth constantly trying to catch flies. Notice how Alaska does it so much more innocently, sweetly, and well, better.

Alaska works with unconventional materials, in this case the dress was made completely out of plastic wrap. How the hell did she manage to do that?! Even the flower in her hair is so detailed and proportional! Though I prefer to see Alaska wearing clothes made from cloth, this kind of creativity and ingenuity is nothing to ignore. 

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So apparently I’ve been pronouncing her name wrong all this time. It’s lin-AY-sha, I was saying her name as LINE-ee-sha =\

Silly name aside, Lineysha really brought it to the runway. Hair and face are both well done (and yes that’s a high heel in her up-do), and the dress has so much dimension and intrigue to it. The dress is actually made out of wallpaper, which explains how the ruffles stay so rigid. I would like to see a softer demeanor going forward, though, I’m seeing too much unneeded bitch face.

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I love how her name barely fits on the pink tire tracks.

I don’t like what Monica is bringing to the runway, and I still don’t like her name. I’m not getting anything Hollywood, anything couture, or anything interesting from any of this. At this point Monica’s just taking up room and I would like her to go.

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Saving the worst for last, the lengthy runway segment ended with Serena ChaCha. It’s too bad she took those Whoopi Goldberg glasses off, because that eye makeup… oh my word…

NO. See this is why I’d never try drag myself: there’s a chance I might wind up looking like this. Everything is so wrong here, from the nonexistent dress to the fucked up wig. And that blue collar makes her head look like it’s screwed on top of her body only halfway. I really don’t know how RuPaul didn’t just eliminate her on the spot when he saw Serena try to pull this off. Ugh I need to look back at a pic of Ivy or Vivienne to try to erase Serena’s head from my memory… … … ok, all better now.

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So there we are, all 14 of our Season 5 goddesses. Some looked good, some looked great, some looked mediocre, and Serena ChaCha just looked like crap. Here’s the judges breakdown:

Winner: Roxxxy Andrews
High-Ranking: Lineysha Sparx, Ivy Winters, Alaska
Low-Ranking: Jade Jolie, Serena ChaCha, Penny Tration
Bottom Two: Serena ChaCha, Penny Tration
Eliminated: Penny Tration =(

Everyone else was deemed ‘safe’. Lately RuPaul’s been referring to safe as this horrible status, dude that’s what everyone wants to be especially on the first episode! It means you did well, that’s all. Since when was being good a bad thing?

Serena rightly fell into the bottom two, but surprisingly Penny joined her. I guess it was due to her simple dress that gave her absolutely no definition. Jade was also ranked low, mostly due to that stupid headpiece that overtook her head. Luckily her bubbly demeanor kept her safe. After Penny bombed the lip-sync to ‘Party in the USA’ by frequently forgetting the words, she was eliminated. What a shame that Serena will grace this runway again.

Speaking of bombs on the runway, RuPaul really bombed by making Season 5’s runway theme ‘I Bring the Beat’. It’s a slow, spacey song that is barely kept together by its ok chorus. This is not a runway song. There’s (ironically) not much of a beat to it and it’s not melodic enough to stand out over the judge chatter. If it was a choice between this and reusing the Allstars remix of ‘Sexy Drag Queen’ I’d vote for the latter in a heartbeat.

With Penny gone and Alyssa/Honey losing my support, here’s my new faves list:

>>Alaska
>>Detox
>>Ivy Winters
>>Jade Jolie
>>Vivienne Pinay

Honorable Mention: Roxxxy Andrews

I think that’s where we’re going to cap it for now. I’m excited to see what the next runway holds for us, and it won’t be long for us to find out! So who’s on your list of faves? Sound it off, people!