Well, Willow Pill was right; a couple of weeks ago, she joked that the queens will all bomb in a maxi challenge despite everyone doing so well during the “Daytona Wind” episode, and she was right. Willow even talks about it in this week’s episode of Untucked, saying that she feels like she had cursed the cast after what she’d said. And honestly, it’s hard not to believe that she didn’t Jinkx herself and the other queens because this was the single worst Snatch Game after fourteen seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race…and I loved every minute of it.
Snatch Game
While the Snatch Game, a staple of RuPaul’s Drag Race has been on the decline, I never would have expected so many queens to do this poorly. Some seasons have had clunkers, like season 10 or season 11, but at least those episodes had two or three really spectacular performances. Maybe season 13 set the bar too high thanks to Gottmik’s Paris Hilton, Rosé’s Mary, Queen of Scots, Denali Fox’s Jonathon Van Ness, or Symone’s Harriet Tubman. Either way, this season’s Snatch Game was just so, so bad.
For those who may not know, Snatch Game is a Drag Race parody of Match Game, a game show where a panel of celebrities must match their answer cards to the contestants. In Snatch Game, queens must perform as various celebrity personalities while answering questions that, right or wrong, MUST make RuPaul laugh. And seriously, though the queens were confident and seemed to start out strong, by the end there were very few laughs, and there was truly only one queen who did a great job in this Snatch Game.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
At the top of the episode, there’s a discussion over last week’s Double Shantay, where Jasmine and Jorgeous did equally amazing in the lip sync and were both deemed worthy to stay another week, which is followed by a quick, sponsored mini challenge involving bubble wrap. It’s really just to fill up time and get in ad into the episode. Bosco wins the mini challenge, but what’s really interesting in the early part of the episode is the mixture of confidence and anxiety in the air after it’s announced that the queens will do the Snatch Game. Here’s the breakdown of the Snatch Game celebrities:
Angeria Paris VanMichaels as Tammie Brown
Bosco as Gwyneth Paltrow
Daya Betty as Ozzy Osbourne
DeJa Skye as Li’l Jon
Jasmine Kennedie as Betsy DeVos
Jorgeous as Ilana Glazer
Lady Camden as William Shakespeare
Willow Pill as Drew Barrymore
Now, there’s a lot of promise in these characters and, based on how well most of the queens have been doing this season, the expectations were high. As the game show segment of the episode began, the room seemed promising; the special contestants were Dove Cameron, who is also this episode’s extra special guest judge, and Raven, a former RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant and current makeup artist to RuPaul herself. Both Dove and Raven did a splendid job giving funny answers and good banter with Ru and it seemed like it would only progress from there – boy, was I wrong.
The decline wasn’t immediate. When RuPaul began introducing the characters like Camden’s Shakespeare or Jorgeous’ Ilana, there were some giggles and some good jokes thrown in there, but then it was Willow’s turn. Now, Willow has always been able to make Ru laugh but her Drew Barrymore was dead on arrival. Willow apparently didn’t know that RuPaul actually worked on a TV show with her character, and when confronted with this information, was shown to not know how to move on with a good joke. It was awkward and was ultimately the beginning of the end. Daya’s Ozzy brought about a few laughs but, as Carson Kressley says later on during the critiques, Daya didn’t bring any drag element to the character, which is what the judges want when a queen is portraying a man on Snatch Game.
The only queen to deliver consistent laughs was DeJa as Li’l Jon and, as Bosco puts it, the rest of them are “guest-starring in the Li’l Jon show. From the catchphrases that we all know and love to some really funny, subtle jokes, DeJa annihilates the competition, making her the clear winner of the Snatch Game…but then, where does that leave the seven other queens?
“I Just Hope That My Runway Will Save Me From The Bottom”
The workroom is a little solemn as everyone prepares for the runway, where the theme is “Holy Couture.” Willow is especially down after stumbling so hard in the challenge and hopes that her fashion homage to worshipping mushrooms and fungus will redeem her. Everyone kind of does a play-by-play of where they went wrong and everyone basically believes that it will be Willow, one of the most consistently good queens this season, and someone else. Maybe Jasmine, maybe Jorgeous.
The queens make their way to the runway where RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Carson Kressley, and Dove Cameron await on the judging panel. Some of the runway looks are really good, like Willow’s cute white and red fungus ensemble, Angeria’s ode to Southern Church Ladies, and Bosco’s simple-yet-effective take on a naughty nun.
After very nearly winning last week’s episode, RuPaul declares DeJa to be the winner of the Snatch Game! Finally, a win for DeJa! DeJa has been one of the best queens in all of the comedy and acting challenges this season and it feels right for her to win the most difficult comedy and acting challenge. DeJa wins the $5,000 cash tip and immunity for next week’s episode. Immunity for what, you might ask?
Well, taking a cue from season 11’s six-way lip sync and the “Lip Sync Lollapa-Ru-za” from All Stars 5, next week’s episode (cheekily titled “An Extra Special Episode”) will have the Bottom Seven – Angeria, Bosco, Daya, Jasmine, Jorgeous, Camden, and Willow – compete in a lip sync tournament to determine who will be the queen(s) to be eliminated. My god! Snatch Game has always been a shakeup in the competition but like this? Never.
There are so many questions and so many predictions to be made – who will lip sync against whom? How will it be decided? How many queens will go home? We haven’t seen Angeria, Bosco, or Willow lip sync against anyone yet so how will they stack up against Camden, Jasmine, or Jorgeous? This revelation really has me on the edge of my seat because there is a very real chance that this season’s frontrunners could be sent packing – at this time, it is very exciting.
Conclusion: Snatch Game
At the very beginning of this week’s episode, there was more Daya-being-a-villain tease in regards to Jasmine and it wasn’t really brought up again. But, it’s got me thinking – will we see a Daya VS. Jasmine lip sync next week, and if not, what did we all do to the Television Gods to let such a juicy storyline slip through our fingers? It would be a miscarriage of production! Things like this and the fact that the absolute worst Snatch Game in RuPaul’s Drag Race herstory has brought us an elimination episode that promises to really stir things up has brought my full attention to this season right here – what a time to be alive! I just hope that next week’s episode lives up to the hype.
Who will persevere in the lip sync smackdown tournament? Let us know in the comments below!
A new episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 14 can be seen every Friday at 8/7c on VH1.
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