RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE S14E3 “A Pair Of Balls”: Not Quite The Golden Ticket

Episode three kicks off with ALL of the queens coming together, literally. After June’s elimination, the episode 2 queens are in the workroom and find themselves face-to-face with the queens who made it through episode one. But wait, what’s this? The next day, RuPaul reveals that the first two eliminated queens – Orion Story and Daya Betty – are back in the competition! Three weeks in and we still have 14 queens; oh the joys of filming during a global pandemic.

There is a catch though. Ru also reveals that from this episode forward, there’s one final deciding factor that allows a queen to stay in the competition – a golden ticket from one of RuPaul‘s official chocolate bars. There are 14 chocolate bars (for each queen) and, if one of them loses a Lip Sync For Your Life, there’s a chance that their chocolate bar could save them from elimination. However, there is only one golden ticket, which means that only one queen gets saved one time in the entire season. As Daya says in the confessional, “this like, changes the game. It gives you second chance…or third chance if it’s me.” What a twist!

A Pair Of Balls

Immediately after the gag with the chocolate bars, Ru tells the queens that this week’s Maxi Challenge is a ball, inspired by the traditions of ball culture and the infamous 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning. The angle for this ball is that the two groups of queens are still divided, with each group getting their own categories and themes: Week One queens (Alyssa,  Bosco, Kornbread, Willow, Kerri, June, and Orion) are serving in the “Hide n Chic Ball” where their categories are Zebra Print Resort, Leopard Evening Gown Down, and Wedding Gown Eleganza, the last of which they must make themselves in the workroom using animal print materials.

The Week Two queens (Jorgeous, DeJa, Jasmine, Maddy, Angeria, Lady Camden, and Daya) will be walking in the “Red, White & Blue Ball” with the categories Red Hot Resort, Evening Gown Down: All in White, along with their own wedding gown look, but with must use patriotic red, white, and blue materials.

The queens immediately start designing and creating their ball looks and chat with each other, which is so interesting because ball challenges have traditionally been what kicks off the seasons so that the big personalities and early cliques can be showcased. The last few years, however, have taken more to having these very slow, almost prologue episodes that really allow more queens more screentime.

On one hand, it means that the seasons feel like they stretch on forever but on the other hand, getting to know the queens is extremely important, especially when you consider how much money these contestants have to spend just to get on the show. Traditionally, Drag Race contestants make up for the high cost of being on the show by going out on the post-season tour but, um, that’s not really happening right now, is it? With this in mind, the more exposure and chances for people to fall in love with these queens on the television screen the better.

Another stark departure from the traditional first ball challenge is the already evident comradery between these queens; there’s barely any drama or conflict between them. In fact, some of the sweetest and wholesomely entertaining moments on the show, in recent memory, are right in the first half of this week’s episode.

Jasmine is an enormous fan of Kerri and Kerri goes to the New York queen for sewing help, which is a really sweet moment between these two queens who apparently had only met the day before. Not too long after, an enormous dragonfly somehow makes its way into the workroom and Kornbread tells Daya that she will pay her $1,000 to eat, which Daya immediately does. Everyone in the room reacts wildly, to which Daya says, “I eat ass, you guys, I can eat a bug.”

There are a ton of laughs going on int the workroom but there’s also some real shit happening. As we learned in week one, Willow has a chronic illness called cystinosis, and it’s giving her trouble as she tries to make her gown. Willow explains in her confessional that she often feels like she can’t fully control her hands (she says it’s like going outside in extremely cold weather with no gloves on, coming back inside, and then trying to unlace your shoes with frozen fingers). Willow asks Kornbread for a help and Kornbread, like a sweet mother hen, gets her a cup of hot water to hold so she can get her hands working again. In Kornbread’s confessional, she says that the other queens don’t really know about Willow’s issues because apparently they don’t talk to Willow as much as Kornbread does and, my god, it is so sweet to see Kornbread help her like this. I love seeing the two breakout girls from week one getting along so well, I hope they both go really far in the competition and continue to support each other.

Later on, as everyone paints, Orion opens up about her mother’s suicide and Kerri talks about being put out by her family because she’s trans and as she talks, Kornbread starts crying and begins telling her own story about leaving home as a teen and learning that her family wasn’t even looking for her. Kornbread gets so upset that she actually has to leave the workroom. It’s a really heavy moment that closes out the workroom portion of the episode.

42 Ball Looks On The Runway

Now, what should be the most exciting part of the ball challenge actually turns out to be a bit much since all 14 queens are doing three individual looks – that’s 42 different runway looks! There’s no way all of these looks can be covered in this little recap/review but I can say that the judges – MichelleVisage, Carson Kressley, and special guest Christine Chiu (Bling Empire) – and RuPaul got it right in their critiques. As far as my personal favorite looks go:

• Zebra Print Resort – Bosco
• Red Hot Resort – Angeria
• Leopard Evening Wear – Alyssa and Willow
• All White Evening Wear – Jorgeous
• Animal Print Bridal Couture – Willow
• Red, White & Blue Bridal Couture – Jorgeous

RuPaul declares Alyssa, Bosco, Kerri, Kornbread, Daya, DeJa, Jasmine, and Lady Camden as the Safe queens, which means that they get to stay for another week but sadly don’t get to hear from the judges. As for the rest of the queens, the judges love Willow, Angeria, and Jorgeous while Orion, June, and Maddy undoubtedly get the worst critiques – Orion is told that her looks are too busy, June is told that her looks don’t fit her body, and Maddy is basically told by Ru to have some more feminine sex appeal on the runway.

Willow is proclaimed the winner of the week’s challenge (and rightfully so!) which means that she gets a cash tip of $5,000 and immediately becomes a frontrunner alongside Angeria and Kornbread. It fills me with a lot of glee to see Willow get an early win because I really love her drag outside of the show (she and Bosco were the only ones I knew of before the cast list was announced) and I love that she’s getting a very clean, possible-winner edit (just like Kornbread and Angeria). After Willow claims her victory, Ru ultimately declares Orion to be safe from the Bottom Two, which means that Maddy and June are the ones to Lip Sync For Your Life.

The fact that this is now June’s second time in the Bottom does not bode well for her though it would be a real surprise if she doesn’t beat Maddy, the token straight man, in a lip sync. The song is “I Love It” by Kylie Minogue and it’s a little slower tempo disco tune that June should easily eat right up but Maddy is holding her own. Maddy’s a bit more understated but June makes an enormous mistake by kicking off her shoes and getting a bit sloppy in her movements.

It’s obvious that Ru and production want to keep Maddy around for storyline but in this instance, she really does win the lip sync. But, before the shantays and the sashay aways, RuPaul reminds everyone of the golden ticket. June reveals her chocolate bar is hiding his her bra (which, by the way, there’s no way that was there the entire time considering how quickly chocolate melts and how much June was dancing right before) and, sadly, it’s only a simple bar of candy. No ticket, no second chance for June Jambalaya.

Conclusion: “A Pair Of Balls”

It’s legitimately sad to see June go so soon as she’s such a talented queen with one of the prettiest, softest mugs and voices of the season. But, someone has to officially be eliminated first.

As far as this episode goes, I am pretty over these ball episodes where there are dozens and dozens of looks that I’m going to immediately forget about because the quantity is just too high. A ball is supposed to be this huge event and yet the only things that really stick with me from this week’s episode is the sweet moment between Kornbread and Willow, Kornbread crying, the two eliminated girls Orion and Daya getting to return to the competition (and stay another week longer), and Daya eating that dragonfly!

Those were some great moments but they feel like massive filler in a season that is only three episodes deep. This brings my enthusiasm down a tiny bit but I’m still optimistic, especially with next week’s episode looking to be an acting challenge. Until then, I’ll get by thanks to some wise words inspired by Daya Betty: If You Can Eat Ass, You Can Eat A Bug.

What did you think of the ball challenge? Did June deserve to stay? 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.