RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE S14E4 “She’s A Super Tease”: I Am Once Again Asking This Show To Do Better

We are four weeks into the competition and an actual storyline has finally taken root after its initial sprouting during last week’s episode of Untucked, the 30-minute accompanying show to Drag Race that shows what the queens are doing during the judges’ deliberation. It turns out that Jasmine, who was among the safe queens last week, felt that she should have been in the top and, in her emotions, we discovered that she is one Chatty Cathy whose constant talking and over-talking has rubbed many queens the wrong way, particularly Kornbread.

This week’s episode opens with Jasmine boohooing herself (again) for not winning the Ball challenge and the others just not having any patience for it though their facial expressions are the only giveaways. However, actual conflama arises when Kornbread has enough and breaks things down in the workroom the next morning.

It’s an interesting case of editing and storytelling on the production’s part because, in earlier seasons, this would have 100% been cannon fodder for giving Kornbread a bad edit and making it seem like she’s coming down too hard on this skinny white queen. What keeps this from happening in this scene is the fact that there is no denying that Jasmine’s constant talking and interrupting annoys the other queens (Kerri fully says, “how crazy would it be if [Jasmine] learned to be quiet?”) and while everyone seems to be annoyed but good-humored about it, Kornbread has fully had enough and gets actually pretty real and serious as she lectures Jasmine on what it means to have a conversation with other people and not just talk-talk-talk.

Kornbread’s tone is even, very reasonable, and she’s being portrayed as such with positive interjections from Angeria (via confessional footage cut into the scene) and, in turn, Jasmine nods her head and it seems to finally get through to her that she is doing too much and that she should be considerate of the other queens. Everything is calm and collected in the workroom…for now.

Super Teasers

RuPaul enters the workroom and this week is all about an acting challenge, where two teams must create hilarious, gag-worthy teaser trailers for season 14 of RuPaul’s Drag Race (wow, so meta) that must be over-the-top, absurd, and self-referential. It’s actually a really great idea for an acting challenge, especially this early in the season. Since Willow was last week’s winner and Maddy survived last week’s lip sync, they’re made team captains and must choose their teams dodgeball-style. Willow chooses Kornbread, Lady Camden, Bosco, Kerri, and Jorgeous while Maddy chooses DeJa, Daya, Angeria, Alyssa, and Orion. Jasmine is the last one and she chooses to join Willow’s team, much to the surprise of just about everyone and, apparently, to the frustration of Kornbread.

As the teams sit down to plan out their teasers, things get extremely awkward for Willow’s team. Jasmine makes an announcement that, because she studied marketing in college and because she doesn’t want to interrupt everyone, she’s going to write down questions while everyone talks and then give her insight at the end. It does seem like a good way for her to try and clean up her reputation but, as Kornbread tells us in a confessional, something about Jasmine rubs her the wrong way, and as they all brainstorm, Kornbread appears to become more and more agitated by Jasmine. As Kerri gives her idea, Jasmine is writing in her notebook (which is what she said she would be doing) and Kornbread stops everything to say that because Jasmine is writing, she isn’t listening to Kerri.

It’s a very jarring turn of events because the cutting sound effects start playing, Jasmine is trying to say that she’s just writing down what everyone’s saying, and then Kornbread tells her that she should join in with the group. Before you know it, Kornbread looks to be exasperated and then it quickly cuts to Bosco’s talking head saying that Kornbread is “pissed at literally anything Jasmine is doing”, intercut with shots of Kornbread apparently staring daggers at Jasmine while Jasmine is just quietly sitting there. It feels like very manipulative editing (Ru, never!), however, the actual footage is becoming tenser.

It really seems like they’re deliberately trying to make us turn on Kornbread because what is being presented looks to be an angry Black trans woman coming down too hard on an annoying white gay man, as there are quite a few cuts of Kornbread saying something slightly shady while they’re only showing Jasmine being flustered and almost mousy. As the kids say, it’s pretty sus.

Intercut with this strange scene, there are a few talking head reactions from Lady Camden who is shown to be uncomfortable with the situation and worried that they’re all getting too caught up in “delicately dealing with the social dynamics of the table”. For anyone who’s familiar with reality television, it would be so laughable except for the fact that there are real-life consequences to the show deliberately making these editing choices, like Black queens getting bombarded with death threats and racial slurs. It appeared that the show was progressing at the beginning of the episode but now it just looks like we’re getting the same old tired shit.

Meanwhile, at the other table, Maddy’s group is trying to come up with their own ideas and nobody is vibing with Alyssa’s ideas. This is another problematic aspect of Drag Race that I can’t believe is still happening in 2022; Puerto Rican queens for the most part get the short end of the stick on RuPaul’s Drag Race either because English tends to be their second language or because their drag references are so different from what is pulled for the show. The fact that Alyssa is the first new Puerto Rican queen in six years AND is shown to be an apparent sore spot for this team in the acting challenge really rubs me the wrong way because these stupid acting challenges are stacked against any queen who even slightly struggles with the cultural contexts of American English –  the same exact thing happened with French-born queen Nicky Doll back on season twelve and it appears to be happening with Alyssa as well.

“We’re Havin’ A Little Fun Because We’re Tryin’ To Get To Heaven, Bitch”

Like with any and every other acting challenge, the taping portion of the episode is always a misdirect that casts a wide net for who will likely be in the top and who will be in the bottom. Everyone reacts well to Maddy, Daya, DeJa, and Willow but it looks like Kerri, Alyssa, and Kornbread may possibly be in trouble, which is, again, sus. The biggest takeaway from the taping of the teaser trailer is Kornbread saying in her confessional that she actually likes working with Jasmine and, later on, she talks about how there’s in fact, zero tension between the two of them which is a complete relief but also extremely maddening because less than 20 minutes ago, Kornbread was made out to be an “angry Black woman” stereotype.

After the taping, the queens are getting ready for the runway and there are quite a few different conversations and mini-narratives popping up: from Jasmine learning her lesson about not talking too much to Alyssa revealing how she and her dad came out as gay to each other to Kerri, Kornbread, and Angeria who, as Kerri puts it, are “on a whole ‘nother level of auntie energy, bitch” where they’re talking, giving advice, and talking about “birdwatching” in the workroom. In a cute little aside, Lady Camden (this season’s lone UK queen) asks them what they mean by being birdwatchers, to which they all tell her that they’re “watching the boys’ birds” with a hilarious reference to grey sweatpants thrown in there. Everyone’s having a good laugh until suddenly, the alarms go off and on the big screen TV, the real-life Jennifer Lopez appears to give the queens some encouragement and advice as this week’s runway theme is “Night of 1,000 JLo’s”.

Speaking of the runway, joining RuPaul on the judging panel are Michelle Visage, Ross Matthews, and beloved comedian Loni Love as the JLo looks make their way; there are very few bad looks from these queens (since Jennifer Lopez has pretty impeccable taste) but it’s Kerri Colby who blows literally everyone else out of the water while wearing THE dress that JLo wore for the Versace Spring 2020 fashion runway, in homage to the original famous green Versace dress she had previously worn to the 2000 Grammy Awards (the dress that literally led to the creation of Google Images) – why even mention the other runway looks? Kerri’s Versace is all that matters.

We watch both teasers and, surprisingly, they’re both very well done. While Team Willow’s is a bit more absurd and funny, Team Maddy’s digs in deep into the trauma porn that Drag Race loves to milk. The absolute funniest bit out of each of them is DeJa, while in the middle of doing her makeup, talks about her traumatic childhood where she just talks about normal things that happen to infants.  There are very few weak links in either teaser but, RuPaul really makes the most bizarre decisions.

After declaring Lady Camden, Bosco, Jorgeous, Jasmine, Maddy, Daya, and Orion safe, RuPaul declares Angeria the winner of the week’s challenge, which…sure? I mean, I really love Angeria and her runway was great, but she didn’t really stand out to me the way some of the other queens did in the teasers, like DeJa, Bosco, Willow, or even Lady Camden.  As the other queens get their critiques, everyone is praised for their runways so the only negative critiques are for Kornbread, Alyssa, and Kerri, which, what?! While Kornbread and Alyssa were told that their performances were either one-note or absent of any acting levels, Kerri’s critique was that she was…afraid to be ugly and therefore afraid to be vulnerable. I mean, sure. Whatever. I guess I get it but in all honesty, I believe that she should have been declared safe.  In the end, Kornbread crying and showing her vulnerability helped keep her from the bottom two and the lip sync is between Kerri and Alyssa.

The song is “Play” by Jennifer Lopez and Alyssa starts out very strong with some superb dance moves while Kerri keeps it cool and controlled in her movements which, duh, she’s wearing JLo‘s actual dress but the lip sync quickly turns left for Alyssa when the money gun she brings on stage malfunctions, essentially killing her momentum. If it hadn’t have been for the prop going bust, Alyssa would have probably won the lip sync, but I guess we’ll never know as 1) Kerri is declared the winner 2) Alyssa has no golden ticket in her chocolate bar, making her the second eliminated queen of season 14. It’s a pretty controversial bottom two and a really unfortunate elimination.

Conclusion: “She’s A Super Tease”

What a doozy this one was. Overtly manipulative editing, a fabulous main challenge, and a Bizarro World-esqe outcome for not only this week’s winner and the bottom queens. With this second win, Angeria is officially the frontrunner for the season with Kornbread and Willow right behind her. Next week’s episode promises to be very interesting as the queens must create a PSA featuring first-out queens like season seven’s Tempest DuJour, season nine’s Jayme’s Mansfield, and season thirteen’s own Mackie Doll, Kahmora Hall. This week’s episode may have been a mixed bag but there’s always the next one – I just hope that I don’t have to make this same spiel after I end up being disappointed by episode five, and so on, and so on. Oh no, Groundhog Day is this week, isn’t it?!

What was your take away from the Kornbread-Jasmine conflict? Did Alyssa deserve to go home? 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.