RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE S14E5 “Save A Queen”: Shock & Despair As Kornbread Departs

The most significant thing to happen this week on RuPaul’s Drag Race was the revelation that Kornbread has been forced to leave the competition because of a serious injury to her ankle. Usually, a sneak peek of the first 10-minutes of each episode goes up on YouTube a few days before the episode airs. But this week, there was no such video.

Instead, the queens are sitting around a table in the workroom, wondering where Miss Jeté could be. RuPaul enters the room and reveals what has happened in a recorded video of Kornbread which was filmed in her hotel room. Kornbread tells them that she rolled her ankle the day before and when she woke up it was extremely swollen. Everyone is aghast and heartbroken hearing that Kornbread must leave the show since she has to stay off her ankle for 6-8 weeks, but no one’s more upset than Kerri or Willow, who were closest to Kornbread. The video ends on a high note when Kornbread points out that now that she’s gone, they all have a chance to win, which, yeah that’s tea. I could have easily seen Kornbread in the finale and it would have been so exciting to see her crowned. Now, when most past queens have been forced to leave the competition due to an injury or illness, there was at least some promise that the queen would be able to return on the following season – but nothing about her getting an invitation back was mentioned. I mean, that’s a mistake, right? Kornbread was one of the best of this season and it truly is a tragedy that she’s not in the running for the crown.

After a teary-eyed confessional from Willow over how much Kornbread’s friendship means to her, the episode quickly plods on with a mini-challenge that is not worth mentioning besides it being an excuse to put the straight male contestant (Maddy) in the position of thrusting his junk up against one of the Pit Crew (the half-naked muscular men who are just there for eye candy and promoting the show’s sponsors) in order to pop a balloon. Oh, wow, what an amazing moment in television – YAWN.

The REAL excitement is the maxi challenge, where queens must make a parody of a Sarah McLachlan-style PSA for a charity that helps first-out queens of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Not only is this an awesome challenge but we also see the return of some of the best first-eliminated queens of Drag Race, like season seven’s Tempest DuJour, season nine’s Jaymes Mansfield, and the beloved Kahmora Hall who was the first-eliminated queen of season 13.

“There Is No Way I’m Going To Be The First One To Go Home”

Each queen gets attached to a group: Team Tempest has Angeria, DeJa, Jorgeous, and Kerri; Team Jaymes has Jasmine, Maddy, Orion, and Willow; Team Kahmora has Bosco, Daya, and Lady Camden.

The groups get down to business and, since this is a comedy challenge, they have to really dig into the funny things about Tempest, Jaymes, or Kahmora that made them memorable on their season and/or sent them packing. For Tempest, she was best known for being a dad with two young children, wearing a saggy nude bodysuit, and being rudely confronted over how old she is by a certain queen on her season. Jaymes was known for being out of her element on her season, messing up on a cheerleading challenge in her elimination episode, and her popular YouTube channel where she makes and fixes wigs. Kahmora was known as the Mackie Doll, as she wore actual Bob Mackie gowns, her inability to read a line correctly, and the fact that it takes her – no joke – SEVEN hours to put on makeup. There’s so much material to work with that there’s no doubt in my mind that this will be a good challenge.

One of the caveats for the PSA is that the scripts the queens write must rhyme, which makes Jorgeous extra nervous as she isn’t the best speaker and, by her confession, isn’t very good at rhyming. Another queen who seems to be having a tough time is Orion as her normally slow cadence appears to be getting the better of her. As the taping goes on, each group has some bumps and each group has some real comedy gold. As always, it’s impossible to tell how the challenge is going to go from the taping/rehearsals but there is no doubt that Orion and Jorgeous will be the weakest links.

“Florals? For spring? Groundbreaking.”

The runway theme is “Spring Has Sprung” and joining RuPaul and Michelle Visage on the judging panel are Ross Matthews and special guest, pop star Ava Max.

Most of the looks are based on flowers with Kerri making her out to be an actual flower. Some queens got really creative with their looks, like Daya’s wood nymph or Bosco and Maddy’s raincloud looks (though Maddy’s runway look has been done already on other Drag Race franchises). Bosco’s stormy rain cloud (very Seattle) turned into a gorgeous yellow sunshine gown, giving it a real story but it’s Willow whose housewife with a literal house stuck over her head a la Alice In Wonderland and then a bloody message on the back saying “HELP” takes the cake for the best runway. It’s cute, it’s reminiscent of spring through housewives doing spring cleaning and it’s got a twist to it – a perfect runway ensemble.

After the runway, each PSA is played for everyone (with a fun cameo from Sarah McLachlan herself) and they are all very, very funny. Team Tempest really dig into her age and the fact that she’s not well known – the best contestant for this team was by far Angeria as she forgets Tempest’s name at one point, delivering the joke perfectly. As expected though, Jorgeous fumbles pretty hard, which brings down her team’s PSA.

Team Jaymes’ PSA was also extremely funny, but most of the laughs came from Jaymes herself and not necessarily the contestants in the PSA, with Orion giving the notoriously bad “Shakesqueer” challenge from season seven.

The best overall PSA however was Team Kahmora, with really, really incredible and hilarious performances from Daya, Camden, and Bosco but the real winner is undoubtedly Kahmora Hall who had no problem making fun of herself, her incredible ability to wear the heaviest earrings, and the fact that it takes her an obscenely long time to do her makeup.

RuPaul seemed to agree with me for the most part because DeJa, Daya, Maddy, Kerri, Maddy, and Willow are declared safe which leaves Angeria, Jorgeous, Jasmine, Orion, Bosco, and Lady Camden in either the Top or the Bottom. While Jasmine’s reading in the PSA was very “Night Before Christmas” as Michelle put it, it is laughable to think that she could possibly be in the Bottom Two when Jorgeous and Orion did so awful in the challenge. Angeria, Bosco, and Lady Camden were give high praise for their performances, and it’s Bosco who ends up winning the episode.

While I’m extremely excited for a Seattle queen to get a win, I’m not 100% sure if Bosco’s performance was better than the other two; I’m going to assume that she got the edge over the others since she did something different in her PSA, the fact that she was shown to direct all of Kahmora’s scenes, and her Seattle Seasonal Affective Disorder joke when explaining her super cute runway look, which is fair I suppose. Personally, I think that Lady Camden should have been the winner since her earnest British voice was perfect for the PSA and her runway look was delightful but I can understand why the win went to Bosco especially since I can see Bosco in the finale and not necessarily Lady Camden. I really love Camden and think that she’s always one of the best in the acting challenges but she really is flying under the radar with the judges.

Bosco wins the $5,000 cash tip, while Camden, Angeria, and Jasmine are declared safe, leaving Orion and Jorgeous in the Bottom Two. Much like their placements in this week’s episode, it’s obvious who is going to win the lip sync. The song is Ava Max’s “My Head & My Heart” and it is over before it even begins: Orion does her best but, as shown back in episode one, she is not the best dancer while Jorgeous is basically only known for her dancing (besides her tiny body and really great looks). Jorgeous easily wins the lip sync but, there’s still a chance for her to stay in the competition. The music swells and becomes increasingly dramatic as Orion opens her candy wrapper, revealing that it is only chocolate and that this is the end of the road for her.

Conclusion: “Save A Queen”

We’ve now had five episodes in the bag for season 14 and that means that, historically, we already know who is likely to snatch the crown. In every season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, the winner of the season had won their first challenge within the first five episodes. The only queens to win so far have been Kornbread (who is out of the competition), Angeria (who is sitting pretty as the frontrunner with her two wins), Willow, and now Bosco. Statistically speaking, these are THE queens to bet money on for winning this season.

We’re still a couple of months away from RuPaul declaring a winner, but at least for this week, in this episode, we have two winners – Bosco, who is making Seattle proud (I can’t help but be happy! She’s a hometown queen!) and Kahmora Hall, who made this entire episode The Kahmora Show. You absolutely love to see it. And with that, I declare this the first really, really great episode of the season, even with the devastating departure of Kornbread “The Snack” Jeté.

Now that Kornbread is gone, who’s your queen to win? 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.