‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Ep. 12 Recap: I Said Family Resemblance

RuPaul’s Drag Race did its favorite thing this week: Double down. For years, fans have complained about the arbitrary judging on makeovers, where the words family resemblance are used by Michelle Visage seemingly at random. Why was Loosey LaDuca sent home on the makeover when she and her partner looked exactly the same? Why did Jaida Essence Hall win over Crystal Method, given that the latter’s look was far more creative? Why wasn’t Aquaria in the bottom three when Kingsley looked awful? In a show where the judging is often accused of being arbitrary, the makeover is considered the worst offender.

This week, Drag Race heard the critiques and blew a raspberry in response. Suddenly, family resemblance is the whole point. RuPaul emphasizes in the Werk Room that Michelle is looking for it. Michelle and Law Roach bring it up all the time during critiques. What does it mean? Over time, I’ve come to see it as a way of saying, “We want pageant outfits in the same fabric but different shapes.” The girls who do that usually win: Sam Starr, Jaida, Anetra, etc. That, to me, is not the same thing as family resemblance, but it is an approach to the challenge that I’m surprised more girls haven’t figured out by now. But what it definitely doesn’t mean is that the queen painted her makeover partner’s face to look similar to her own. That’s part of it, sometimes, but multiple girls do that this week and then get reprimanded for not having enough family resemblance. It’s weird!

I also get it. The thing about this show is that sometimes it needs a way of just trimming the fat to get to the necessary top group. Discord, a queen I love, fell victim to that this week. I’ll get more into this later, but I actually thought her makeover was totally competent and that their faces looked very similar, even if the outfits were (checks notes) different colors. On the other hand, knowing how little chance Discord had of ever knocking out any of the other members of the top six, she’s been on borrowed time since the sewing episode non-elimination. But I also sort of wish the judges would just be honest with her and say, “Your trajectory in the competition has been overall unimpressive compared to your peers, and yet again you weren’t at the top.” That seems like a totally reasonable way of judging her. I wouldn’t be mad! As it was, people like Jane and Discord painted the face of their respective partners near identically to their own, and it got promptly dismissed. It’s all a little bit bullshit. And maybe that’s what the show needs sometimes.

The episode opens on the girls mourning Kenya’s elimination. Nini is pretty stressed about the fact that she was in the bottom tier for the first time, since she expects more from herself. I’m wondering (especially with this episode’s results) if the back half of the season might be tough for Nini. She’s obviously fabulous, but it feels like she still has some growing to do in understanding who she is as a queen. What is a Nini Coco character? I’m still not sure. She reminds me of Q, another girl who did amazingly well in the first half of the competition, then struggled in the back nine. She seems a lot less likely to do a blaccent, though.

The girls do a rodeo-based mini-challenge that requires them to do quick drag for the first time this season. I laughed heartily at the nonsense results. I’ve really enjoyed the recent trend of including mini-challenges in the episode, and especially enjoyed this one. It says a lot about a queen based on what she wears during quick drag. (For example, I distinctly remember Joey Jay basically doing boy drag in a mini-challenge and thinking, Well, she should probably go home.) The winner is Discord because she hops the fastest. She wins $2,500 for it. Crazy! Good for her, though — those runway packages aren’t cheap.

The challenge this week is to make over queer cowboys. Discord pairs up the girls because she won the mini-challenge, saddling (pun intended) Jane with the oldest cowboy. Otherwise, it’s pretty fair.

The main plotlines for each pairing is as follows:

• Jane is putting too much pressure on herself (what else is new?), given both her track record and the need to do right by her partner, who is an older man.

• Discord really needs a win and is very confident (what else is new?) that she can make her partner look exactly like her. Then, during the walk-through with Ru, the grand high bitch warns Discord that her planned “goth schoolgirl and preppy schoolgirl” duo may not have the family resemblance she needs it to have. Discord, confident as ever, ignores this warning.

• Juicy is paired with someone who has the opposite body type of her’s and needs to work with that. She also continues to need to find her voice.

• Darlene gets paired with a ball of fun, but she has no impetus for glamour and worries (for a second) that he won’t be down for her brand of trashy fun. He is, though.

• Myki’s partner is a former drag queen (hurray for Myki!) who quit drag and has a lot of trauma around the art form (hard one, Myki). He is definitely the most interesting character in the episode, with the biggest journey. He reveals he quit drag because he needed to get in touch with his masculinity. Now he seems a little apprehensive about the idea of taking it back up.

• Finally, Nini gets the hardest nut to crack, a vet who has a ton of trauma tied up in his time in the military. He does not feel at all comfortable in his femininity and, though he is trying to open up, doesn’t have the same natural “drag queen” energy that the rest of the guys have. At the same time: He’s exactly the kind of person who needs this challenge, which is a huge opportunity for Nini. Ru wants the transformation and the story. If you can pull that off, then you’ve got it in the bag. Remember how that shy dancer transformed into Plane’s sister Lazy Susan? That’s the kind of magic Nini needs to pull out right now.

The Werk Room stuff is, as it has been all season, really fun. This is a delightful group overall, and they all do the job of connecting with their cowboys and making them see the art of drag. Juicy is probably the least suited to the challenge, since young queens without tons of life experience often have trouble (see Noir London, Luxx), but even she is sweet and fun. They make enough time for us to see delightful segments like the cow-wrangling sections, which is lovely. It’s a fun time to hang out.

On the runway, the girls don’t have to do a stupid little extra thing like a line dance or something, and I think that’s a missed opportunity. A piece of advice: Never miss an opportunity to feature “the trading of the brooms.”

First up is Nini and it does NOT work. She attempts a butterfly and caterpillar duo and it stinks. Sorry! The headpieces are ugly, and the looks don’t coordinate that well. Law gets mad that the caterpillar looks like a bee. My thing is that, if you have a person on your hands who needs to learn to express his inner cuntiness, the last thing that person should have to portray is a kinda ugly insect. So what if it’s what you brought? Nini can sew up a storm!

Myki does great. Admittedly, it’s helpful that her guy can really move in heels, but the dresses are also really cute and his makeup is stellar. Myki having a signature paint really helps. I could identify that as a Myki Meeks daughter in a crowd. If the judges were being less charitable, I could see her getting hit with the critique that her daughter stood out more, actually, but Michelle is preoccupied with the family resemblance thing. Anyway, this is great, and Myki did a bang-up job getting her diva to the point where she could embody that femininity again confidently and learn how powerful she really is. Good work all around.

I’m of two minds about Juicy’s work. On one hand, the costumes are cute, and “adorable Carmen Miranda” is not a bad approach for her at all, given that she’s still searching for a signature. On the other, I think her mug is the worst of the night. The center of the face is all wrong — the uncontoured nose looks fine on button-nosed Juicy, but on the cowboy, it leaves his face feeling a bit unmoored. Plus it looks like she painted on a frown. I understand why she gets positive critiques this week, but the technical work is not at the level of some of the other girls.

Jane gets negative feedback this week, and I call bullshit. She doesn’t blow me away or anything, but the idea that Michelle can’t see a family resemblance because they’re in … different-colored dresses is quite frankly ridiculous. Their hair is the same color and the beat is identical, which is particularly impressive given that Jane had the oldest skin to work with. I’m not obsessed with it, but it’s not bad.

I could make a similar point about Discord. Does the face count for nothing to you people? These girls have identical makeup! Why can sisters not wear different colors? I would argue that many sisters wear different colors. The looks are totally okay, though “not listening to RuPaul” is always a risky strategy. Still, I think Discord’s main fault this week is not being good enough for the past 11 weeks. That’s something, but it’s not an issue with her makeup.

Finally, it’s Darlene who absolutely kills it. She got the most enthusiastic guy in the room, and she harnesses his energy perfectly, turning them into matching bingo-playing alcoholics in Vegas. It’s really cute, funny, trashy, and delightful. Darlene’s biggest strength in the entire competition has been creating visual characters, and this is the challenge where she can really let that fly. She does a great job.

Ultimately, Myki, Juicy, and Darlene are in the top, with Myki winning. I think that’s a totally valid way to go, but, ironically, after weeks of me complaining about Myki not winning, I think this win could have gone to Darlene. The bottom three are Jane, Nini, and Discord, with the latter two making up the clear lowest tier. They lip-sync to Ariana Grande’s “We Can’t Be Friends,” which is a terrible lip-sync song. Nini definitely wins it, with confident and expressive movement, but the whole thing is no fun. Why on earth would they choose this as their Eternal Sunshine lip-sync song when “Bye” and “The Boy Is Mine” have attitude to spare? Anyway, Discord goes home, which is as it should be, even if it took a little faking to get there.

• The girls hang out with the cowboys, and everyone agrees that the whole episode was a ton of fun. Jane has a (very expected) breakdown about getting negative-ish critiques for the first time. Myki and Darlene realize simultaneously that they’re going to the end together with Jane.

• I have not seen guest judge Danielle Pinnock’s show, Ghosts, though I have heard good things. I think she is an utter delight for the whole time she’s onscreen here.

• The girls seem to really just not connect with Nini. That’s not really a criticism so much as it is a curious observation. They all think she’s talented! Nobody really wants her in the finale with them.

• U.K. vs. the World Report: [SPOILERS ABOUND, DUH] The strategy of combining the reunion and the finale into one episode is a smart one, since Drag Race usually has terrible finales. Seriously, go back and watch the season-nine finale and try to make it through the first hour without just skipping ahead to the lip syncs. I’m very happy Gawdland won the episode. Her first lip sync with Mariah was very close, but she clearly wanted it more. For Mariah, having a successful season seemed to be enough of a win. When it came to Fontana and Kate, it became clear how unfocused Fontana can be as a performer. She’s a ball of energy, but Kate had more finesse. The final lip sync came down to which kind of performer you prefer: slaying sex siren or camp old cow. I tend to prefer the former and was thus happy Gawdland won. Also, watching the video of her reaction to winning, it became clear just how much this meant to her and to Thailand overall. It was nice.

• Gay Thoughts From Gay People: I’m currently on vacation and didn’t ask anyone for thoughts. Next week, though, you guys are in for a real treat when the full thing will be a GTFGP, because I’m calling out: My substitute teacher will be my fabulous co-worker Rebecca Alter. I, personally, can’t wait to read it.

• Top-four prediction: It’s become increasingly clear that this is a season with a top three, and the top three are Myki, Jane, and Darlene. Nini or Juicy sneaking in there would just detract from the grandiosity of those three going at it in the finale.