Sweet and Sour
The four remaining queens enter hand-in-hand to view Coco’s final message. Roxxxy comments that Coco came to the competition to clear up the situation with Alyssa and she accomplished that goal. Roxxxy, on the other hand, is here to become America’s next Superstar. She’s thrilled when she remembers that she actually won the last challenge.
Jinkx, however, is bummed to realize that it’s down to “Rolaskatox and Little Jinkx.” She knows she’s first in line to be sold down the river by the other queens.
The She-Mail arrives with multi-candy puns, then RuPaul comes in host a puppet bitch-fest. One by one, the queens go up to a hole in the wall to pull out a puppet that resembles one of the other queens. Detox pulls out an Alaska puppet. Alaska gets Roxxxy. Jinkx gets Detox, and Roxxxy pulls out “Chuckie!” Even Jinkx laughs at the joke.
The queens then drag up the boy puppets into girl puppets and put on a little puppet show, lampooning their particular puppet. Jinkx goes first and makes fun of how “over it” Detox is. So, I guess that’s not just editing. Detox really is checked out of this competition. She also gets a laugh by imitating Detox’s distinctive lip-waggle (not easy with a puppet) and calling her mouth “slip and slide.”
Detox’s puppet whines about not having nice shoes because Sharon has all the money. It’s mildly funny. Roxxxy starts out funny by having Little Jinkx fall asleep, but then it turns to sour bitching about how Jinkx is just pretending to be underdog. Finally, Alaska steals the show by having Little Roxxxy brag about whipping up outfits ten minutes before the runway, pulling off her wig to reveal another wig, then pulling off her Litte Roxxxy’s “tearaway” to reveal another dress and pulling that one off to reveal a third outfit. It’s a clear win on Alaska’s part.
RuPaul explains the main challenge. It’s to be “Sugar” Ball, which means multiple looks. The categories are: Sweet 16, Sugar Mama Executive Realness, and Candy Couture. A table is piled high with sweets provided by the Candy Warehouse. For winning the mini-challenge, Alaska gets to start gathering materials from the table 15 seconds before the others.
Roxxxy feels completely in her element this week. None of the others can sew like she does. Jinkx tells the others that’s her candy look will be Alexander McQueen Christmas. Detox interviews her skepticism that Jinkx can pull off the look.
RuPaul visits Alaska and finds her gluing candy to a corset. She reminds Alaska that the judges have been bored by Alaska’s runways. This time, she needs to wow them. Alaska looks a bit scared.
Jinkx explains that she’s doing “Xmas in July candy cane and reindeer monster.” RuPaul blinks up a storm. He warns her that the look is too much and yet there’s not enough candy. He advises Jinkx to make the looks contemporary.
RuPaul finds Detox leaning towards an acid green look. Right now it’s just a corset with no candy to be found. RuPaul warns her that she’s behind the others in the competition. She isn’t meeting the expectations of the judges. He asks Detox if she’s passionate about winning the contest. We don’t see her answer, just her stricken look and an interview clip where she calls this a “slap in the face.”
Roxxxy is working on dress with a full circle skirt that’s sticking up one side like a sail. She explains the look to RuPaul, but he isn’t feeling it.
RuPaul gives them all The Twist (there’s always a twist right about now). They need to perform a dance number, lip-synching to “Sugar Babies.” As mini-challenge winner, Alaska is in charge. Alaska. Who neither dances nor choreographs. Roxxxy smugly predicts a hot mess of a number.
After RuPaul leaves, Roxxxy starts over, creating a dress out of colored licorice. Jinkx starts crushing candy candies, annoying both Roxxxy and Detox.
The rehearsal for the Sugar Babies number is chaotic. Alaska doesn’t have a clue what to do, so Jinkx starts throwing out ideas and Detox basically takes over the choreography. Roxxxy keeps telling Jinkx that she’s screwing up (which isn’t evident from the footage). Jinkx interviews that Roxxxy is giving her a hard time in order to wear her down.
And it seems to work — or else Jinkx didn’t need any help. She’s clearly stressing out and her narcolepsy is kicking in. At one point, she startles awake to realize she’s messed in constructing her candy outfit. Roxxxy smugly interviews that the judges will finally see just how much of a mess Jinkx is.
Jinkx consults with Alaska about her candy dress. Is it hideous? It’s a lot of stuff, Alaska replies. Jinkx decides to throw out this huge hoop skirt and just wear the corset with tights and an overskirt. The problem is that there’s almost no candy on the corset. “I feel like an idiot,” she sighs.
“Sometimes we feel the way we look,” Roxxxy snarks from the other side of the room.
Meanwhile, Detox is putting candy onto her corset. Jinkx comments that it doesn’t read as candy, but that Roxxxy is too friendly with Detox to give that feedback to her.
Alaska has a major crisis when she puts on her outfit. It falls apart. Roxxxy smiles, certain that Alaska and Jinkx will be lip-synching tonight.
RuPaul’s runway outfit is a large, candy-pink animal print. Michelle commends her for bringing Jersey. RuPaul greets guest judges Marg Helgenberger, and Bob Mackie. RuPaul reminds us that Mackie was the first guest judge ever on the show.
The Sugar Babies number is very cute (though simple). It’s not a hot mess and Alaska earns a laugh at one point.
The triple-runway starts with the Sweet 16 look. Alaska wears a little black dress with a pink bow in her hair. Simple, but nice. Jinkx has a long blonde wig and calls her look “Northwest Stoner Chick.” Roxxxy looks more like 36 in a short dress with blue marshmallows. Detox’s teenager is 80’s inspired. It seems like everything Detox does is 80’s inspired.
The second look is Executive Realness. Alaska comes out in a black blazer and slacks with high heels and a yellow construction hat. She marches around, giving orders to imaginary workers and looks just like Jane Lynch. Jinkx looks like a sad secretary in an orange print suit. She does make it fun by having about two dozen pencils stuck in her beehive. Roxxxy has short hair and a short dress with a cape. I guess she’s a fashion magazine editor. Detox wears a blue jacket and skirt. She looks powerful.
The final look is the candy couture. Alaska’s look is very reminiscent out Raja’s hair dress from Season Three. Only instead of looking like cotton candy, it’s actual cotton candy — all pink and white. Jinkx has antlers. I don’t really know what else to say about her look. Roxxxy’s dress is amazing. She threw out the dress that RuPaul didn’t like and made a dress from long strings of licorice. It has fringes that are about four feet long and when she twirls, they swing out in this amazing way. It’s simply gorgeous. Detox’s acid green gown looks nothing like candy and she has trouble walking in it.
Alaska and Roxxxy are praised by the judges. Jinkx definitely falls short and Santino utters the dreaded words “taste level” to Detox. All four queens are asked to say who should be sent home. Jinkx says that Detox has fallen short more than anyone else. All other three queens name Jinkx as the weakest.
The judges deliberate and have minor quibbles with Alaska and Roxxxy this week. RuPaul is impressed that Alaska took the risk of wearing slacks, but was still a woman in look and movement. Roxxxy wowed RuPaul by scrapping her first candy costume and coming back with something ten times better. Michelle thinks Jinkx failed on every level this week, but is angry that the other queens ganged up on her. Santino simply repeats his critique about Detox’s “taste level.”
Alaska wins a private photo session with Austin Young Jinkx and Detox are in the bottom. Jinkx voice-overs that she’s numb. Detox is devastated and pissed off.
The song is Malambo No. 1 (Yma Sumac). It’s a very quirky song — if you’ve never heard Yma Sumac, you should. She has this bizarre coloratura style that sounds very sixties bachelor pad. Detox does a fine job, throwing her head back with bird-like movements. But Jinkx grabs the song, camps it up, hams it up, dances it to death, and absolutely owns the performance. Next to her, Detox ends up looking rather bored. At one point, Detox points to her mouth as if to say, “look how tight my lip-synch is!” But the only response she gets is a scornful lift of Michelle’s eyebrow.
They await the decision from RuPaul. Jinkx lowers her eyes and the color on her lids is beautiful and tragic. But, she is declared the winner. She takes that in, then turns to Detox, gets on her knees and bows. As though to a Goddess. Detox bows in return.
In parting, RuPaul tells Detox that she’s hooked on her — and that everyone else will be, too. Detox calls the experience magical and humbling — which isn’t’ the worst kind of experience to have. As she leaves, Alaska and Roxxxy run to hug her. Jinkx stands alone at the side of the stage, still somehow tragic and fragile. She seems even more of an underdog than before. Which is a strange twist, since she and Alaska have put in the strongest performances all season.
Untucked
The Top Four Untucked is famous for its blowouts. In Season Three, Yara and Alexis were extremely bitter over what they thought was biased judging. In Season Four, Sharon and Phi-Phi had a huge fight. The “Coming Ups” keep promising us a big fight between Jinkx and Rolaskatox.
First, however, the queens are split into twos to wind each other up. Roxxxy and Detox bitch in the Gold Lounge about Jinkx. Detox is particularly upset that Jinkx used the competition to learn and improve her sub-par drag skills. Roxxxy calls Jinkx boring and makes fun of her narcolepsy. (We see flashbacks to Roxxxy laughing as Jinkx is falling asleep making her outfit.)
In the Silver Lounge, Alaska levels with Jinkx and admits that they want her gone because she’s beaten them all so many times in the challenges. Jinkx thanks her, saying, “It means the world to me to hear you say that.” In an interview she declares a personal vendetta to stay in the competition tonight — whoever she’s up against in the lip-synch. She tells Alaska her theory that Roxxxy picks on her because she’s succeed in the areas Roxxxy struggles, Roxxxy transfers that struggle into negative energy. They both laugh at how Roxxxy’s puppet lampoon of Jinkx “went off the rails” and we get a longer edit of the bit, showing just how much it bombed.
At this moment, Roxxxy and Detox enter. Alaska laughingly calls it a meeting of the “We Hate Jinkx Club.” Jinkx listens as Roxxxy explains she’d send Jinkx home because the other three have “given more.” Then Jinkx calmly recites the facts: She’s been in the top three for eight weeks and this is her first lip-synch. Roxxxy declares that to be pure luck. The season lined up for Jinkx to succeed, by having so many performance challenges. Had their been more design challenges, Jinkx would have been long gone.
“I deserve to be here. Point Blank Dot Com,” Roxxxy says, implying the opposite about Jinkx. Detox laughs and follows that up by pointing out how much help Jinkx got from the judges and other queens. She will be mad if she has to go home because of Jinkx.
“Fine,” Jinkx says.
“Fuck you, bitch,” is Detox’s witty rejoinder.
Before the slapping starts, RuPaul appears in a video, directing them to the Big Pink Furry Box. This time, it contains puppet versions of RuPaul, Michelle, and Santino. The queens divert themselves by making puppet fun of their tormentors. It’s very cute.
Then, they have a moment of reflection (which gets teased as more fighting, but turns out to be quite different.) They all take a moment to praise and appreciate each other as tough competitors, excellent queens, and good people. Roxxxy says she’s learned a lot from Jinkx and admires her conviction about staying true to her style and character. Jinkx calls Detox “inspiring.” Alaska tears up talking about Roxxxy’s love of the art of drag. Detox tells Alaska, “I don’t know what I’ve gotten from you — except Chlamydia.”
They all air hug and go out to meet their fate.
The bonus footage is longer edits of the puppet mini-challenge. Enjoy!
