Marriage Make-Overs
Courtney soars into the Werk Room, on the wings of her win. “Caw, caw!” she cries, metamorphosing into Megan Joy. Adore silently scrubs down Trinity’s mirror, angry at herself for falling into the bottom.
Courtney interviews that her sense of competition has been aroused. She wants the prize. She can smell it. Meanwhile, Bianca has had it. She finds Courtney too grand, too blonde, and too naked. “It gets a little monotonous.”
Darienne observes that the competition is very close (even if she hasn’t won a challenge in weeks). “Anyone can slip up,” she says, adding that she’ll be leaving plenty of banana peels around for others to step on.
So, there’s the drama squared away. Unfortunately, there’s no more conflict for the rest of the episode. Just romance.
Starting with a cute little scene where Joslyn wraps Courtney in a scarf, while Courtney tells a story about being a magician’s assistant. Which results in Dela confusing Courtney’s “right” testicle for a “rat” testicle. Try saying it with an Australian accent.
They are interrupted by a Non-Gender-Specific Mail video filled with wedding puns. RuPaul does not explain the significance. Until they’ve completed the mini-challenge, which is mainly an excuse to have them roll around in paint.
The official goal is to create an abstract painting about marriage equality. Bianca wins by coming up with a plausible explanation for her painting.
After they all take showers (I shudder for their wigs), RuPaul introduces the queens to six women, who plan to be married on the main stage. It turns out that RuPaul is an ordained minister. As winner of the mini-challenge, Bianca gets to pair each girl with a queen. It’s the Make-Over Challenge!
Bianca quickly pairs people up. That’s when RuPaul adds the twist. Six male fiances troop into the room. It turns out that the queens have to make the men into the brides (while the women will get tuxedos and styling by the crew). Shocked faces all round! Adore is particularly horrified, having no skills she can bring to this challenge.
After the commercial break, the queens sit down for a bridal consultation. As Bianca explains, it matter not who is dressed as a bride, when it comes to a wedding, you listen to the woman. Her “groom,” Eddie, is very clear: in make-up, the bride will need a dominant eye and lip.
Joslyn’s “groom,” Brittany, wants her bride (Brendon) to have a princess look. Joslyn promises to give him body. He’s very uncomfortable about the whole thing, but especially at the thought of having hips.
A few of the “brides” are currently sporting beards. Dela’s bride, Kevin, has no problem losing his for the ceremony, but she worries about what’s underneath.
Meanwhile, Darienne’s couple wants a goth wedding, and Courtney may have trouble feminizing a man who actually looks like a man. And, while Adore’s couple are saying words like “elegant” and “”polished,” she keeps reminding them that she doesn’t know how to sew.
After the women leave, the queens start to bond with their drag daughters. One of the most interesting pairs are Bianca and Ryan, because he turns out to come from Holland, where gay marriage is no big deal. He explains this to Bianca as he helps make hip pads. Bianca is astonished to be making another friend.
The other interesting pair is Joslyn and Brendon, since Brendon is a professional basketball player and very leery about all this drag situation. What terrifies him is how his team mates will react once he appears in drag on national television.
“It’s not funny for a gay person to be in the locker room,” he says. Nobody reminds him about Dennis Rodman. Maybe it wouldn’t help. But Joslyn tells him that doing this could change people’s minds. That makes him a little happier.
RuPaul appears briefly to learn that Mother of the Bride Joslyn plans to wear clothing that covers her butt for once, that Darienne is going for an Addams family look, and that Bianca plans to feminize her “daughter’s” face by asking everyone to step back. Way back. He also gives the men gift certificates to Klein Epstein Parker, so they can buy suits later on.
The final scenes in the Werk Room are of Adore whining to Bianca for help in making the wedding gown. Bianca gives plenty of advice, but only from a distance. Adore will need to make this dress by herself. (They should have had Bianca mentor on the recent Under the Gunn; she would have been great.)
RuPaul attends the mass marriage ceremony in a fabulous silver checkerboard of a gown. Fortunately, she’ll be behind the judge’s desk and won’t outshine the brides. I’m wondering how her stylist, Mathu Andersen, manages to find so many different shades of silver. It seems like there have been dozen different variations already this season. She introduces famous gay power couple, Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka, as the guest judges.
The brides walk the aisle with their drag mothers. “Brandonna” no longer looks like a basketball player. He looks (as Bianca puts it) like “that one female gremlin in that movie.” “Rien” Act is wearing a lacy muumuu over a sky blue muumuu, and can’t walk in heels. Bianca’s daughter looks perfect. Naturally.
Darienne and her daughter are both wearing black dresses. They do a funny bit where Darienne sprays the white rose bouquet with black paint. Adore has tried to make her daughter look like a teen bride by putting her in a huge white hair bow and black leather jacket. Dela and her daughter (both in pink and white) do a whole performance walk down the aisle.
Needless to say, the waiting grooms (in their tuxedos) are astonished at the transformations of the brides. Each couple exchanges vows, which are touching, and funny. I was laughing and crying throughout. “Androgyne” and Anna’s are particularly cute, since they manage to incorporate just about every catchphrase from the show, from Alex Mateo’s “Bam!” to Shangela’s “Hallelloo!”
In the background, Dela looks to be crying — just like a mother of the bride should. RuPaul quickly marries the couples, and the judges all throw rice. Then the brides toss the bouquets over their heads, and, surprisingly, almost all the mothers catch them. Adore is delighted.
So much for happiness, now it’s time for the critiques. Joslyn’s critique is so harsh that “Brandonna” has to run offstage and throw up, Willam-style. Courtney is scolded for making herself look better than her daughter. Darienne’s daughter is so happy in drag he wants to try out for the show. Michelle tells Adore, point-blank, that she failed to create a family resemblance.
Dela and Bianca are, of course, perfect. Biana wins a trip to Hawaii (and so does her happy couple). Although Courtney is spanked a little, she’s safe. Joslyn and Adore are in the bottom two.
They lip-synch to “Think” (Aretha Franklin). It’s hard to judge. Joslyn is great, lip perfect and doing a church choir shake to the heavens. But Adore is bringing all her Idol fierceness to the stage. I might have given the win to Joslyn myself, but I don’t disagree when Adore shantays, and Joslyn sashays.
In dismissing Joslyn, RuPaul does the signature “Keep it foxy. Wonk, wonk,” Joslyn move. Joslyn smiles at the compliment and goes to pack her things.
Forever sisters. Keep it Foxy, Joslyn she writes on the mirror. I’m going to miss our little black horse.
Untucked
The mothers and daughters crowd into the silver lounge for a kiki. There’s a lot of laughter, but not much drama. Brandonna talks about throwing up. “I thought it was because my look was so sickening,” Joslyn jokes.
It’s all a little cramped and uncomfortable. Usually this challenge is done at the top five, not six. It makes a difference trying to cram two extra people in the room.
Adore whines (as she tends to do) about doing a sewing challenge. Damon (Darienne’s daughter), points out America’s next drag superstar needs to know how to sew. Bianca picks up that thread and runs with it, telling Adore is isn’t even about sewing skills. It’s about doing things with a positive attitude and owning your work.
Courtney thanks her daughter for being so nice and letting her bond with “a big, straight military man.” Nice try, Courtney. Military make-overs are so last year. Bianca’s daughter wants her to help with their real wedding. Bianca’s okay with that, as long as she doesn’t have to “do” the bride. (That’s the husband’s job!)
Brandon promises to tell his team mates about how positive the experience was (throwing up notwithstanding). I think it’s somewhat interesting that this was probably filmed before Jason Collins came out.
Dela and her daughter are so cute together that everyone tells them to go make out. And, finally, Darienne’s goth daughter thanks her for making all their nightmares come true.
The queens then leave their daughters and go to the Gold Bar. There’s a video of Adore from her mother, who is just as much a hot mess as Adore. She tries to recite some lines (written down in a notebook she’s holding), but starts crying and tells the cameraman to start over. Bianca immediately falls in love with her, declaring, “I want to hang out with that woman!”
Adore is crying now. The others hugs her. Bianca gives her a pep talk, and Joslyn tells her she’s already a superstar. “You don’t even need to win,” she says. She gets called out for being shady — since the implication is that Joslyn does need the title, so Adore can step aside. But it’s just a joke. Everyone laughs and hugs Adore and Joslyn. They all know one of them is going home.
The brides and groom reunite to watch the lip-synch from the Silver Lounge. It’s cute, because all of them appear to be big fans of the show. Except Brandon, who still seems under the weather, and is probably still worried about the locker room ribbing he’s going to get.
At the very end, we see Joslyn packing her things in a tearful mood. She does cheer herself up a little by saying she can go home and get married herself now. That is a sweet way to tie up an episode where marriage equality was the subtext.
