For the debut season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World,” RuPaul Charles brought together nine all-stars from the series’ many franchises to compete against each other in the ultimate contest to find the “queen of the mother-tucking world.” Hosted in the United Kingdom, the new series sets three queens from the UK franchise as hosts to six other competitors. In episode 1 and episode 2, Canada’s Lemon and UK’s Cheryl Hole became the first international all stars to “sashay away,” while Thailand’s Pangina Heals and Holland’s Janey Jacké established themselves with early wins.
Below check out our recap of episode 3 to see who made their big musical comeback in “West End Wendys.” “RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Versus The World” airs every Tuesday at 4pm ET / 1pm PT in the US and in select territories exclusively on WOW Presents Plus, day-and-date with its local airing on BBC3 in the UK.
As is common on the all stars seasons, the queens wanted to know who Jimbo would have sent home had she won the lipsync against Janey. Jimbo tried hard to play it off as a joke, but the revelation that she had pulled Jujubee‘s lipstick for elimination sent a shockwave among the group. Juju brought up the deal they had made to save one another and so none of the girls could believe that Jimbo was already playing hard to win. Juju declared that “all bets are off” and that she isn’t the only one watching out for Jimbo now.
The next morning, Monique Heart announces to the group that in order to present as a gender non-confirming performer she’d prefer if they call her by the new genderless name Mo Heart going forward. Just then, Ru popped in to the Werk Room to ask that the girls call each other much more than new names in the legendary “Reading Is Fundamental” mini challenge. With the library now open, each of the girls stepped forward to throw their shadiest shade at one another all for a good laugh. In the challenge, Pangina and Juju stood out with the sharpest digs, while Mo and Jimbo’s jokes fell the flattest. For her third time in four seasons, Juju was declared the winner of this challenge on the backs of a “Princess Diarrhea” joke aimed at Baga Chipz.
For the maxi challenge, Ru asked the girls to take on the role of a fictional stage star in the rusical “West End Wendys: The Comeback.” As the winner of the mini challenge, Juju got to cast each of the queens in the roles of former child star Widdle Orphan Fannie, former 60s dancing star Tracey Fatberg, ultimate performer Lally Bowelz, dirty nun Mariah Gon Trappy, born again virgin Dr. Spank-n-Spurter, Hollywood actress Meryl Streep, and best friend Dodo the Dog.
During role assignment, Juju tried to be as judicious as possible, asking each queen who they’d like to portray. Unfortunately, most of them named Lally as their top choice, but that was also the role that Juju wanted and so she claimed it for herself. Only Baga insisted that she should be Lally because of how often she does Liza Minnelli on stage while the rest of the girls had a second choice ready. As such, it was easily settled that Juju would be Lally, Blu Hydrangea would be Mariah, Pangina would be Fannie, Mo would be Dr. Spank, Janey would be Meryl, and Jimbo would be Dodo. That left Baga with the leftover and her last choice, Tracey. Baga threw a tantrum that everyone else got the role they wanted and she was given what was left, but no one was giving her any wiggle room on this one.
To prepare for the spotlight, the girls met choreographer Johannes Radebe to learn the dance moves for their roles. In the rehearsal session, Pangina and Mo picked up their choreo rather easily, but Baga and Juju needed much more coaching in their presentation. Jimbo came to the stage with a questionable neck ache that required Johannes to “dumb down” the choreo to a pace that wouldn’t put her at risk of an injury. The next day, however, both Baga and Jimbo had put the stumbling blocks of their bad mood and neck injury, respectively, behind them. Mo and Pangina found it curious that all of a sudden Jimbo’s body aches were gone, insinuating that she may have been faking them the day before.
On the runway, Ru was joined by Michelle Visage, Graham Norton and this week’s guest judge Jonathan Bailey. The night began with the rusical performance where Pangina opened as an aged and hilarious Ophan Annie spoof, Juju delivered a mediocre Liza impression, Mo flopped a cartwheel into split trick, Janey presented a spot-on Meryl, and Jimbo underwhelmed with an unadventurous dog character. Following the performance, the queens walked in the “Dot Dot Dot” runway category. Jimbo wore a lime green “Spaceballs” fantasy dress, Juju wore a costume wig, leggings and a simple black dress with spotted blow up snakes wrapped around her, Blu had on a blue velvet five-headed creature costume, Janey stayed elegant with an understated yellow and black business suit look, Mo paid homage to a Monsters Inc. character, Pangina surprised in a white with colorful dots dress and a retractable Chinese lantern inspired mask-hat, and Baga closed in a simple pink and white leisure dress with matching umbrella.
Based on the rusical performances and runway presentation, Ru gave safety to Blu and Baga. Jimbo took a hit for playing Dodo without much excitement and not injecting any of the Jimbo quirkiness into it. That being said, Ru thought she looked great on the runway and Graham appreciated how committed she is to the presentation of her runway character. Juju was dogged by the judges once again for a lackluster and basic runway, but was also told that she didn’t deliver enough Liza in a Liza impersonation. The judges loved Janey’s Meryl character because she “gave just enough” to get them to laugh with a character that isn’t “inherently funny.” On the runway, the judges were mixed on whether it hit the mark. Mo had fun with her character on stage, but when she slipped up on the cartwheel the judges didn’t want to see the frustration. She was applauded still for overcoming it and then getting on the runway with one of the night’s best looks. Pangina was a clear judges’ fave once again for her top notch character development and commitment to the character. They were also blown away by a creative and gorgeous look on the runway.
After the critiques, Ru announced the results for the week: Janey and Pangina were the top two queens of the week, set to perform to decide who would be eliminated between the bottom two queens, Jimbo and Jujubee. As the top two, Janey and Pangina were both in contention to earn their second badge of the season and the status of frontrunner. Backstage, when Baga started complaining about her placement as safe, Pangina and Mo spoke up in defense of everyone who said that her attitude on this challenge brought everyone down. Baga admitted to being a “spoiled brat” and acknowledged that she can do better to be a team player with the rest of them.
Juju was in tears over her critiques, disappointed that she thought she did well and that he didn’t meet the judges’ expectations yet again. Jimbo was in shock for falling in the bottom after two weeks in the top, and thought that the critiques about the choreo were misguided. Jimbo pitched privately to Pangina that she is invested in the competition and that Juju is in the bottom for the second time. Janey asked Juju if she feels like he’s “lost the fight” for the competition, but Juju said no and reminded Janey that when Jimbo was in the top she chose both her and Janey’s lipsticks as the ones to eliminate. Pangina was frustrated that Juju wasn’t “bringing it” to the competition, but Juju tried to get her to see that she did better in the challenge than Jimbo. Janey wanted to know from Jimbo why she made an alliance with Juju and then went back on it. Janey was clearly upset about how Jimbo was choosing to play the game and holding it over Jimbo’s head without “taking the whole competition into consideration” like Jimbo asked.
On stage, Pangina and Janey got set for their lipsync to “We Like to Party (The Vengabus)” by the Vengaboys. Both had changed into catsuits that allowed them to get down to business with the high energy tempo of the song. Pangina brought in voguing elements to her performance while Janey pranced and jumped across the stage, relying mostly on her pretty. Pangina let out confetti strings and was throwing all the tricks at the wall by the end, leaving Ru no choice but to give her an easy second RuPeter badge. As the winner, Pangina had the responsibility of revealing the lipstick of the next queen to be eliminated. Saying that it was a hard decision and that she went off of how they “rose to the challenge of the rusical,” Pangina eliminated Jimbo.
NEXT WEEK: It’s time for the Snatch Game!
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