RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 5, episode 4 recap

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 5 has promised us something shocking, SHOCKING I say! Supposedly we’ll never see it coming! I better be surprised RuPaul…

This episode deals with dance for some reason. Oh, yeah, America’s Next Drag Superstar needs to bring it! And Ru brings it with a giant ‘fro wig. It’s a Soul Train dance-off! The two winners of this mini-challenge are Jinkx Monsoon & Coco Montrese.

The main challenge is to create a modern drag ballet. And because Alyssa is a dancer, Coco picks her first. The faces the other queens make are priceless. Please see Roxxxy Andrews above. We get to see a little bit of Jinkx’s decision-making skills. She decides Alaska is going to open their piece. Alaska, admittedly can’t dance. At all.

Vivienne Pinay is getting a lot of whining screen time. “People underestimate me!” Oh, Vivienne. You’ll need to stop talking about being fierce & just be fierce.

Each team gets to work with the 2 choreographers on their ballet routine. The dragtestants are torn between making googie eyes at the choreographers and getting their butts kicked by them. It’s during Team Jinkx’s time that we learn Lineysha has no idea who Diana Ross is.

Team Coco goes with the strategy of psyching out Team Jinkx. Alyssa leads Team Coco through a warm-up. It’s a warm-up that might look ‘dancy’ to folks that aren’t dancers. There are stretches to the side. Yep, to Team Jinkx it sure looks like dance. Well played Team Coco.

We learn that Honey Mahogany’s parents found pictures of her in drag & sent her to Africa to get her away from her ‘negative influences.’ Alyssa found herself in dance, and in making weird faces in the mirror while she’s painting her face.

On to the ballets! They’re actually very entertaining. Team Jinkx’s act 1 starts things off strong. Alaska may be a weak dancer, but she’s able to pull off Ru’s mother with just enough movement & a lot of humor.

Team Coco’s act 2 starts off strong, but each scene gets weaker and weaker. Alyssa & Coco didn’t get much out of the other members of their team. Detox & Honey Mahogany just sort of flop around. Detox blames it on Honey, but neither one of them was very strong. Roxxy and Vivienne are almost painful to watch.

Back to the main stage! Jinkx Monsoon, Ivy Winters, Alyssa Edwards, Vivienne Pinay, Roxxy Andrews and Honey Mahogany are all called up to be judged further. The judges don’t like Jinkx, Roxxxy, Vivienne and Honey. Ivy and Alyssa get the good feedback. Ru does the ‘be a total b & throw one of the queens under the bus’ question. Most folks say Vivienne should go home. Alyssa says Jade should go home, even though she’s not on the stage at the moment. Well played Alyssa. Sure it’ll probably get back to Jade, but who cares? She wasn’t eligible to go home that night anyway. Ok, sure, maybe Jade will get all bent out of shape & this will throw her off her game. But that’s probably coming eventually anyway.

The winner of this week’s challenge is Alyssa Edwards, naturally. She actually gives Coco a hug. Ivy is safe. Jinkx is safe. Honey Mahogany #HoneyBedSheetLook is up for elimination, along with Vivienne Pinay. Unfortunately they’re lip synching to Oops I Did It Again and it’s just slow and clunky. Neither one of them has much energy. And because of that, both girls are sent home. Never before have 2 girls been told to sashay away.

Ok, that was shocking, but not unexpected given their performances. If you can’t bring it in the lip-synch for your life, when are you going to bring it?

Bring it in the comments below! Does the double elimination mean we’ll have a week of no elimination? Who’s excited that next week is the Snatch Game episode? And San Francisco readers, is Honey right? Does the look not matter in San Francisco or is she just talking cray-cray?

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 5 photos courtesy Tumblr