Drag Race season 14’s biggest error yet was putting all the best queens in episode one

Week two of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 14 had a lot to live up to. Week one was perhaps the most exciting mainline Drag Race premiere in five years – a wholly likeable cast, an amazing runway, acts and talent we’d never seen before. The fan base were instantly obsessed, so the pressure was on for the week two batch to knock it out of the park once again. But with week two, Drag Race season 14 suffered from front loading week one with the more impactful queens and left episode two feeling significantly emptier by comparison.

Split premieres – a risk worth taking?

A RuPaul’s Drag Race split premiere is a tricky beast to get right. When it’s pulled off successfully, it’s the Drag Race franchise at its very best. Think back to season six – the first time a split premiere ever happened. Both batches of queens felt formidable, and quickly established themselves as one of the strongest casts in Drag Race herstory. Both episodes were design challenges where queens got boxes of stuff to make a look with and both were equally exciting. In season 12, the split premiere worked well once again – with both groups performing original verse songs and knocking it completely out of the park.

Season 13 was less successful, the maniacal laughing from RuPaul as she puts queens into arbitrary groups of winners VS Porkchop loading dock was heavy handed production that was instrumental in season 13 of Drag Race feeling absolutely never ending. You found yourself pleading with the telly to just bloody send someone home.

Season 14’s split premiere lies somewhere in between. The talent show is the perfect premiere challenge, and week one showed that to full effect. But a split premiere is only as good as its second half, and the second half of season 14 just wasn’t quite up to scratch. Here’s why:

Batch two of queens felt more filler than killer

When the queens of week one walked into the Werk Room, the world stopped. Kornbread. Willow. Kerri. Bosco. Huge and instantly interesting presences made it engaging before we even got to the sickening talent show. Looks worth talking about and likability in spade loads. Week two just didn’t feel the same. Besides the excellence of Jorgeous and the charm of Angeria, the second batch felt filled with queens that were never going to be a serious threat to the crown.

It felt sad saying bye to Orion Story, because despite the fact she was the weakest in that group she still was a queen who you wanted to see more of. If Orion had been in week two’s group, she wouldn’t have even been lip syncing. And that’s a fact. I understand the show needs a huge premiere that has everyone gagging but still wants to give the queens’ ample exposure, but I just think the group should have been split up a bit differently to balance out the heavy hitters a little more evenly.

The talent show felt too safe

Besides Jorgeous and Angeria giving truly gagworthy performances, the talent show was definitely lacking in comparison to last week. The dancing was fine, the lip syncs okay and Maddy Morphosis giving it “Anyway, here’s Wonderwall” was pretty lacklustre and boring. The episode wouldn’t have felt like a significant step down if the wows from last week had been spread out more evenly.

The runway was another mixed bag

Despite some flawless execution from Jorgeous and Angeria (I know I’ve said it a billion times, but what a week for them!), the runway left a lot to be desired considering its theme. I’m not really sure what was going on with Lady Camden’s look, Betty’s looked like she couldn’t keep it up without giving it a yank over her nipples every five minutes and Deja’s was just missing some good fashion taste.

Maddy… girl. The flat dolly shoe. The year eight dolly shoe. I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t. It’s all well and good having a headless gimmick (which was done great), but the whole outfit was ugly. All gimmick, no style. You can boo me on that, but I’m right.

The season is still going to be a scorcher

Still, the cast is clearly going to be a hoot and season of Drag Race is shaping up to be one for the history books. Next week, the cast come together for the ball challenge and I can’t wait to see these girls pull out all the stops. There’s definitely some fashion icons on this season who are going to make us gag.

But split premieres, if we’re doing them, need to be balanced. So we can see the queens soar like they should

Catch up on episode two of Drag Race season 14 on Wow Presents Plus. For all the latest Drag Race memes and Netflix news, drops and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.

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