Nobody wants to watch a season of Drag Race where the wrong queens keep sashaying away

I’ve just had to retype my opening line to this piece five times because my sad tears kept drip dropping onto my keyboard as I tried to express how frustrated I am. And these aren’t even my tears from the last few weeks. These are still the tears of outrage from Lemon unjustly departing RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Versus the World before her time. Now, with Canada’s representation fully out of the picture, the tears will be flowing again. Jimbo getting eliminated on last night’s episode was just plain miserable – a clear frontrunner taken from us and slowly descending a chaotic season into a bleak state of affairs. Chaotic decisions on Drag Race never end well – and it’s just not even fun to watch. Here’s why.

The off judging means people are coasting by

The elephant in the room here, especially this week, is Baga Chipz. I honestly believe that if Baga’s attitude in the Werk Room was different, and if she was getting critiqued by the judges like she should be for her looks and for her performance, then the backlash to her staying week after week wouldn’t be like it is. I think if Baga showed a bit of humility, got her deserved criticism from the panel and managed to laugh it off in a charming way then no one would really mind her aesthetic not being the point of her drag.

Instead, we see Baga get safe placements three weeks in a throw, putting queens like Jimbo in the bottom. Whilst no one would be arguing for Jimbo to get a third top two win this week, it’s abundantly clear that the combo of her *fine* performance and her sickening runway meant she definitely deserved to go. If last week’s episode was Jujubee’s time to go and she got her lifeline, this week’s was CERTAINLY her time to go – and yet when you put a threat like Jimbo in the bottom two, of course frontrunners like Pangina would exorcise their opportunity to get rid of one of their biggest competition.

Pangina is free to make whatever choice she wants – don’t send hate

Every queen is entitled to get rid of whoever they want, but I think the hard thing about the last few weeks is that the queens that every bottom two has had one queen there that didn’t really deserve to be. Lemon didn’t deserve to be, there’s no way in hell Cheryl deserved bottom two over Baga and the same this week with Jimbo. What then results is television that’s less satisfying, and a season where we’re starting to resent queens still being there over fan favourites who didn’t falter like the show seems to want us to think they did.

Even the top queens are starting to feel off. It’s criminal that Blu Hydrangea hasn’t yet placed in the top two when she’s consistently hit the brief, excelled expectations and never heard a nice word said about it. I would go as far to say that her runway look this week was up there as an all time Drag Race best – innovative, vibrant and editorial with a camp flair. How she didn’t get to the top is beyond me.

Drag Race UK Versus the World has a dilemma on its hands on where the formula goes from here, and it’s going to be increasingly interesting to watch where the queens steer the show hopefully out of fan outrage in the coming weeks. For all we know, Pangina will be getting turfed out in the cold next week. At this point, it’s Pangina Heals’ for the taking – she will be remembered as the deserved breakout star of a season that week by week feels like it’s taking itself up shit creek without a paddle.

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK is streaming now on BBC iPlayer. Keep up with new episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race: UK Versus the World on BBC Three at 9pm on Tuesdays. For all the latest Netflix news, drops and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.

Featured image courtesy of BBC.

Recommended stories by this writer:

• 15 amazing queens we need to see on season two of Drag Race: UK Versus the World

• Choriza May and River Medway break silence on RuPaul’s worst decision in Drag Race history

• ‘By the time I left, I didn’t want to be there’: Charity Kase on her Drag Race UK journey