“Miss Vanjie” – A review of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 10 so far

The new season of Ru Paul’s drag race has sped into action already delivering brilliantly on sassy remarks and jaw-dropping performances in only it’s first three episodes. 

“Miss Vanjie, Miss Vanjie, Miss Vanjie” is perhaps the most memorable exit in Drag Race herstory, by uttering just two words Miss Vanessa Vanjie Mateo managed to turn herself into a Drag Race legend. This is perhaps the best display of self-branding possible for a first queen to be eliminated and is, without doubt, the standout moment of episode one. If Ru doesn’t bring Miss Vanjie back into the competition then she is missing out; I’m placing early bets on Miss Vanjie to win Miss Congeniality based on this moment alone!

In regards to the rest of the episode, we were introduced to some quite memorable queens; we meet Miz Cracker and Aquaria who are engaged in an Alyssa Edwards and Coco Montrese level feud based purely on the fact they look alike. We also meet Blaire St Claire who’s delightfully youthful appearance look like she’s about to undertake her GCSEs and Eureka who has returned after her near-death experience in Season 9 – Is it cruel that I want her to fall over again? Eureka is being billed as this returning underdog but lest we do not forget that in Season 9 she was a villain for making a joke about eating disorders, has her sense of humour changed this season?

Drag Race has created a rich herstory of challenges and moments

The challenge of episode one was a throwback to Season 1’s Drag on a Dime challenge, again something that Drag Race does expertly. Drag Race has created a rich herstory of challenges and moments and so loyal fans are rewarded for their dedication with throwbacks to previous seasons. Christina Aguilera also popped up in episode one and was mistook by many to be a returning queen, poor Christina.

Episode two features potentially one of the worst challenges in Drag Race history, after ten seasons the producers may finally have run out of ideas. The queens are asked to perform in a musical about pharmaceutical products, that’s right a musical about PHARMACEUTICAL PRODUCTS! There’s a reason why this hasn’t been performed on Broadway before, and that’s because it is quite frankly a terrible idea, the musical in unappealing and unless you’re a chemist,it is completely unrelatable. Kardashian: The Musical was so much better, and all I could feel was disappointment at this challenge. Kalorie Karbdashian was eliminated during this episode – maybe she would have done better in Kardashian: The Musical. The highlight of episode two was Miz Cracker’s runway look; she looked like she had just stolen a TV from Argos and it was magical.

The MVP of episode three was without a doubt the spider, this arachnid queen managed to clear out the workroom in seconds, and my money is on her to win this season, it’s such a shame the producers didn’t manage to interview Miss Spider for the testimonials as that would be great TV! I think the spider was a test by RuPaul to see which queen had the nerve and talent to remove the spider from the workroom. By spider, I do indeed mean a little arachnid friend!

We also had potentially one of the most heartbreaking stories in Drag Race herstory

Episode three’s challenge was a good one. The queens were asked to advertise a dating app. My personal favourite was Fibster, a dating app that most of my exes would love. We also had potentially one of the most heartbreaking stories in Drag Race history. Dusty Ray Bottoms recounted how she was put through gay conversion therapy by her family; she was given an exorcism to ‘rid a gay demon from her body’.  What Drag Race has always managed to do best is present the hardships and struggles of gay life, it’s never shied away from depicting the ugly side of growing up gay and telling us what made the queens we see today into true stars. Who could forget in season 7 when Pearl uttered the chilling words – ‘You’ll be stared at from across the room and for years you won’t understand why’.

Overal the first few episodes of Season 10 have been excellent, and I for one can’t wait to tune if for more and to see who will be our new drag Superstar.