{"id":102970,"date":"2026-01-17T03:19:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T03:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/102970\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T03:19:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T03:19:30","slug":"the-brutal-failure-of-rdr-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/102970\/","title":{"rendered":"The Brutal Failure of \u2018RDR Live\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n The RDR Live scripts are so awful that it\u2019s impossible to tell how the queens actually perform in the challenge. It\u2019s brutal to watch.
\n Photo: MTV\n <\/p>\n

There was a time when I defended RDR Live as a concept, you know. \u201cOn principle, I\u2019m opposed to the comedy challenges where the girls don\u2019t write their own material, but I was pretty entertained by RDR Live,\u201d I wrote back in 2023<\/a>, when the challenge first appeared. Back then, I had no idea the levels of unfunniness this show could reach. Normally, the show has pretty rough scripts, and part of the challenge is to make it serviceable. That\u2019s whatever. Some queens, like Bob, Symone, and Onya, have actually managed to make it sing and were clear winners because of it.<\/p>\n

But this week, I found it actively difficult to tell who was doing a good or bad job because the scripts were so awful. I spent all 15 minutes the challenge lasted staring at my screen in a kind of stunned silence because of its utter uselessness. Maybe one queen stood out for the entire run of the challenge. On the runway, queens were praised and chastised in ways that were largely illegible to me because I had no idea who was doing well or badly during the actual challenge. Then an incomprehensible winner was chosen, and we moved right along.<\/p>\n

I think that part of the issue is that, as the challenge was originally designed, the sketches are meant to be direct parodies of Saturday Night Live sketches. I did not clock many of those this time around, outside of the evergreen \u201cWeekend Update\u201d and host monologue segments. Making them versions of SNL sketches is helpful because the Drag Race writers are bad at both conceptualizing sketches and writing jokes within them. If you remove the onus of creating the situations from them, then at least you have a half-legitimate segment. The characters will inevitably be more fully formed, and it will be easier to see whether a queen embodies them. This time around, things like the butter-churning competition and \u201cYoung Michelle\u201d were just normal Drag Race slop. It sucked.<\/p>\n

The episode begins with the girls coming back in after DD Fuego\u2019s elimination. They are clearly a little shocked to see Mandy Mango standing among them, but they all acknowledge that she won the lip sync. We also learn that Briar is starting to piss off Athena, which makes sense to me. Other than Juicy, Briar is the youngest competitor there, and she clearly has a sixth sense for who could be poked and prodded. Athena, meanwhile, is a grande dame with an inability to shake anything off. For what it\u2019s worth, I think Briar is annoying, but nothing she does that we see goes over the line of Drag Race trolling. It doesn\u2019t even really reach baseline Mistress levels.<\/p>\n

The other main plot of this episode is that Jane is starting to feel the claws come out for her as she establishes herself as a clearer and clearer front-runner. On one level, I am sympathetic to Jane here: I don\u2019t think she\u2019s really self-producing this story line. She strikes me as someone who is genuinely struggling with this emotion and also someone who knows that it is annoying to complain about how good you are. On the other hand, it is annoying to complain about how good you are. I talked to Sasha Colby after she won season 15<\/a>, and she said that she struggled with a similar thing. She solved it by using her time in the hotel room alone to process her trauma and move on from it. I remember at the time thinking, \u201cThe problem with season 15 is that Sasha is so composed that she can have a dark night of the soul alone, process her emotions, and come back into the Werk Room without showing it.\u201d Jane does not have that ability, and the season is, thus far, better for it, because at least our front-runner has some tension.<\/p>\n

Doling out parts goes well, but Athena gets the host role she doesn\u2019t want. Sarah Sherman comes in and gives some good advice. She also gives some less good advice that is in the ominous RuPaul \u201cbe funny!\u201d mode. Juicy, who is playing Michelle Visage\u2019s mother, freaks out a bit because of Sarah\u2019s comments, but gets help from her scene partner, Myki. Myki, in turn, cries because she loves SNL so much. Ru tells Discord that her walk is notable and deranged, but then tells her not to change it because it\u2019s entertaining, which does feel like bullying.<\/p>\n

Then the challenge starts. From the outset, with the \u201cButter Churning Competition\u201d sketch, it is awful. Discord and Mia take the incredibly easy roles of the announcers, but Discord still manages to overdo it and be bad. Mia is fine, and I would assume she just wanted to be safe until another performance challenge anyway. Darlene ends up in the top for her butter-churning character \u2014 sure? I didn\u2019t laugh, but it is a fully realized character. Mandy ends up in the bottom for her Amish butter-churning character because she takes her boobs out at the end. I thought that was fine (well, not more offensive than Discord\u2019s inability to get an easy play-by-play right), but I was a bit offended by the makeup. Mandy\u2019s drag just isn\u2019t there yet for the show.<\/p>\n

Athena is the host, but she has an easier job than either Onya or Mirage had in the part because her monologue is paused regularly by Briar as her inner saboteur. I flashed back during this to Onya last year, who was not funny in the host role, per se (because the jokes were not funny), but who was so effervescently charming that it had me in awe. Athena is not that. Briar is even worse, though. She\u2019s stiff and awkward and makes me uncomfortable. I\u2019m not sure if they get cue cards \u00e0 la SNL, but Briar was the only one who I really felt \u201creading\u201d during her time onstage. It\u2019s notably bad.<\/p>\n

After that, it\u2019s \u201cMasterqueef Theater,\u201d which host Athena introduces as a parody of Hays Code\u2013era Hollywood films that couldn\u2019t be out-and-out gay, instead using subtlety. That ends up not being the case, and everybody refers to each other by normal lesbian terms and acts gay. This was one of the most challenging sketches to sit through for me. It was awful. Vita ends up in the bottom because she sounded weird delivering her lines, but they didn\u2019t directly tell her that. Kenya and Nini both get called safe for competent (I suppose?) renditions of poorly written characters. The best moment of the sketch is when Nini gets slapped and spins in place. I expected Kenya to have a breakout performance in a challenge by now.<\/p>\n

\u201cWeekend Update\u201d is next, with Briar as one of the news anchors. The judges later tell her she needed to go bigger. The problem was actually that she stumbled over words and read the headlines like a robot that has not received the \u201cpunch line\u201d programming. Ciara needs to figure out a news anchor paint if she would like to play a news anchor. That was ridiculous. Jane does the \u201cWeekend Update\u201d guest spot as Ciara\u2019s mom. She makes her a Midwest confection and delivers her lines like a pro. She is easily (EASILY!) the best part of RDR Live and is the only person who showed any propensity to legitimately do comedy.<\/p>\n

The final sketch of the evening is \u201cYoung Michelle,\u201d featuring Myki Meeks as Michelle (fine) and Juicy Love Dion as her boss. Juicy ends up winning the challenge, which I would imagine will confuse a lot of people. It confused me! Actually, what confused me were the critiques. I have watched this bad, bad sketch multiple times now because I care about my readers. The thing that struck me is that Juicy gets better and more confident as the sketch goes along. By the end of it, she really is one of the better performers of the night. But that\u2019s not what the judges say; they are instead obsessed with her stance. When I look at her stance at the beginning, I think it is under-confident and fidgety. Then she gets better. And look, if the judges want to award that growth, that\u2019s fine. But they act like she\u2019s God\u2019s gift to sketch comedy, and that is clearly not the case.<\/p>\n

On the runway, the category is \u201cAnimal Attraction.\u201d Good category! Discord is a white alligator, but that doesn\u2019t really read for me, especially the skull on her arm. The human handbag is a funny idea, but it would work better if she looked more like she was the gator, rather than just wearing one. The walk is still bad. Mia is a pink poodle, which is totally cute and also incredibly \u201cfirst thought.\u201d Mandy Mango turns her best paint yet as a deer. I thought she looked nice! Darlene is a cow, and it is a gorgeous, very well-made outfit. Ru gets mad at the fact that she\u2019s not wearing heels. Athena\u2019s owl look is absolutely gorgeous and very expensive. Briar does a swan and looks perfectly fine, but \u201cwhite swan\u201d is also a little first thought. I want the animal chosen to tell me a little bit more about you as a queen.<\/p>\n

Then it\u2019s Vita, doing zebra. I think this is totally fabulous. If I\u2019m super nitpicky, I\u2019d say that the seam that separates the pattern should not go in the center, where the non-alignment is super-noticeable. Nini has the best look of the week as a poison dart frog. Love the wig, love that she made the outfit. She\u2019s hard to beat on the runway. Kenya\u2019s \u201cpimp tiger from around the way\u201d look is a fully realized character, but the tail is a little sad. Ciara Myst\u2019s look does not appeal to me. She talks a lot about her prosthetic in the Werk Room, but I didn\u2019t really see much of a three-dimensional change? Plus, the unattached back piece looks clunky, and the tongue doesn\u2019t read. Jane interprets the \u201cmacaw\u201d through a nonliteral dress. She looks gorgeous, and I\u2019m sure Ru is glad to see her giving full-bore glamour early in the competition. She knows how to play it. Myki\u2019s cheetah Mugler moment is totally fine \u2026 but dear God, am I writing \u201cfine\u201d about this queen a lot lately. Juicy\u2019s \u201cpangolin\u201d fit is glorious. Totally weird and beautiful, with tough armor. I loved getting to learn about her animal obsession \u2014 best of the night.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Jane gets spared the indignity of winning another challenge, which she totally should have won. I\u2019m assuming that the show just doesn\u2019t want to give her too much too soon. Instead, Juicy wins, which is bonkers. Briar, who was legitimately the worst in the challenge, is put in the bottom with Mandy, who is just the worst queen on the show at this point. It feels more like a mercy killing than a real critique of her performance. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything she could have done. The lip sync is to Lizzo\u2019s \u201cLove in Real Life.\u201d At the end of it, I wondered whether Ru would send them both home. Briar has better musicality, but she doesn\u2019t exactly set the world on fire. Mandy is frantic. At the end, Briar bumps into her and Ru looks displeased. But Briar makes it through! Congratulations, Briar. Hopefully, you\u2019ll get a better challenge next week.<\/p>\n

\u2022 It is notable to me that the girls are like, \u201cJuicy was amazing!\u201d Maybe she was better in the room? Also, something happened with Briar that was not aired, and I\u2019m curious to see if it is made public by the queens later. Sarah has a chat with the queens that\u2019s totally fine.<\/p>\n

\u2022 I profiled Sarah Sherman a few years back. Here\u2019s that<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2022 I really don\u2019t know what the answer to the early comedy challenge conundrum is, because the later-season ones (roast, speech, etc.) are enjoyable specifically because the queens have to write them themselves. But I do know that RDR Live needs to be retired. Maybe just go back to dueling sitcom sketches like Hot in Tuckahoe.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Juicy Love Dion is innovating in \u201cthings to post after the show\u201d and posting how she would have performed each lip sync on her Instagram. Very funny to be like \u201chere\u2019s how I would have sent these two bitches home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Gay thoughts from gay people: Canada\u2019s Drag Race finished up this week, ahead of U.K. vs. the World premiering soon. Eboni LaBelle, you will always be famous. A description of the show from one frustrated friend who would like to remain nameless: \u201cA group of mostly early outs on a U.S. season compete in nonsensical challenges where the judging is randomized. Eboni LaBelle was fabulous and I love Sami Landri.\u201d Harsh! But fair \u2026 nobody should be winning this show without ever having to compete in Snatch Game. For balance, my friend Noam loved the season, and here\u2019s his review: \u201cAnother unserious yet enjoyable season from the most inventive Drag Race franchise \u2014 fun challenges, competitive queens, and the correct top two. It was diminished by questionable judging across the board and a deserving but still incorrect winner pick.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Predicted top four: Jane, Nini, Vita, and Juicy.<\/p>\n

RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race<\/p>\n

Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows!<\/p>\n

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