TV Rucap: RuPaul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race: Episode 4 “I’m Just a Girl”

Welcome to our fourth and final recap of RuPaul’s Celebrity Dumpster Fire for Charity! It’s our last episode of a very short season, and while we cannot say we’ll miss the show, we will indeed miss the stilted lip syncs, the halfhearted werkroom entrance lines, and the manufactured emotional arcs that made this show so unique….ly bad.

I’m Daniel Trainor and my “RuPaul’s Celebrity Drag Race” name would, I think, be Little Miss Moonpie.

I’m Samuel F. Stone, and my drag name would be Alyssa Milan-hoe.

Let’s get into it, bitch.

DT: We meet our drag mentors for the episode: Alyssa Edwards, Monique Heart and Vanessa “Vanjie” Mateo. They hypothesize about who this week’s celebrities will be. Up first, it’s Phoebe Robinson!

SS: Finally a celebrity with real charisma on this GODdamn television show. Next, we have Madison Beer, who is 20 years old and appears to be a robot created to be hot.

DT: Madison tells us she hopes the show will “give people the realization that I’m a human being,” which is exactly what a hot robot would say.

SS: Our final celeb is Hayley Kiyoko who has long silver Ariana Grande hair and is very nervous to try drag because she’s a self described tom-boy. 

DT: RuPaul comes into the werk room and greets everyone from twelve feet away (a social distancing icon) and gives the girls their first challenge: old lady quick drag. 

SS: It’s the classic quick drag scramble as the girls grab wigs and sagging hip pads. No one knows how to do anything, and Alyssa is screaming makeup advice. A beautiful chaos.

DT: The girls perform cold reads from RuPaul’s Las Vegas Showgirl Drag Race Extravaganza or something. They’re all pretty sollid! But it’s a reminder that comedy is hard! Jokes are difficult! LIFE ISN’T A CAKEWALK, MADISON!

SS: Phoebe wins the challenge, and chooses Alyssa as her drag mentor. She pairs up Madison with Monique, and Hayley with Vanjie. Thank God we got the logistics out of the way because we absolutely have to talk about the biggest reveal of the episode. Daniel?

DT: Yes, of course! Madison reveals her grandpa is gay and immediately we’re all in love with him.

SS: Madison, a few Q’s: Is your grandfather single? Is he cool? Will he follow me on Instagram?

DT: Madison’s Beer gay grandpa doesn’t believe in social media, YOU FOOL. 

SS: I’ll never find love. 

DT: The girls pick their drag names next. Hayley, in a strange twist, says she would absolutely take a bullet for Queen Elizabeth and calls herself Queen Eleza Beth (get it???? I don’t!!!), Madison goes with Coral Fixation (again, she’s 20) and Phoebe names herself Cocotini (which is my favorite Applebee’s menu item).

SS: Alyssa asks Phoebe if she can walk in heels, and Phoebe reveals she can only walk in wedges. There is fire behind Alyssa’s eyes, but she does her best to teach Phoebe the art and science of 14 inch pumps (mostly by yelling at her).

DT: The queens are told they’ll be performing in a glam rock musical called “Dragzilla!” We get to the mainstage for a quick rehearsal and….wow, you would not know two of these girls are pop stars.

SS: The girls, it seems, have never heard of dancing which is incredible, and we are lucky enough to be able to watch them try, and fail, to figure out a step touch for twenty-five seconds before rehearsal is over and we head back into the werk room. 

DT: It’s time for the girls to get into drag make-up for the first time. Madison looks…100x worse? Hayley is actually pissed that she’s not prettier. And Phoebe looks great!

SS: To be fair, it would be hard to improve upon Madison’s face, which a team of Dutch engineers worked for years on perfecting. 

DT: Not only is Hayley bummed about her face, she’s nervous about the challenge. But, you know what they say, get your shit together because RuPaul’s got dinner reservations!

SS: The performance begins and uh…everyone is amazing, actually? Phoebe has been put into some spherical balloon dress which is unfortunate, but she makes up for it with her tight lip sync, Madison had some fun kicks in there, and Hayley, despite her nerves, blows everyone out of the water.

DT: She even played the drums! We know this because RuPaul leaned over to Michelle and said “she’s playing the drums.”

SS: We retire to the werk room where friends and family are brought in to see our celebs in drag for the first time. I was hoping to meet Madison’s gay grandpa, but instead we see her mom.

DT: Meeting Madison’s mom made everything about Madison fall into place. Madison continues to overuse the word “campy” to describe herself and the experience, a word she learned at a birthday party at The Abbey and is clinging to for dear life.

SS: We return to the runway for our final looks, and boy they do not disappoint. Phoebe inches slowly down the runway in some kind of yellow taxi cab disaster, Hayley, despite her love for Queen Elizabeth, appears in more of a Marie Antoinette fantasy, and Madison gives us spring, she gives us fashion, she is a supermodel, she is the moment, quite frankly.

DT: The final lip sync is also good! These girls actually are pop stars! Also, Phoebe was there! 

SS: Phoebe held her own against two girls who obviously have a lot of experience performing songs on stage, and it was hard to pick a clear winner. 

DT: On this night however, the Dope Queen is not the Queen Supreme and the title goes to Hayley Kiyoko, overcoming her nerves and the absolute dreadful fate of being a tom-boy.

SS: Crowning our final queen brings us to the close of this incredibly short and odd series of episodes of Drag Race. We’d like to thank you, the readers, for watching with us, all of the men and women who bravely tried on breast plates on national television, and of course RuPaul Charles and his demonic brain for coming up with this deranged and twisted concept!

DT: Let the music play!

Daniel Trainor is writer, podcaster, son and friend from Los Angeles, California. Originally from Michigan, his love for all things pop culture started early, once using pancakes to bribe his way onto the Oscars red carpet bleachers with his mother. In addition to writing for AwardsWatch, he is an huge sports fan and hosts the LGBTQ sports podcast “Same Team.” One day, he hopes Jane Krakowski will win an Emmy.

Sam Stone is a writer and actor based in Brooklyn, New York. He writes humor, culture, and travel among other things, and spends his free time reading about all those things. You can find him on twitter @sam_the_stone or on Instagram @samstone000.