IMHO "RuPaul's Drag Race" (1.05): Drag School of Charm

After last week's dramatic episode of the reality competition we're down to five contestants, and last night's show gave us hot guest judge Lucy Lawless, a faux mother-daughter challenge, and a shocking elimination.

We have all the spoilers (plus the clip for part one of the episode) for you here, and head on over to LOGOonline for the rest of this week's emotional show.

*** SPOILERS FOLLOW ***

I have to confess that I've come late to this show. When I heard that Logo (which owns our site) was airing a reality competition about drag queens, I was ... not all that enthused. I guess I was expecting Maury-style exploitation, with crappy production values and a "let's-gawk-at-the-weirdos" vibe.

I was wrong. It turns out to be an affecting experience, and I found myself caught up in the drama and spectacle of what is actually quite a polished production ... okay, it's polished with Vaseline, but still.

This week's episode had the five remaining contestants (Nina Flowers, Bebe Benet, Ongina, Shannel, and the de facto "villain" Rebecca Glasscock) working with five women who could snap me like a twig with their pinky fingers.

The five ladies are all top-notch athletes who excel in sports like boxing, karate, and breaking the backs of snarky gay bloggers who better watch what they say about them.

The first challenge involves a work-out with the women, and includes having to punch those giant oven mitt thingies and then doing one of those push-up thingies, with the last queen standing winning the challenge. Ongina and Bebe quit after about thirty seconds, followed by Nina. It comes down to Rebecca (Boo! Hiss!) and Shannel (who just minutes earlier was overcome by the vapors and almost quit before she began), with Shannel finally conceding defeat and curling up into a ball on the floor.

Rebecca wins the challenge (and a pricey makeup collection) and gets first pick at elimination challenge partner.

This week's elimination challenge involves a makeover, of course, but here's where it gets a bit confusing. Each of the contestants is paired up with one of the ladies, and the challenge is to "makeover your girl-fighter partner into a real-life female version of your drag persona". Simple enough, until the rules change later, inexplicably.

The women recieve their makeovers, and my personal favorite is Sweetpea, who goes from Meshell Ndegeocello to one of the MaryJane Girls.

She's teamed up with Shannel, and they should have won, but they lose out to trampy looking Rebecca. Also safe (barely) is Nina, which means the bottom two are Bebe and last week's winner, Ongina.

Here's where I don't get what happened. Ongina is in the bottom two because it was a "mother-daughter" challenge, and it looked like she was confused about what to do. But the original challenge was to makeover her partner in her image, which is exactly what Ongina did. Of all the makeovers, Ongina's was the closest in resemblance (with the exception of Rebecca, but it's not hard to do a "skank" makeover).

The guest judges this week include the founder of The Pussycat Dolls (now there's a badge of honor), and the fabulous Lucy Lawless, who isn't given much to do. Bebe and Ongina have to lipsynch to keep from being eliminated, to the caterwauling of Britney Spears with the song Stronger.

Here's the most infuriating part of the episode ... Bebe starts spazzing out and whipping her head around til her wig flies off, which absolutely enchants the judges. Meanwhile, Ongina doesn't resort to such histrionics, and delivers a flawless performance.

After the song is over, Ru says, "this is the hardest decision we've made," and has to excuse herself. When she comes back, she tells Bebe, "you've shown me something I haven't seen before." Um ... the dead rodent on the floor? Bebe is safe, which means Ongina is eliminated.

WTF? So you have a seizure on the dance floor, and it's some kind of "statement"?

Anyway, we're now down to four. I'm giving this an arrow up because even though Ongina was robbed, I plan on coming back for the rest of this surprisingly addictive series (although, if I could give Ru one word of advice, it would be to tone down the Vaseline on the lenses. It's starting to enter "Lucille Ball in Mame" territory).

What did you think of this week's episode?