Culture

“Sorry, what?”: Drag Race UK fans are saying the same thing about new episode

By Sam Damshenas

13th October 2023

Spoilers ahead.

Social media is brimming with praise for RuPaul’s Drag Race UK’s annual girl group challenge. However, one aspect of the episode has been met with confusion.

This week, the season five cast were split into two teams and were tasked with writing, recording and performing verses to an original track, titled ‘Don’t Ick My Yum’. (Grammy for ‘Record of the Year’ incoming.)

Cara Melle, DeDeLicious, Michael Marouli, Tomara Thomas and Vicki Vivacious formed ‘Team Fierce Force Five’, while the so-called “leftovers” consisted of Banksie, Ginger Johnson, Kate Butch and Miss Naomi Carter. A team of Northerners, the quartet named themselves ‘The M-52’s’.

After Team Fierce Force Five demolished the stage with a choreo-heavy routine, thanks to Cara, The M-52’s delivered a more comedic take on the 90s-inspired house-pop anthem as a result of Naomi’s knee injury from earlier in the episode.

This week’s runway saw the queens pay homage to pop icons: Cara as Beyoncé, DeDe as Nicki Minaj, Michael as the Spice Girls, Tomara as Elvis Presley, Vicki as Freddie Mercury, Banksie as David Bowie, Ginger as Elton John, Kate as Shania Twain and Naomi as Beyoncé.

The M-52’s were all declared safe, while Team Fierce Force Five were announced as the tops of the week. It was another non-elimination scenario, with the top two queens lip-syncing for one RuPeter Badge.

This was a welcome change from last year’s challenge, which saw RuPaul bestow six badges to the winning team, effectively stripping a challenge win of any sacredness in the process.

Frenemy roomies Cara and Tomara were deemed the top two of the week, and subsequently unleashed all the sickening tricks in their arsenal to Becky Hill and David Guetta’s dance smasher ‘Remember’. Ultimately, Cara sashayed away with her first maxi-challenge win.

From the challenge to the runway, the episode received unanimous praise from fans – check out the best reactions below.

Despite the aforementioned acclaim, the ‘outrageous’ decision to feature Sophie Ellis-Bextor as a guest judge and not feature one of her classics as the lip-sync number was met with overwhelming criticism.

From ‘Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)’ to ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’ and ‘Heartbreak (Make Me a Dancer)’, the pop icon’s discography features a plethora of fan-favourite floorfillers that would’ve made for an iconic lip-sync song.

“They have Sophie Ellis-Bextor right their and the lip sync song is a Becky Hill track,” said one fan.

Another wrote: “Sophie EB not getting a lip sync of one of her own songs is so offensive.”

See below for outrage.

Next week’s episode of Drag Race UK will see the queens star in “RuPaul’s Disaster Class”, with special guest judge Suranne Jones.