Entertainment Blog

First, apologies for the late blog. I was trapped north of the Wall (a.k.a. Canada) and the proprietor of the inn at which we stayed led me astray. I was told we would have HBO, and yet we did not. Given this flagrant violation of guest’s rights, I can only assume that the downtown Toronto Hilton is owned by none other than Lord Walder Frey.

Anyway, Sunday’s episode was arguably slow, but it was packed with interesting moments that advanced a great many storylines. And it also included what I think was a crucially important end sequence that gave us far more insight into The Big Bad than anything we’ve ever gotten on this show, or even in the books that inspired it.

I’ll try to get through this as quickly as possible, as there really is a lot to cover.

-In Essos, Missendei is teaching Grey Worm how to read, but what they are really both learning is how to love. Aw. Truly, these are two extremely tertiary characters, so the fact that they’re building up a romance between them is sweet, but given all the other arcs that need to be juggled… The scene did help to humanize Grey Worm, which was important since he led the assault on Meereen. This went down differently in the show than it did in the books, but the basic gist is that Grey Worm snuck into the city and gave the slaves a pep talk about rising up against their masters. Oh, and he gave them many, many knives. The revolt happened quickly, and Dany responded to the dead child signposts left by the Meereenese masters by nailing an equal number of the masters up around the city. Sir BarristanSelmy cautioned against this course of action, instead advising mercy. Sir BarristanSelmy is a wise man…

-Littlefinger and Sansa had a little boat chat en route to the Eyrie, in which Littlefinger continued to underscore that he, as well as Sansa, was complicit in the murder of King Joffrey. But it also served to show us that Sansa has learned quite a bit about guile and manipulation since she first arrived at King’s Landing. The naïve Sansa of Season 1 would never have been able to hold her own in this scene, whereas a post-LannisterSansa has been well schooled in the literal game of thrones. And don’t think that Littlefinger doesn’t know it -- or that it doesn’t excite him. This scene was important because we got a taste of Littlefinger’s limitless ambition. But in the books, these interactions happened in his homeland, an exceedingly modest pile of rocks covered in seabird shit. That helped to put Petyr in perspective. He has come from basically nothing to a man who can help murder the king and literally sail away with it. He is truly one of the most dangerous characters in the series.

-Meanwhile, the other conspirator in Joffrey’s death, Lady Olenna, had a great moment with her granddaughter, Margaery, in which she revealed her role in the deed. Olenna is leaving King’s Landing (BOO!) and wanted to make sure that Margaery was well on her way to truly becoming queen. That meant encouraging Marg to visit new king and instant Tiger Beat Westeros poster boy, Tommen. First, the new Tommen is great, and he’s just the right age to make Margaery’s late-night visit titillating for middle-school boys everywhere (Natalie Dormer should probably avoid “Thrones” slashfic for a while…), yet not creepy in a pedo-tastic way. Their shared scene was oddly sweet and hopeful, especially since it was 100 percent motivated by greed and manipulation. And that is why we love Margaery.

-After another sparring session with Bronn, Jaime finally visited Tyrion in prison and the two started planning their amazing brother act, The KingslayingLannisters. Kidding. In reality, Tyrion proclaimed his innocence, and Jamie believed him. Not that there is really anything Jaime can do about it, especially since Cersei continues to spiral into insanity, demanding four knights on Tommen’s door at all times and that Jaime bring her the head of Sansa Stark. Jaime reacted by giving Brienne his kickass Valyrian steel sword, a fancy new suit of armor, and also Podrick Payne as a squire, and tasking her with finding Sansa and keeping her safe. I wondered if the show was going a different route with Brienne, but this is very much in line with her book arc. Bringing Pod in now instead of later is actually a more elegant solution. The way everything was juxtaposed this episode also made it clear that Jaime sent them on this mission in part to keep them both out of Cersei’s crosshairs. Well played, show.

-But the big action of the night happened north of the Wall, where several storylines veered toward an intersection. The current command of the Night’s Watch turned down Jon Snow’s request to go to Craster’s Keep and silence the rogue Watchmen before Manse Rayder could pump them for information on the Watch’s defenses. After seeing how beloved Jon was by the men, they changed their tune, and decided to send Jon off to be killed by the bad brothers. And hey, they aren’t assholes -- Jon could take whoever volunteered to go with him. That included hot piece Grenn, some other guys, and Locke, a new Night’s Watch pledge who is played by the same actor who played Vargo Hoat -- the dude who de-handed Jaime back in S3. But I’m not sure if he’s actually supposed to be Vargo. He definitely doesn’t seem like he can be trusted.

Meanwhile, at Craster’s Keep, things have gone from awful to “Apocalypse Now: Medieval Times Edition.” The rogue brothers have gone basically feral, raping and beating Craster’s daughters. One of them, a character whose name I didn’t catch and who I’m not sure we ever saw before, seemed to be ruling the roost, boasting about his assassin’s cred and also DRINKING FROM THE SKULL OF JEOR MORMONT (that whole bit was ridiculously over the top, and I hated it). They had Ghost, Jon’s direwolf, kept prisoner, which is so off from the books that it makes my head spin. When one of Craster’s daughter-wives presented the Bad Boys of the Night’s Watch with Craster’s final son, the Brando wannabe sent forever bottom bitch Rast to do what Craster always did: leave it for the White Walkers.

The crying baby in the wilderness attracted the attention of Bran and his doom patrol. He warged into Summer to check out the action, and discovered Ghost in a cage just before Summer himself was caught in a trap. In short order, Bran and the rest of his entourage were captured by the mutinous Watchmen. Poor Hodor was stabbed by spears, Bran confessed his identity to the head crazy, and the Reed kids were deemed expendable. Jojen had one of his seer fits (aside: I read a great theory about Jojen and his physical weakness, and I am desperate to see if it turns out to be true). And then it was end scene.

A few notes on all this: absolutely none of this happened in the books. Jon and his group never returned to Craster’s Keep that I remember. Bran and his crew are never captured. The fact that Bran and Jon could conceivably see each other in the next episode or two is fascinating to me (same is true of Sansa and Arya, both of whom are on their way to the Vale). And I can’t say for sure that it won’t happen, because at this point they’re changing things considerably from the source material.

Like, say, that final, horrifying sequence in which a White Walker picked up the abandoned baby and took it on a dead pony ride to what can only be referred to as Ice Mordor. There the baby was placed on an altar surrounded by a ring of well-groomed ice-looking people -- possibly The Others, which are different from the White Walkers. One stepped forward, picked up the baby, pricked it in the face with its fingernail, and the baby’s eyes turned brilliant, crystalline blue.

That was SO interesting. The books have never showed readers too much about The Others/White Walkers. We just know that they come from the north, are ice-powered, and are effing terrifying. The show has just informed us that they aren’t just mindless zombies -- there is a civilization of some sort. They have a base of operations somewhere beyond The Wall. They don’t need people to be dead to transform them into…whatever the hell it is they become.

This is strictly speculation on my part, but I’ve long suspected that the real end game of the books (and the show) will have very little to do with King’s Landing, or the Iron Throne, or Dany and her dragons, or even The Others and The Wall. I think it’s really about two warring gods: R’hllor, the Lord of Light, and a yet-to-be-named god of ice/water/darkness. When you look at the large-scale conflicts or mysteries in the series, many of them can be tied to one or the other. All the fire magic -- what’s practiced by Melisandre and Thoros, the dragons, anything related to Valyria -- is linked to R’hllor. The Others, White Walkers, greyscale, is all linked to the ice/water god, which I suspect is probably the same one worshipped by the Iron Islanders (“The Drowned God”). I think the struggle between those two forces ultimately is what is shaping the “Game of Thrones” world on a large scale -- the seasons that can last for decades, the destruction of Valyria are all signs of a push and pull between those two powers. (And the book series IS called “A Song of Ice and Fire,” after all.)

The characters we follow are all teeny, tiny pawns in the grand cosmic scale, which I suppose is true of life in the real world. And obviously they will all play into the inevitable outcome of the story (I have another theory that we will eventually have contemporary analogues for every member of The Seven, weaving in that religion, which is all about the power of people).

So it was exciting for me, as a reader of the books, to get this glimpse into stuff we’re still waiting to see from George R. R. Martin. And we’ll apparently continue to wait, as a recent Rolling Stone article indicated that we won’t see Book 6 any time soon. Part of me wonders if that end sequence wasn’t a shot across Martin’s bow, underlining that, yes, the show really will go ahead and finish telling your story if you can’t be bothered to do so yourself. I would be very curious to know how he reacted to that end scene. I bet he wasn’t happy about it. But I sure was.

I AM STUNNNED. Sincerely. I am absolutely shocked by the events of tonight’s episode. I should clarify that 4/5 of the episode was fairly predictable -- the Adore redemption arc was blatantly telegraphed, as was Darienne tanking the challenge -- but the identity of the Bottom 2 and the eliminated queen really threw me for a loop. I consider this one of the more shocking eliminations in “Drag Race” history. Let’s discuss.

We were down to the Final 5: Adore Delano, Ben DeLaCreme, Bianca Del Rio, Courtney Act, and Darienne Lake. The mini-challenge was the by-now-familiar puppet-insult bit. All of the queens did well here, except for Courtney, who struggled in her parody of Darienne. While Ben won the challenge for his manic, mega-chompered version of Bianca, I thought Adore really slayed Ben with his impression. (The mini-challenge wins this season have seemed especially random to me.) Not that it matters: the “prize” for winning was assigning the queens colors for the main challenge, and the show didn’t even bother to show us that.

That main challenge was the annual “ball,” this one themed vaguely around glitter. Each queen had to create three looks. The first was banjee girl (for those not in the know, a banjee girl is that girl down at the corner, trying to get your man), executive realness (I love me some executive realness!), and bejeweled eleganza. The colors were assigned thusly, but they really had very little bearing on the actual results: Adore got diamonds, Ben got rose quartz, Bianca got sapphire, Courtney got ruby, and Darienne got topaz. On a purely stupid note, I’m surprised we had two red-colored jewels and not, say, emerald. But whatever.

In the work room Adore had a breakdown, crying to RuPaul that she’s trying to get back the momentum she had in the middle part of the competition. She was visibly struggling with letting Ru down week after week. With just about any other queen I might find this cloying or manipulative, but call me a sucker (*ahem*): I believed Adore to be quite genuine in that moment.

Meanwhile, Ben eyed Broadway costumer Bianca as the big threat for this challenge, and set a goal of snatching the win away from her. Bianca helped Adore create her eleganza look -- because Bianca really is the best -- and Darienne flailed mightily. You knew she was in the weeds when she abandoned her original dress and started on a whole new concept at what looked to be fairly late in the game. We saw almost nothing of Courtney in the work room, which I found odd for an episode with only five queens.

The queens were also thrown a “twist” when they had to perform a choreographed number to open the show. I use quotations marks because I believe that has been the case with almost all the ball episodes since Season 2. That’s not to dismiss the stress it puts on the queens -- that is a lot to accomplish in what appears to be a very short window. But the show really does need to freshen up its formula a bit. At least one of the competitors had to have seen this coming. Anyway, the bit was fine, and it was Darienne who actually stood out as the best of the bunch.

The same could not be said of her runway looks, each of which had serious problems. Darienne herself admitted that she missed the mark on almost every aspect of the challenge, and there’s just no denying that. She has struggled on the runway more often than not this season, and I feel for her. Big girls DO have it harder when it comes to finding couture-level frocks, and let’s just say it: Rochester is not renowned for its high fashion. Have you ever been to Ontario Beach Park in the summer? Have you seen what the people there are wearing? Lord Jesus, kill it with FIRE. Regardless, Darienne bombed this challenge and she knew it. Her place in the Bottom 2 was more or less assured, and not helped by every other contestant calling her out as the one who should go home. I thought she handled that situation extremely well in “Untucked,” and all that time I’ve been bitching about Darienne’s edit this season -- that was the lady I expected to see on this show. She admitted her failings, expressed a desire to do better, and was mature about the whole thing. There was no shade to be found there. But people are STILL going to hate her after this episode.

Adore won the challenge for several reasons. 1) Her banjee-girl outfit was totally perfect, and she sold it to the judges. 2) Her eleganza look was surprisingly strong. 3) She cried, showed vulnerability, and took Ru’s advice to heart, so of course she was going to be rewarded. That’s not to say she didn’t deserve the win. I believe she did. But I also think the show was laying it on just a tad thick. While the idea was good, the executive-realness look was pretty sloppy. And Michelle Visage even noted that she was tripping all over the place during the opening number.

Bianca was called safe, which had to be somewhat disappointing for her in a sewing challenge. I thought her banjee girl was a welcome change of pace for Bianca, and I thought the executive look was fine. I do agree with guest judge Bob Mackie’s disdain for Bianca’s eleganza gown. Great color, but all the ruffles were fussy and we have seen that silhouette way too many times from Bianca at this point. (That point came up several times this episode from several sources.) The other interesting note from Bianca was that Ben called her out for “sailing through” the challenges, which Bianca found offensive, as though it suggested that she wasn’t really trying. Ben apologized, but it was interesting to see how that barb really stuck in Bianca’s paw.

Courtney was also safe, but I argue that she should have been in the Bottom 2. Courtney totally missed on the banjee-girl outfit. That was more slutty 90’s co-ed or lot lizard at a Pearl Jam concert than banjee girl. Her executive outfit was great. I love that there’s always one girl with a cellphone. And I actually liked the eleganza look, which was quite dramatic, including the red face appliqué. But the judging panel was largely dismissive of it. Michelle Visage in particularly really seems to be gunning for Courtney now, and what I realized this episode is, Courtney’s done with it. The vibe I was picking up from her was someone who has listened to criticisms for weeks in a row, and is now realizing that nothing is going to make these people happy -- especially Michelle. She offers her rebuttal respectfully, and when that is shot down, Courtney just purses her lips and moves on. I can’t blame her. It must be exhausting going through that for basically a month straight.

And then, Ben. OK. Ben’s banjee-girl look was, I thought, fairly on point. To me it read like a 90’s hooker, but instead of a fur coat she used giant tulle sleeves. The business look was, as RuPaul noted, very Bette Midler in “Outrageous Fortune.” Again: a very specific reference, and she nailed it. And the eleganza outfit was basically DeLa’s showgirl look cranked up to 11. The main criticism was, “We’ve seen this from you before.” You’ve seen Bianca’s look before, many, many times. And DeLa did a better job amping up her personal style for this challenge than Bianca did, and yet Bianca was safe while DeLa was Bottom 2. This is not meant to be a swipe at Bianca, but to point out how baffling the judging was this episode (or really, the whole second half of this season).

To my mind, Courtney missed the mark on banjee, nailed executive, and got very mixed results for eleganza. Ben didn’t really bomb any of the looks. Her aesthetic just didn’t happen to be the taste of one or more of the judges. But to act like she failed the challenge? The show did a very poor job justifying Ben’s B2 placement.

So it was Ben and Darienne once again lipsynching for their lives, this time to “Stronger” by Kelly Clarkson. I thought Darienne came out, uh, stronger, but Ben caught up about halfway through. Darienne also sold the ending better. But this was Darienne’s third time in the B2. It is very rare that a queen lives to lipsynch a fourth time.

And yet, Darienne did -- Ben was eliminated. There was an audible gasp at the viewing party I attended (at O’Grady’s on Church in Toronto; dear bearded ginger bartender: you are very cute). I absolutely did not see that coming. No offense to Darienne -- I am thrilled that a hometown queen has made it to F4 -- but everything seemed to be pointing to her going home this episode. Beyond that, Ben has seemed like a lock for the finale since basically the first episode. She’s been in the top or won more than half of the episodes. I can’t think of another queen who has performed more strongly going out before a finale.

That’s what makes Ben’s boot really shocking. She has performed better than literally anyone left but Bianca. I honestly believe that. I can see why she lost that lipsynch against Darienne, who is very good at lipsynching. But I don’t think Ben should have been in the Bottom 2 to begin with. The prevailing wisdom has been that Ben was screwed this season because Jinkx won last year, and they’re too similar -- a point of view I have always rejected. Ben and Jinkx may be friends and from the same town, but they are very different queens with very different styles and strengths. In some ways, I actually think Ben is a stronger queen than Jinkx.

I certainly believe Ben deserved a spot in the S6 finale. To me, she’s right up there with Nina, Raven, Manila, Chad, and Alaska -- incredibly strong runners-up who had the misfortune of contending with someone who just had an edge over them. In this case, that’s obviously Bianca. But we are now looking at a finale with Bianca vs. Adore, Courtney, or Darienne. I like all of those queens. Seriously, every one of them. Ben winning I could have accepted. Adore, Courtney, or Darienne? Great queens, but their performances this season have been VERY mixed. If anyone but Bianca wins at this point I suspect it is going to enrage fans of this show.

I’m fairly sure Ben’s dismissal will already have done that. Let’s get “All Stars 2” going so that Ben can get another shot at the tiara. In the meantime, I love that she left a novella on the mirror using what I assume is all of the ColorEvolution lipstick in the work room. I fear for Darienne’s shoulder and elbow when cleaning that up…

Well, that was a hoot. The drag-daughter makeover episodes are almost always a delight, and I thought this one was especially wonderful -- it may even eclipse the previous benchmark, Season 3’s spectacular “Jocks in Frocks.” My viewing party was howling with laughter every few minutes. This is truly such an endearing, funny, likable bunch of queens. What I think pushes Season 6’s entry over the top is that in addition to the usual fun to be found with queens initiating novices into the world of drag, the episode also included some legitimately touching moments from the wedding ceremony.

That’s right, the task this episode was to create not only drag daughters, but drag brides. The six remaining queens -- Adore Delano, Ben DeLaCreme, Bianca Del Rio, Courtney Act, Darienne Lake, and Joslyn Fox -- were first introduced to six women who were about to be married to their future husbands by ordained minister RuPaul. Bianca, who won the art-themed mini-challenge, was allowed to pair a queen with a bride, and she did so as straightforwardly as possible. But there was a twist: the queens wouldn’t be making over the women. They would be making over their male fiancés, and the queens would have to rock a mother-of-the-bride look.

As usual, we’ll break it down queen by queen, highest to lowest.

Bianca Del Rio won the challenge -- her third main-challenge win -- further cementing her place as the frontrunner of the season. Bianca and her daughter had a clear resemblance (the daughter actually gave me shades of Tammie Brown), they had an adorable rapport, and they both looked terrific. Bianca continues to be flawless. In a season stocked with very competitive queens, she continues to be the alpha female.

Ben DeLaCreme is right up there, though, and Ben arguably had a tougher challenge this time with her bearded bride-to-be. The gown Ben created for her drag daughter was quite lovely, but similar in some ways to the dress Ben created for the first challenge of the season (but as Courtney pointed out, Bianca’s gown was awfully familiar looking, too). Still, I’m glad to see that Ben has recovered from her downhill slide a few weeks back, if Ben was ever truly struggling at all. You can’t take any of these edits for granted this season.

Courtney Act is proof of that. Courtney had a terrible edit this episode. I’m hard pressed to think of a moment where she wasn’t portrayed as catty, dismissive, or full of herself. And call me naïve, but I just don’t think that’s Courtney. She has demonstrated way too much self awareness both on and off the show to be that unrelentingly negative. It also doesn’t jibe with the edit she was given in the first half of the season. It is absolutely true that the soundbytes being used came out of Courtney’s mouth, but a) context, or the lack thereof; and b) yeah, Courtney says some bitchy things. She is a drag queen. "Bitch" is their native language. Even the sweetest queens on this show throw a disparaging remark now and then. But for whatever reason, Courtney is currently being given the shady bitch crown -- although it looks like Bianca may be snatching up her bobby pins to secure it in place on her own head. All that said, I was surprised Courtney wasn’t in the Bottom 2 this week. She had arguably the butchest dude to transform, and while she did what she could, the dress was uninspiring and slightly half-assed (three-quarters assed?). Courtney also made the huge mistake of upstaging the bride herself in a gorgeous butterfly dress. I get why she wore it on the runway, but it only served to flip the assignment. Courtney looked the bride, her dude looked like the mother, and that enraged Michelle Visage. Based solely on the judges’ comments I was sure she was in the bottom.

Darienne Lake came in toward the bottom of the pack, and I disagree with that. I thought she definitely did better than Courtney. I will concede that Darienne’s own runway look left quite a bit to be desired -- she has not brought her sense of style to the runway the way I expected. I’ve seen her wear some really impressive drag. But she absolutely killed it with her goth bride, who looked great, had great chemistry with both Darienne and her actual partner, and seemed to be having the time of her life. (Darienne’s couple was obviously made up of “Drag Race” superfans, based on all the injokes they put into their wedding vows.) Guest judge Neil Patrick Harris was having none of Darienne’s approach and I suspect he’s a big reason Darienne was toward the bottom. For what it’s worth, Darienne said at her viewing part last week that she did not care for NPH at all, and that she gave him some lip on the runway -- which we did not see. I will say that I felt Harris to be curiously low energy on that panel; he did not come off well (his husband, David Burtka, fared better). A last note on Darienne: the editors now seem determined to establish a Bianca/Darienne rivalry, and I’m not buying that one either. It’s clear that all of the remaining queens genuinely liked each other. But apparently there has to be drama. I wish that wasn't the case. Why not let six great queens who respect each other just interact with each other? Why create these forced feuds? Disappointing.

Adore Delano was also a disappointment this episode. I quite like Adore, but she showed just how limited her skill set is in this challenge. Not knowing how to sew is one thing -- it’s still stupid given that this is Season 6 of this show, and you KNOW that’s going to come up. But Adore did not present either herself or her drag daughter well here. Adore wore a flat wig and a dress that I am almost positive we’ve seen her wear before, and none of it read “mother of the bride.” Her partner, who was as much of a loose cannon as Adore herself, looked awful. Possibly the worst makeover in this show’s history. They called the look “punk bride,” but really it was sloppy shit thrown together in a desperate attempt to look intentionally sloppy. Didn’t work. And make-up skills…lord. Adore’s drag daughter looked like a member from Cry-Baby’s gang. A low-rent Hatchet Face, if you will.

Joslyn Fox also had make-up issues with her makeover, as her bride had poorly blended foundation, eyelashes that really didn’t work, etc. Joslyn herself looked great and appropriate to the mother-of-the-bride aspect of the challenge. But her partner was compared to Greta Gremlin, and it’s hard to argue that point. The poor guy is a basketball player and worried seriously about what his teammates might say about his appearance in drag. I’m honestly not clear on why he agreed to do this in the first place. But he pushed through and did the best job he could (minus the vomit interruption that had me missing Willam), and did seem to make some great strides as a straight ally.

Joslyn and Adore had to lipsynch to “Think” by Aretha Franklin, which is not a natural fit for either queen (but a great song nonetheless). Joslyn tried to respect the energy of the song, while Adore just threw herself into the performance. I appreciated that, but did not appreciate her removing her heels, which is a big no-no in a lipsynch. Ultimately Joslyn was told to sashay away, which made me sadder than expected. Joslyn and Adore both figured they would be lipsynching, based on the footage shown in “Untucked,” so I’m guessing Joslyn’s critique was harsher than what they showed. But, like Trinity last week, this felt like someone getting the axe because her “arc” is finished, not necessarily based on the work in this episode. But maybe I’m off base on that.

Programming note: Next week's blog may be up a day late as I will be in Toronto until Tuesday morning. Unless someone knows a good gay bar in Toronto that screens the episodes live. And preferably is frequented by attractive, burly, available men. Help a brother out.

Like Eric Rezsnyak's recaps? Follow him on the Twitters: @ericrezsnyak.

Following last week’s gamechanger -- the death of King Joffrey -- this episode was a quieter affair that focused on many of the characters scrambling for position. That said, it still built to several harrowing scenes in some of the far-flung plotlines, and a good old-fashioned orgy back home in King’s Landing.

Let’s start in the capitol, where things picked up immediately after Joffrey’s gruesome demise. Ser Dontos, the disgraced former knight turned fool, spirited Sansa away just in time, before Cersei -- now crazier than ever! -- ordered the guards to shut down the city and bring Sansa before her. Dontos dragged Sansa to a remote shoreline and rowed her out to a waiting ship owned by Lord Baelish, a.k.a. Littlefinger -- or just Petyr, as he prefers Sansa to call him. Littlefinger quickly explained that the necklace Ser Dontos gave her was in fact the hidden receptacle for the poison that killed Joffrey, and that Dontos had been working for Littlefinger. Sansa was confused by all of this, and then horrified when Littlefinger gave Dontos his “payment” in the form of a half dozen crossbow bolts that turned him into a human pincushion.

In the books, the Dontos/Sansa relationship was much better established. She had started to trust him, and look at him as her only real shot of getting out of King’s Landing alive. She thought of them as a modern reincarnation of an old bard’s tale, Florian the Fool and the maiden Jonquil. So it was arguably more of a shock to her when she discovered that Dontos had been working for Littlefinger all along, for Littlefinger’s specific purposes. We’ll get more into that next episode, I’m sure. In the meantime, the good news for Sansa is that she’s out of King’s Landing for the first time since literally early Season 1. The bad news is that everyone thinks she had a hand in regicide, and the only person who knows otherwise is a master gameplayer. Good luck, Sansa!

Actually, at least one other person knows that Sansa was an unwilling accomplice in Joffrey’s death: Lady Olenna, the Queen of Thorns. That’s because it was Olenna who actually poisoned the little shit. The show did not make this explicit, but most viewers put it together after scrutinizing the shots from last week’s episode. Olenna grabbed the purple “jewel” from Sansa’s necklace while fidgeting with her hair and, at some point when everyone’s attention was on Joffrey and Tyrion, slipped it in his cup, or possibly the wine decanter. She has yet to reveal this to her granddaughter Margaery, who is freaked out by watching her second husband die in such a brutal manner, and is pissed that she keeps marrying duds and has yet to become queen. Olenna assured her that her position is better now than it would have been had she had to live with a creep like Joffrey, and pointed out that the Lannisters still need Highgarden’s money and food as much as ever.

So cue Bachelor No. 3, because Joffrey’s death means there’s a new king: Joffrey’s kid brother Tommen, who has been recast and rapidly aged to, I’m guessing, around 12. I believe Tommen in the books is still very much a boy, not even a tween. (Did they have tweens in medieval times? I guess 15 would have been middle-aged then…) But in both portrayals he is sweet, considerate, and timid -- basically the opposite of his older brother. Lord Tywin wasted no time explaining to Tommen that though he is now king, the best thing he can do is shut up and basically let Tywin run the show. And Tywin did all of that while literally standing over Joffrey’s corpse and saying explicitly what a shitty king he was. Tommen seemed to get the message, and by the way, Tywin wants him to understand why he needs a wife, and what he will need to do with her. Imagine having The Talk with your grandfather -- your totally scary, emotionally dead grandfather -- and you can see how screwed poor Tommen is.

Speaking of screwed, Jaime and Cersei had a horrifying scene where Cersei instructed Jaime to murder Tyrion (she is absolutely convinced that Tyrion killed Joffrey), and then recoiled in horror when Jaime tried to comfort her and touched her with his fake hand. Jaime responded in the worst possible way by raping his sister in the middle of a church, right next to the corpse of their dead child. This was uncomfortable to watch and I suspect all of the audience’s sympathy for Jaime was wiped out in an instant.

On the other side of the sex coin, we got an intimate moment with the Red Viper (Oberyn Martell), his paramour Ellaria Sand, and at least three prostitutes, a mix of male and female. They are really driving home the Dornish Indiscriminate Sexy Time Hour, with Oberyn literally telling the male whore that the point of life is to have as much sex as you can before you’re too old for people to want to sleep with you. It is a lovely worldview, and I am going to embrace it. Unfortunately, TywinLannister crashed the party, and he is the definition of “boner killer” (again: poor Tommen). Tywin gave Oberyn a half-court press about any role he could have had in killing Joffrey, but mostly wanted to ask Oberyn to sit as one of the three judges in Tyrion’s trial, and also to serve on Tommen’s Small Council. Oberyn questioned why Tywin would trust a man who obviously hates his guts -- they discussed The Mountain’s role in Oberyn’s sister’s death -- and Tywin impressed us all by being the first person to have a grasp on all of the various threats that are poised to destroy Westeros at any given second (wildlings at the Wall, Iron Islanders plundering the coast, Stannis pursuing the throne, and oh yeah, Dany and DRAGONS!). I have been suspecting that the show was going to take a very different route with the Red Viper than the books, and this scene offered more evidence to that effect. They’re really building Oberyn up nicely.

Tyrion, meanwhile, sat in his cell, and was visited by his squire, Podrick Payne. Pod gave him an update on the impending trial, and dropped a few nuggets: nobody knows anything about Shay, Sansa bailed (though Tyrion believes her to be innocent), Bronn is not allowed to see Tyrion, and Tyrion knows that this is a frame job perpetrated by someone who wanted him out of the way. The scene also allowed Tyrion to order Pod to leave King’s Landing before someone could kill him for not testifying against Tyrion. I hope that Pod listens, because I would prefer that the adorable sex machine not end up with his head on a pike.

Further afield, The Hound and Arya came upon a kindly farmer who offered them hospitality, and then lived to regret it after The Hound screwed him over and stole his money. On Dragonstone, Stannis learned of Joffrey’s death and Davos had a “Eureka!” moment while enjoying storytime with Shireen. At the Wall, Sam tried to take Gilly and her baby to the whore enclave of Molestown, where he assumed they would be safe should the Wildlings attack. Good luck with that, because Ygritte and her south-of-the-Wall crew slaughtered a town full of farmers and sent a child witness to report about it to Castle Black. The Night’s Watch is, thankfully, not made up entirely of morons, so they knew that the Wildlings were trying to draw them out into open combat. Unfortunately their resolve crumbled when two of their brothers returned from north of the Wall, where they had been held captive by the Watchmen who mutinied at Craster’s Keep. Jon Snow proved that he does know SOMETHING when he realized that as soon as the Wildling army hits Craster’s, the ex-Watchmen are going to tell them how poorly defended the Wall currently is. This is a plot point that I don’t believe ever happened in the books, and I’m curious why they’re complicating a fairly straightforward arc like this.

One place where I think the show is improving on the books is Daenerys’ story arc. Around this point in the novels Dany’s plot starts to get really repetitive and, frankly, boring. But I loved the sequence this episode, with her army finally reaching the gates of Mereen. After a one-one-one battle of champions outside the gate (New Daario did a fine job here, and sincerely I do not think Original Recipe Daario could have pulled off that scene convincingly), Dany gave an impassioned plea to the slaves of Mereen and made her “assault.” That consisted of catapulting barrels filled with broken slave collars over the city walls, where they exploded all around the Mereenese slaves. The episode ended bluntly, with one of the slaves picking up a broken collar and turning to look at his petrified master. Well done, show. And Emilia Clarke is so effing good in that role.

That said, the star of the episode to me was Charles Dance as Tywin Lannister. He’s a great actor, and had some juicy material this episode. As Tyrion put it, Tywin never fails to capitalize on a family tragedy. And that is why we love and recoil from him. But I do not want him to talk to me about sex. Let’s leave that to Oberyn Martell.

Tonight’s episode of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” featured an absolutely packed panel. In addition to Ru, Michelle Visage, Santino Rice, and guest judges Chaz Bono, Georgia Holt (Cher’s mom), and Paula Abdul, we had the invisible producers who manipulated the top and bottom finishers, leading to one of the more outrageous eliminations we’ve seen on this show in quite a while. So let’s strap in and suck it up.

Speaking of strapping and sucking, the mini-challenge was “Hung Man,” in which the remaining seven queens -- Adore Delano, Ben DeLaCreme, Bianca Del Rio, Courtney Act, Darienne Lake, Joslyn Fox, and Trinity K. Bonet -- had to guess words based on clues and the letters that appeared on the finely toned buttocks of the expanded Scruff Pit Crew. Yes, you guys -- there were like a dozen Pit Crew members all standing there in just their underwear, and it was a beautiful sight. They’re multiplying! Like mogwai exposed to water after midnight! Can I take a few of them home? I’ll be gentle. I promise. (I’m lying.)

Ben DeLaCreme won the challenge, although I’m not sure what the prize was. (Eyelashes? I can’t remember. Pecs. Abs. Chest hair. Sausage casings. These are things that were demanding my attention.) Bottom line -- although maybe some of them were tops, I don’t know their lives -- this was a thoroughly enjoyable challenge and the queens were all hilarious. Well done, show. More Expanded Scruff Pit Crew, please! (Scruff founder Johnny Scruff also did a very good job as a brand ambassador. Take notes, douchebag from Absolut.)

The main challenge saw the limited-edition return of the late, lamented “RuPaul Show,” the talk show Ru had on VH1 for a few seasons with Visage as her second banana. I actually loved that show as a teenager. The queens had to act as fill-ins for Ru and interview Chaz Bono and Georgia Holt. I was surprised by how many of the queens seemed to struggle with this. (I say “seemed” because I attended the viewing party hosted by Darienne Lake, and she said that her interview segment went WAY better than editing suggested -- I can believe that given the shitty edit she’s been given the past few weeks. I also suspect some of the other queens did better than what we were shown.)

I’ll break down the performances queen by queen, along with an evaluation of their runway looks. This week’s runway theme was “animal kingdom,” which some of the queens rocked and some totally ignored or misinterpreted.

Adore Delano was one of the queens that seemed to miss the “animal” memo. She looked better than usual -- her runway has improved significantly over the past few challenges -- but did not read “animal” at all. She had a glittery mouth cage (striking, but irrelevant to the challengel), a skintight leather catsuit, and a kind of raggedy wig. Her talk-show performance was similarly lukewarm. She was obviously nervous and didn’t seem to be grasping the answers Holt in particular was giving her. It came off as ignorant airhead, and not in the knowing, fun way that Adore has nailed in the past.

Ben DeLaCreme returned to form this week, after two weeks of getting a (frankly implausible) underdog edit. Ben was strong in the talk-show challenge, being both personable and attentive. She killed the runway with a fly/beetle-inspired look that really commanded attention, regardless of whether she was on two feet or four. I personally felt that DeLa should have won this challenge, but the show probably wants to spread the wealth around a bit. Michelle apparently decided that Ben dressed as a bug was what she needed to show the “real Ben,” so I guess that stupid “character” critique is now a thing of the past. I suppose I’m glad about that, but it never made any sense to begin with. (Ben is a drag queen, so, you know, I kind of expect him to be playing a character and wearing costumes all the time.) I’d also like to point out that Ben made some pretty blunt comments about Joslyn at the top fo the episode. I’m curious to see how fans react, because Ben has been shown as one of the “nice queens” thus far, and yet anyone who dares to say anything remotely negative about Joslyn has been vilified. Will people turn on DeLa? I hope not.

Bianca Del Rio did not do well in the challenge, which is arguably the first time this season she has not excelled at anything thrown at her. Bianca wasn’t terrible, but (allegedly) focused too much on Chaz and not enough on Georgia. On the runway, Bianca blessedly gave us a very different look, opting for a cheetah-inspired frock and body paint. I was glad to see it, as Bianca -- though always gorgeous -- was staring to get a little samey-samey to me. I barely recognized her this week.

Courtney Act won the challenge, and I am struggling with that. I like Courtney. I defend her fairly consistently. (Most of the anti-Courtney people I have found tend to be boosting Joslyn, and the two of them have had basically the same level of performance but VERY different expectations. Joslyn has benefited from this, while Courtney has suffered.) I thought Courtney was good or better this challenge. She was very polished and professional in the interview, and you could tell that the subjects were engaged by it all. But I thought her energy level was way too low for a talk-show gig. She wasn’t bubbly or bright or charming, she was just being a good listener and asking decent questions. Again, a solid performance.Top 3, based on the competition. But win? I don’t see it. It’s possible that her stunning eagle runway pushed her over the top. That’s an iconic look, for sure. But I think Ben’s insect was right up there, and Ben’s challenge performance was stronger. But Courtney needed a win at this stage to justify her continued place in the competition leading up to the finals. I just wish the producer manipulation wasn’t so obvious.

Darienne Lake was fine in the challenge, although she did come off as nervous in the sections they showed us. But she did seem to have a rapport with Georgia at the very least, while Chaz was giving her basically nothing with which to work. (Darienne did not seem like a fan of Chaz’s based on the comments at the viewing party.) The runway look was Babar Couture and I thought it was a successful interpretation of the theme.

Joslyn Fox was a bomb across the board this episode. Her performance in the challenge literally led to multiple facepalms on my end, with cringe-inducing references to Cher coming out of and delivering babies from vaginas and then making at least two pointed references to abortions. Painfully bad, and the “wonk wonk” titty thing seemed totally out of place in this context. When your breast grabs are more offputting than abortion jokes, you know you are in trouble. Joslyn also came out on the runway wearing something that had no discernible connection to animals, made a point of showing her ass once again, and also gave us a look at her “meaty tuck.” (Note to self: new blog name.) It was bad. Across-the-board bad. There is absolutely no question that Joslyn should have been in the Bottom 2, and probably going home. But she didn’t even have to lipsynch, and I hope she sent a nice fruit basket to the producers, because that was all blatant behind-the-scenes manipulation. I like Joslyn, but at this point, her continued presence in this competition is becoming a problem. Not only has she yet to win a challenge, but she’s not taking notes from the judges (surprise: another largely naked runway look) and she is outliving queens who have put in overall better quality of work. The crowd at the bar at which I watched the show was stunned that she survived this episode.

Trinity K. Bonet, meanwhile, got totally boned. Granted, Trinity blew the challenge. Her dull speaking voice put her at an automatic disadvantage, and she didn’t seem to have much of a rapport with Chaz or Georgia. Most egregiously, she kept referring to Chaz as “Chad,” which…no. Terrible mistake. But the runway look was absolutely sickening, a kind of glamour pheasant (note to self: another possible blog name) that was regal and sexy at the same time.

I don’t disagree with Trinity ending up in the Bottom 2. Forgetting your guest’s name is a colossal talk-show faux pas. But the fact that she was put up against Adore to lipsynch to Paula Abdul’s “Vibeology”? Total bullshit. (Both the song, and the decision.) Adore wasn’t great tonight, but Joslyn was worse in every possible way. The only ] explanation comes down to producer-driven storylines. This was Trinity’s third appearance in the B2. It is very rare indeed for a queen to escape that lipsynching black hole. My guess is that they wanted to shake Adore up a bit, since she was clearly one of this season's darlings (understandable -- I’ve grown quite fond of Adore over the past month or so), and also to show the viewing audience how she could perform in a LSFYL. But I don’t think Adore had any real danger of going home this week. Trinity was basically marked for death from the get-go. Had it been the equally expendable (in the producers’ eyes) Joslyn, however, Trinity MIGHT have lived another week. But against a favorite like Adore? Nope. Trinity sending Adore home doesn’t fit in with the increasingly obvious plan for the season.

I’m not saying that Adore did poorly in the lipsynch. She actually acquitted herself better than expected, and had a few great moves. But the edit of the battle obviously favored her, so we don’t know what Trinity was actually serving. Given Trinity's previous two lipsynchs, this was a fairly tepid affair for her. I also noted that few of the remaining queens chimed in with talking heads on who was winning. That’s telling.

So, Trinity sashayed away, and Adore stayed. Trinity was extremely classy in her exit, which is not surprising. That queen has had such an interesting arc on this show. I dismissed her out of hand at first. She impressed with her runways. She annoyed with her work-room attitude but pulled through in the challenges. She wowed us with her lipsynchs and then came roaring back with two terrific performances in the commercial and comedy challenges. And on “Untucked” she alternated between frustrating self doubt and surprisingly mature insights into the other queens.

I’m so glad we got a chance to get to know Trinity, and I think this season was stronger for having her as part of it. Good on Ru and the show for championing such a surprising queen. But that’s why it’s all the more frustrating to see her dropped so bluntly when the storyline dictated it, even though the performances didn’t back that up (see also: Carrion, April). That’s the danger of introducing viewers to such a great bunch of contestants. We’re not stupid. We see what you’re doing. If you want to be upfront about it, that’s fine. But let’s not pretend we don’t know exactly what happened tonight.

Next episode: weddings, makeovers, Neil Patrick Harris, and allegedly some serious runway shade.

You would think that at some point, these people would stop throwing elaborate wedding ceremonies/receptions and just settle for an intimate civil service and an after-party at Shoney’s. Think of all the money that would be saved, and the number of dead Westerosi kings that would still be around.

Yes, folks -- Joffrey is dead. Last night I got a text from my best friend expressing disbelief. But he’s dead. Dead dead deadski. Afterlife kids. The victim of what is referred to by fans of the books as “The Purple Wedding.” That is one of the events -- but only one -- that happen toward the end of Book 3 that help to balance the scales of justice a bit after the seemingly endless campaign of terror that has consumed the Starks since the beginning of the story. So the Lannisters were dealt a massive blow this week, but brace yourselves: it is only the first of many to come.

Here’s what else went down this episode, along with some thoughts on how things are differing from the book. Spoilers ON!

-Bran Stark still exists! I had completely forgotten about him last week, I will be honest. Bran, the Reeds, and Hodor continued their trip north of the Wall, in an attempt to seek out the mysterious three-eyed crow from Bran’s dreams. They are cold and starving and miserable, and worse, Bran keeps shifting his mind into Summer, his direwolf. His companions warned Bran that wargs can get lost in that kind of mindplay, and cautioned him to stay rooted in reality.

However, Summer led Bran to a weirwood tree. When he touched it, he experienced an intense vision with flashes of the past, present, and future. Someone is going to have to Zapruder that footage, but I saw a few interesting things -- Ned Stark, the Iron Throne covered in either snow or ash (I believe Dany had a similar vision in S2), and a monstrous dragon shadow flying over what looked like King’s Landing (I hasten to point out that it looked like only ONE dragon, not three). Bran also heard a voice telling him to find him beneath a tree.

Bran’s storyline is about to pick up significantly. Although I believe at this point in the books, that party had another member who joined them right on the other side of the Wall and who has yet to appear in the show. He would be difficult to execute on TV, he’s mysterious as all hell (even in the books we don’t know who/what it is -- but there are plenty of theories), and I desperately hope he pops up soon.

-Over at the Dreadfort, Reek -- nee Theon Greyjoy -- continued his new life as a human dog serving the thoroughly deranged Ramsay Snow. Ramsay and his equally sadistic galpal went on a little hunt, stalking and then murdering a poor girl in the woods. Reek joined them. Then Ramsay’s dad, Roose Bolton, came back from the Red Wedding at the Twins and gave us a crash course on why Ramsay is so deeply fucked up: Roose is cold, calculating, and vicious to his son.

These scenes basically served to show us how broken Theon is, to establish that Roose knows that the youngest Starks are still alive, and to put Ramsay to work taking back Moat Cailin from the Iron Borne. None of this stuff happened in the books. Theon is gone for the entirety of Book 3, and when he returns in Book 4 he has been turned into even more of a shell physically and mentally -- his torture in the books is excruciating to read. The Moat Cailin plotpoint is brought up in the books, but I don’t believe Ramsay had anything to do with it. My fear is that they’re going to move Yara to that plotline and jettison her story arc, which is totally separate from everything else but really cool in a lot of ways. But I truthfully expect the show to ignore most of the more far-flung arcs in Book 4.

-On Dragonstone, Stannis Baratheon and the Red Priestess threw a barbecue -- specifically they burned heathens at the stake. Among the victims was Stannis’s own brother-in-law, who refused to turn his back on the Seven in favor of the Lord of Light. Stannis’s wife, Selyse, showed just how full-blown nutty she is (the theme of this episode was “Extremely Crazy People”) by watching her own brother go up in flames with a kind of relief. She also told Stannis that she wanted to start beating their daughter, Shireen, but Stannis is having none of that. Instead he sent the Red Priestess to talk to her.

Again, none of this happened in the books (well, the Red Priestess burning people happens -- quite a lot, actually). Stannis and his crew are almost totally out of the picture until the end of Book 3. What particularly interests me is that the writers seem to be focusing Melisandre’s attention on Shireen’s grayscale, the disease that has left parts of her skin like rock. Grayscale is repeatedly brought up in the book, and it clearly has some larger context -- I believe it’s going to be associated to either the Lord of Light or the Drowned God in the end. I wonder if we’ll find out its larger implications on the show before we ever see them in the books. Because Mel sure seems interested in Shireen’s affliction…

-As usual, the major action of the episode happened in King’s Landing, with Joffrey marrying Margaery. I was honestly stunned that the wedding went down this episode. I thought for sure they’d stretch that out a little longer. But after a brief ceremony, a lavishly filmed reception saw Joffrey repeatedly acting like a sadistic bastard (which he literally is), Cersei picking fights with both Pycelle and Margaery, Oberyn essentially putting the Lannisters on notice, Jaime making it clear to Loras that he will not marry Cersei, and the Queen of Thorns having an intimate chat with Sansa.

That last part is on what people should focus. In last week’s recap I mentioned that the show changed some elements of the Dontos/Sansa scene. Specifically, Dontos gave her a necklace instead of a hairnet, as he did in the books. Regardless, Sansa wore that gift to the wedding -- and the Queen of Thorns fussed with Sansa’s hair shortly before Joffrey drank the poisoned wine. In the books, Sansa later notices that one of the purple jewels in her hairnet is missing, and the reader at least (possibly Sansa) realizes that she was basically the vector for the poison that killed Joffrey. In the show, I watched Sansa’s necklace like a hawk, and I never saw any of the jewels on it go missing. They all seemed to be there, even after the Queen of Thorns walked away. So I’m not sure if they’re going a different direction with Joffrey’s poisoner or what. But Cersei accused Tyrion of the crime in what is essentially her first step to full-blown lunacy. Yes, if you thought Cersei was nuts before, just you wait. She is about to become unhinged and it is going to get CRAZY.

Remember last week, how I said that the Jaime/Cersei scenes made no sense? This is why they made no sense. In the books, Jaime and Brienne arrive at King’s Landing after Joffrey’s wedding; Joffrey was already dead. A grieving, bonkers Cersei rejects Jaime because he was not there to protect their son. That is the wedge that drives the two of them apart, and it makes more sense than, “You took too long to come back from being held hostage.” Similarly, last week it was weird that Brienne didn’t even speak to Sansa even though she had been sworn to find her for Catelyn Stark. But again, Sansa was out of King’s Landing before Brienne ever arrived -- Brienne never interacts with Sansa. (Speaking of, the exchanges between Brienne and Margaery suggest to me that Brienne will be grafted on to the Marg plotline on the show, instead of Brienne’s own story as she has in the books. I’m OK with that, mostly because the Brienne storyline has a very upsetting ending.)

That is a bit of a spoiler to say that Dontos is indeed taking advantage of the post-wedding chaos to spirit Sansa out of King’s Landing. But why he’s doing it, and who he’s working for, I will leave to next week’s episode to reveal. Some other thoughts:

-The Bronn/Tyrion/Shay scene was difficult to watch, but also very interesting because at this point in the books I am fairly sure that Bronn is no longer in King’s Landing. He gets married off, has his own land holdings, and more or less retires with what passes for a happy ending in Westeros. Bronn still being in the capitol while Tyrion is imprisoned somewhat complicates that plotline. I’ll be curious to see how they address that.

-Last season I expressed surprise at how the show was portraying Shay, given that she has some really complicated material coming up in the next chunk of story. I feel like the show has done a fairly good job setting all of that up at this point. If you think she really got on that boat, you’re nuts.

-The discussion between Queen of Thorns and Tywin about the Iron Bank wanting its due was a smooth way of introducing a subplot that will apparently be far more important in the show than it was in the books, based on the well-known actor cast for the part.

-This episode was written by George R. R. Martin himself, the author of the “Song of Ice and Fire” novel series. So all of those little things that seemed so little -- like the grayscale thing I mentioned -- are maybe not so little after all. Martin is a master of seeding small details that grow into huge plot points. That said, I wish he would stop writing episodes of this show and FINISH THE GOD DAMNED BOOKS, GEORGE. Seriously!

It’s a testament to this show that Monday night’s two-hour extravaganza flew by with a quickness. (It would have been three hours, but the bar where I was watching decided it was more important to blare Pink’s “Raise Your Glass” than it was to turn up the volume for “Untucked,” so I’ll have to catch those later.) Both the sixth and seventh episodes continued the high overall quality of this season, with the seventh episode in particular containing several memorable moments. And although we only lost one queen tonight instead of two, I think this is a truly excellent Top 7 -- and there are at least two queens in the mix who I never expected to get half this far.

I’m still not entirely sure why the show decided to air back-to-back episodes. I suspect the non-elimination in Episode 7 may have contributed (although the series has done that before, without doubling up on episodes). But I’ll give a brief description of the action from each episode before going on to an individual analysis of the queens.

Episode 7 started with an amusing, but pointless, fake-nail/produce modeling challenge that Laganja Estranja won after motorboating a sweet potato -- as you do. The main challenge saw RuPaul splitting up the remaining eight queens into four teams of two so that they could film commercials pitching Ru’s real-life make-up line. The pairs were Laganja and Adore Delano, repping for high-school mean girls; Trinity K. Bonet and Bianca Del Rio as “working girls”; Courtney Act and Joslyn Fox as housewives; and Ben DeLaCreme and Darienne Lake as cougars. If those pairs seem odd, it’s because the show was trying to create as much drama as possible by pairing up contestants who have previously had beef with one another -- or whom the show would like viewers to believe held some grudges (I am dubious on almost all counts).

While the results were entertaining, Episode 7 was easily the weaker of the two outings due to the heavy hand of the producers casting a shadow on nearly every moment. The team assignments were just the start. The editing made it seem like every team struggled, while clearly almost all the contestants did well. The judges’ critiques were all over the damned place, and thank goodness for guest judge Leah Remini bringing some sense to the proceedings, because everyone else on panel was almost totally off base (I was especially disappointed by guest judge Lainie Kazan, who I found myself booing by the end of the show).

But most egregious was the actual placement of the teams, which bore very little reflection to reality. None of the teams full-on bombed, but somehow Laganja and Adore got the win despite being thoroughly mediocre -- Adore did better than average, but she was dragged down by Laganja’s continually weird, offputting affect. And Ben and Darienne ended up in the bottom, after the judges were indifferent to their blatantly comic take on the material. I’d like to point out that this is a show that rewarded Stacy Layne Matthews for eating chicken wings on camera during the exercise infomerical in Season 3, but now apparently cougars can’t make jokes about plastic surgery because it’s confusing or diminishes the product. OK.

To me the clear losers of the challenge were Adore and Laganja (especially Laganja), while the obvious winners were Trinity and Bianca, both of whom were hilarious. Courtney and Joslyn and Darienne and Ben fell in the middle.

The lipsynch to “Point of No Return” by Expose was fun and both queens were on point. The edit suggested that Darienne won it, as she was called safe first (probably for the faux tip-taking bit), but I thought the camera actually seemed to be trained more on Ben’s performance. Regardless, both were spared for what I consider a fairly cheap ploy on the producers’ parts to shake up Ben, and to start Ben’s underdog edit after she was such a packleader for the first half of the competition.

Side note: everyone killed that black-and-white runway, with Trinity and Adore in particular really snatching attention, and Courtney wisely changing things up with a Klaus Nomi-inspired work. So much for “resting on pretty”!

The second episode that aired tonight was MUCH stronger. This one saw a minichallenge in which the queens had to paint their chins and lipsynch upside down == just go with it -- and somehow Joslyn won despite Adore being laugh-out-loud funny during it. (I am convinced at this point that the minichallenge winners are preordained and are chosen solely on who needs a story arc/who will present the most drama.) The main challenge was a stand-up comedy routine performed in front of a room full of senior citizens. Three queens really excelled here: Darienne, Biancea, and, shockingly, Trinity. That was the really lovely surprise of this episode. Trinity’s arc throughout the show has been a performer with oodles of potential who keeps wrestling with self confidence. She was terrific in this challenge, arguably bolstered by tough love from Ru and encouraging words from Bianca (Bianca is getting SUCH a good edit on this show). But the performance was 100 percent Trinity, and it was revelatory. I expected Darienne and Bianca to be good, and they were. I expected Trinity to suck, and she was awesome.

That’s why I was surprised that the win went to Bianca -- it seemed fairly obvious -- instead of Trinity, who really pushed herself out of her comfort zone. Less successful were Courtney, who covered for her lack of comedy chops by singing a frankly underwhelming song; Joslyn, who started strong but quickly flatlined; Adore, who panicked and filled her set with a string of expletives; Ben, who surprisingly bombed the challenge (and who should have been in the bottom for this episode); and Laganja, who just totally sucked. As Michelle Visage put it, she gave us 0 humor.

Both Laganja and Adore had minimeltdowns on the runway, with Laganja’s being far more irritating to me. Basically, it came down to the fact that Laganja has been trying really hard, you guys, and back home everyone loves her. It is so difficult for her to be in this competition when all she hears is criticism, even when she’s succeeding. I am still fascinated by exactly what Laganja thought was going to happen when she went on this show. Based on her reaction, she sincerely seemed to think that she would be praised episode after episode, because any little criticism leaves her a shell of a queen. She also rejected Michelle Visage’s dead-on critique that her overly animated kiki schtick was just that -- a schtick -- and if Laganja really thinks that act is who she really is, I am concerned for her mental well being. I’ve seen porn actors with more believable personas than Laganja Estranja. (“I swear, I’ve never been with a guy before! I am straight and married!” The lady doth protest too much.)

Laganj ended up in the Bottom 2 against Joslyn, and honestly, I’m not sure that was right, either. I adore Ben, but to me she was easily the second weakest in the challenge after Estranja -- at least Joslyn got in one good joke. Ben shot off a rapid-fire series of jokes, not one of which landed. But Joslyn faced off with Laganja to “Stupid Girls” by Pink, and I got the sense for the first half of the song that Ganja had already checked out. She removed her wig within a few seconds. To me, that’s almost an automatic DQ. Things picked up after the synchronized jump split from the two of them -- that was fun -- but Joslyn overall seemed more committed, and was giving us some fairly convincing stripper-esque moves. So she stayed, while Laganja was eliminated. I can’t imagine anyone will miss her terribly. For her sake I hope she takes a seat, take a breath (not from the bong), and comes to grips with the fact that not everything is about her, and that’s perfectly fine.

That leaves a Final 7 that is, I think, one of the strongest groups we’ve ever had. Sure, there are some weaknesses in the mix. But all of these queens have surprised us in one way or another these past few months. That said, I definitely have my favorites. Some notes on the specific queens:

-Adore Delano: I continue to like Adore more and more, and she stepped up her look this week, particularly in the black-and-white runway. Polish has been her major weakness thus far, but there is obviously talent there. And the charisma is shining through more and more. Her breakdown on the runway after flubbing the comedy challenge doesn’t bode well for her going forward.

-Ben DeLaCreme: Ben had a rough go of it these two episodes, and her edit is changing from frontrunner to underdog. Michelle’s stupid “you’re too much of a character/costume" critique is such infuriating bullshit. These are DRAG QUEENS. By definition they are CHARACTERS wearing COSTUMES. If you dislike her Rose-Nylund-on-speed thing, then say that. But if you dislike Rose Nylund on speed, I question your taste level and also whether you are maybe dead inside. Still, Ben’s recent missteps actually may work to her advantage, as she can “improve” in this final third, despite the fact that she’s already an amazingly strong queen.

-Bianca Del Rio: Perfection in every way. There is literally nothing to critique about Bianca. As Bruce Vilanch said, “She’s the real deal.” That is the power of Bianca. I’m agreeing with Bruce effing Vilanch.

-Courtney Act: After getting read for “resting on pretty” last week, I expected more from Courtney these two episodes. I have defended Courtney in the past, and will continue to do so. But what I realized these episodes is that Courtney is quite calculated. Not a bad thing, but it’s also not going to be enough at this point. She didn’t trust her comedy skills to just do stand up, so she threw in a song -- a fairly unimpressive song. I suspect the internet is about to turn on Courtney for being “mean” to human Bambi Joslyn, but I had a hard time disagreeing with any of her critiques of Ms. Fox. But all that said, Courtney needs a win, or at least a Top 3 placement, very soon, or she’s not going to make the cut for the finale.

-Darienne Lake: I still think it was bullshit that Darienne and Ben were in the Bottom 2 in Episode 7, and it was no surprise that she finished in the top during the comedy challenge. That’s where she excels. The black-and-white runway was arguably her best yet. Darienne continues to get the bitter edit, but please note -- Darienne is rarely saying anyone’s names in her dismissive talking-head reaction shots. She could have been referring to the cheap toilet paper in the hotel rooms for all we know. I can’t imagine she’s overly thrilled with her edit these past few weeks, nor the fact that she’s had to lipsynch twice already. It is rare that a queen survives a third LSFYL, especially when we still have three queens in the Top 7 -- Bianca, Courtney, Adore -- who have never had to lispynch ONCE.

-Joslyn Fox: Joslyn was decent in the infomercial, and I was really hoping she’d be stronger In the stand-up. But she wasn’t. Not Bottom 2 material, but she still has yet to really slay a challenge -- and time is running out. I don’t disagree with Courtney that Joslyn’s drag isn’t really up to the level of many of the remaining queens, and Joslyn doesn’t seem particularly interested in trying to elevate her game. I think she’s a sweet queen, a pretty queen, and a funny queen. I think she’s a lock for Miss Congeniality. But she has yet to fully distinguish herself in this competition, especially when compared to the likes of Bianca and Ben. Joslyn’s fans are legion, and I suspect she’ll have a great post-show career. But as for the show itself, I feel like her black horse is starting to get lathered.

-Trinity K. Bonet: Meanwhile, Trinity is surging unexpectedly in this competition. She has consistently confounded my expectations, even while often frustrating the living shit out of me. But I thought she was more or less flawless in the challenges these two episodes, and looked stunning on the runways. I don’t know how much further Trinity can go, but I’m so impressed by this queen after these back-to-back episodes.

As the show gets further into the source material, and as the books continue to be released at George R. R. Martin’s glacial pace, the producers’ approach to adaptation is going to get interesting. We saw more evidence of that with the fourth season premiere, in which I would guess at least one-third of the scenes were created entirely for the show -- meaning they never took place in the books at all -- or were significantly altered due to omitted book story arcs or a rearranging of characters/timelines. It’s not bad or good, necessarily. It’s just interesting to see how even some subtle changes can spin things in totally different directions (see: the Jaime/Cersei situation).

Before we get into the details of this season premiere -- which was a solid opening salvo that did its job of reestablishing (most of) our cast and their various situations -- I want to pause and note just how gorgeous this episode looked. The production values for this show keep getting better, and there were several scenes this episode that really impressed. Daenerys’s dragons are, of course, the CGI gift to and curse of this show, but that final shot of the episode, with The Hound and Arya riding into the smoldering Westeros countryside -- just stunning.

Anyway, onward. Spoilers below. You’re warned.

We’ll start in King’s Landing, which continues to be the nexus of the show. Preparations are underway for the impending wedding of King Joffrey and Margaery Tyrell of Highgarden, much to literally everyone’s chagrin. The big development this episode was the arrival of the contingent from Dorne, which is essentially the Westerosi equivalent of Spain to our United States. (That comparison is particularly apt when you consider the exchange between the Dornish prince and the lesser Lannisters in the brothel; the subtext about American exceptionalism is barely sub, it’s really just text.) Tyrion is shocked to discover that the ruling prince of Dorne has stayed at home, and sent his brother, Oberyn, in his stead.

I don’t think the show ever mentioned it, but Oberyn is known as the Red Viper, and he is absolutely deadly in combat. We saw bits of that this episode, and we’ll see more, as Oberyn couldn’t give a shit about Joff’s wedding. He’s here for revenge. His sister, Elia, was the wife of Rhaegar Targaryen, and she and her children were brutally murdered during the rebellion that put Robert Baratheon on the throne. Oberyn specifically blames Gregor Clegane, a.k.a. The Mountain, who allegedly raped and then murdered Elia, but he reserves some of his venom for Tywin Lannister, The Mountain’s master, and Tywin’s family. (I will pause here to note that the situation with Elia, Rhaegar, Robert, and Lyanna Stark is way more complicated than what’s on the surface, and even in the books there’s a lot of conjecture about what actually happened there.)

Most of the scenes with Oberyn were wholly invented for the show, especially the brothel sequence designed to show us that Oberyn is a) a manwhore, b) a bisexual, c) kind of a badass, and d) totally hot. And it also served to give the viewers some prossie boob/vagine action. Oberyn’s “paramour,” Ellaria Sand, is one to watch. And I don’t mean in a perverted way. (But sure, that way, too.)

The bride-to-be, Margaery, had a brief scene with The Queen of Thorns that, again, we never saw in the books (neither character is a narrator), and another with Brienne of Tarth that gave us a belated wrap-up to her being falsely accused of murdering Poor Dead Gay Renly. Really it allowed Brienne to interact with the Highgarden crew without having everyone try to kill her every time she’s on screen. And the sequence with the Queen of Thorns underscored that everyone on Team Margaery is freaked out by Joffrey and his psychopathic ways.

Brienne also got some closure on her quest to find the late Catelyn Stark’s missing kids, as she saw -- but did not speak to -- Sansa at King’s Landing. Without going into detail, this somewhat complicates Brienne’s long-term story arc, because again -- never happened in the books. Neither Jaime nor Brienne should be in King’s Landing prior to the Joffrey/Margaery wedding. Although a few scenes -- particularly the exchange between Joffrey and Jaime in which Joff just shits all over his uncle/father -- made me glad that the producers moved that plot point up. Watching Jaime silently shoot death beams at his insufferable, inbred son is never not going to be great. And the inevitable smackdown that he will give Joffrey will be ever so juicy.

But this rejiggering of the Brienne/Jamie plotline significantly complicates the Jaime/Cersei dynamic. If the scene between the siblings/lovers this episode felt off to you, that’s because it doesn’t really make any sense. Cersei is furious at Jaime for leaving her and taking so long to get back to her, and…what? I mean, Cersei is a full-on crazy bitch, but that is nonsensical given how desperate she was when Jaime was captured by Robb and in danger. She has really no logical motivation to be angry at him, and every reason to throw herself at him. For his part, Jaime is seeing literally everything he believed in turn to ash around him, and he will continue to become one of the most weirdly sympathetic characters in the cast. Think about how awful he was in Season 1 and how much you love him now. That is one of Martin’s great tricks.

Viewers have always loved Tyrion, but I’ll be curious to see how the show handles what’s coming for him in the near future. Already we’re getting a kinder, gentler version of The Imp with his pushing away of Shay in an attempt to honor his complicated, and unwanted, marriage to Sansa. And Shay is clearly not having any of it, so that storyline is rolling along nicely. As for Sansa, she is deep in mourning for her brother and mother, and now has something else to worry about -- the creepy overtures by court fool Dontos, the drunken knight she saved from Joffrey’s wrath seasons ago. I wondered last season if they were writing the Dontos plotline out, but apparently they were just saving it. But book readers, help me out on this one -- I sincerely can’t remember -- did Dontos give Sansa the necklace (in the book it was a hairnet) with the purple jewels? I don’t recall that ever explicitly being mentioned, and in fact I think that another source for that accessory was indirectly suggested. (In case you couldn’t pick up, that necklace is actually a crucial plotpoint.)

Outside of King’s Landing, the Wildlings that made it south of The Wall continue to prepare for their assault on Castle Black. Ygritte and Jormund Giantsbane -- who are none too happy with one another over the whole Jon Snow things -- are joined by a pack of Thenns, who reveal that their hobbies include ritualistic scarification and eating people. Now is the time for the inevitable “Game of Thrones”/”Walking Dead” crossover! At actual Castle Black, Jon is put on trial for his crimes against the Night’s Watch while serving undercover as a Wilding. He is eventually let off the hook (kind of), but not before human pile of pig vomit Janos Slynt (former head of the King’s Landing Gold Cloaks before being banished by Tyrion) tried to have Jon beheaded. He’s a nice man. Jon was saved by not giving a fuck, and by MaesterAemon, who made a fairly cryptic remark about growing up in King’s Landing. I forget: has the show made his backstory explicit at this point? I feel like it has.

Over in Slaver’s Bay, Daenerys and her ever-growing company of Dothraki, Unsullied, and freed slaves continue toward Mereen, and they discover a surprise left by the slavers: at every mile marker a slave corpse has been strung up, pointing toward the city. Personally I just make snickerdoodles, but I guess every welcome wagon operates differently. The real interest in the Dany plotline came from the alarming growth in her dragons -- they are now eating goats more or less whole, and the black one, Drogon, is particularly big. And we have a new actor playing DaarioNaharis, and he actually looks like a man, so that is an improvement. He’s still a little charisma deficient, but in his brief scenes he was already a more believable suitor for Dany than Puny McGirlhair. So thank you, show. But I’ll need to see him shirtless before I can fully sign off on this casting. You understand.

Finally, in a sequence that was almost identical to how it went down in the books, The Hound and Arya came upon a pack of The Mountain’s goons robbing/murdering/raping a tavern, and Arya got some revenge -- and more importantly, was reunited with her sword, Needle. I have not been overly enthused about Rory McCann’s portrayal of The Hound up until this point, but I thought he was terrific in this episode. It’s not surprising, as I suspect that working with Arya kind of raises everyone’s game (Tywin is always great, but his S2 scenes with Arya remain his best). Hound and Arya make for a great pair and I’m excited to see how the show treats that storyline in particular.

We didn’t get to see Bran and his folks beyond the Wall; Stannis and Melisandre; Asha Greyjoy; Theon and his captor, Ramsay Snow (which is interesting, because Dreadfort was shown on the map in the beginning); or Littlefinger and his…shenanigans. Did I miss anyone? What parts of the premiere did you enjoy? What did you haaaaaate? Are we upset about the dearth of male nudity? Do we want more dragons?

Confession: I’d been somewhat dreading this episode all week, ever since the 10-minute preview was released after “Snatch Game.” In that clip, the editors focused on building up a rivalry between frontrunner Ben DeLaCreme and Rochester’s own Darienne Lake, and specifically included Darienne making some pointed remarks about DeLa. I watched last Tuesday as social media and discussion forums turned swiftly and brutally against Darienne. I cringed.

But here’s the thing: it was a tempest in a teapot, and truthfully, I don’t think Darienne said anything about Ben that was out of line. And for what it’s worth, Ben wasn’t exactly an innocent victim -- she was crowing a bit about her two challenge wins, and being arguably needy about Darienne not picking her for this challenge -- Darienne’s rational for her choices was perfectly sound. So on the whole I don’t think Darienne came off as badly as everyone was making her out to be, and I don’t think Ben escaped the episode with her sterling reputation unscathed. And I need to quickly interject: I effing love Ben DeLaCreme. She’s one of my very favorite queens to ever appear on this show. But the editors are hellbent on creating a rivalry between the two of them, and I don’t think either one of them is looking great because of it. Ben is accusing Darienne of being a Bitter Betty. Darienne is accusing Ben of being full of herself. I think there’s truth in both statements. And a whole lot of exaggeration of that truth courtesy of the folks in the editing bay.

This whole episode seemed to be about rivalries -- we also got more of Laganja v. Adore, Gia vs. everyone, and even some Joslyn vs. Trinity -- right down to the challenges. The mini-challenge was the annual opening of the Library, where all of the contestants were given a pair of reading glasses and encouraged to insult one another. I thought it was one of the better installments of the Library, as even some of the weaker contestants got in a couple of surprisingly good digs -- in the case of Trinity K. Bonet, she looked in the mirror and read herself. In the end, Darienne took the mini-challenge, which allowed her to pick the teams for the main challenge, a 90’s rap-inspired music video, with each of the contestants tasked with writing and rapping her own verse.

Of the nine remaining contestants, few had any natural affinity for rap. So the video shoot (guided by rap veterans Trina and Eve) was painful to watch, but in a mostly funny way. Almost all the queens stumbled, and every one of them looked ridiculous in a delightfully 90’s kind of way. (I cannot wait for the inevitable .gifs of MILK in this episode, especially her dance moves that I assumed were inspired by a newly born foal.) Darienne chose wisely when picking her team of mostly young performer types -- Courtney Act, LaganjaEstranja, Adore Delano, and Bianca Del Rio -- and that team seemed to fare better on the whole than the Ru-Tang Clan (bless), featuring Ben, Trinity, MILK, and Joslyn Fox.

The runway -- with the theme of “Crazy Sexy Cool” -- was largely a dud, with the queens either coming out in overly layered, unflattering looks (Joslyn, Laganja) or something resoundingly bland (Darienne, Bianca -- although her makeup was stunning tonight). The only real standouts were Trinity, giving us, per RuPaul, “black Cher,” Ben DeLaCreme in pastel “Doctor Zhivago” couture, and Courtney Act, who emerged from a sleeping bag wearing nothing but lingerie and major bedhead.

And then there was MILK, who last week was told explicitly by the judges that they needed to see straight-up glamour from her instead of the cooky offbeat looks she had been serving up so far. MILK listened, to a degree, by toning down the cracked-out make-up and giving us a kind of variation on a fishtail gown. But the polish was lacking (which is weird -- based on pre-show photos MILK really CAN do glamour), and that, coupled with an unassured rap-challenged performance, meant that MILK was in the Bottom 2.

She ended up lipsynching against Trinity K. Bonet to “Whatta Man” by Salt-N-Pepa/En Vogue. Trinity looked astonishing on the runway, but her rap was unimpressive, and worse, she offered up a string of excuses. Ru even cut her off midway through one of her sentences (at least per the editing), which is a clear sign that Mother is over it. But Trinity slayed that lipsynching, looking like Naomi Campbell and giving FACE FACEFACE (you might even say Beauty Face) and some slinky floor action, so she lived another day.

That meant MILK was eliminated, and that gave several members of our viewing party The Sads. MILK has had such a fascinating trajectory on this show. I don’t think anybody knew who she even was prior to the Season 6 cast announcement, at which point she became and instant hit with fans of the show. People responded so positively to her avant-garde, playful shock aesthetic that I suspect MILK and the rest of the Dairy Queens were more than a little shocked themselves. MILK even said upon her exit that she appreciated RuPaul allowing her to be herself -- as if that surprised her. But MILK, dear, all of us only wanted you to be the best MILK you can be. Ice-cold, organic, grass-fed cow MILK.

Unfortunately, aside from wowing us with her Hermaphrodite Realness in the first episode, MILK never really distinguished herself in any of the other challenges. I don’t think it was a lack of ability, or a lack of competitiveness -- MILK was in figure skating prior to getting into drag, which is only slight less cutthroat than high-seas piracy. I wonder if it was a case of MILK not taking her chance at the tiara seriously enough, because she really had a huge groundswell of support everywhere I looked. She’s got the goods. And now that she’s seen how much America loves her and her unique brand of drag, I suspect she could be a serious force should she ever come back for an all-stars season. (Lee Press-On Nails crossed.)

A few notes on the other remaining queens:

-Bianca may be getting the best edit of any contestant I have ever seen on this show. I’m not kidding. She’s a challenge monster. She’s quick and hilarious. She’s bitchy, but in a fun way. She suffers absolutely no foolery. And almost every episode now has a Mama Bianca moment where she reaches out a hand to one of the younger queens. This week it was Trinity, after Trinity made her announcement about being HIV-positive. And Bianca was totally lovely with it. Her hair and make-up were also stunning this episode. There’s almost no way that Bianca doesn’t make it to F3 at this point, right? I mean, we haven’t even gotten to the comedy challenge or the major sewing challenges yet, and those are her strengths.

-RuPaul called out Courtney Act for “resting on pretty” and “being a cliché.” Ouch. I actually think that was a bit harsh for Courtney, who -- lest we forget -- won the musical challenge two episodes ago, did very well in the horror challenge, and seemed to do fine in Snatch Game. I also thought her rap verse was solid and ended with a great punchline. But I’ve had debates with people about how Courtney isn’t living up to expectations, and I wonder how much of this middle-of-the-pack stuff is deliberate strategy on Courtney’s part. She’s not dumb. She’s done reality TV before. And she knew she came in as a major, major threat. The smart thing for her to do was let off the gas for a bit to let everyone else catch up, so that she can really show off in the second half of the race. Of course, for that to be true, she really needs to kill it going forward. And I suspect she can do it. Because if what she’s been turning in thus far has been Courtney “resting on pretty,” imagine what she can do when she gets aggressive.

-Joslyn Fox finally placed in the top group for the first time. The internet loves Joslyn -- she is basically the human, drag-queen form of Princess Unikitty from “The Lego Movie.” Joslyn looked great in the video, but her runway is still a mess -- and she knows that, but seems hellbent on sticking to her reverse-Coco-Channel approach (look in the mirror and put on every fucking thing in your jewelry box, and then go steal all your neighbor’s accessories, too). I do think we’re due for a big Joslyn breakthrough in the next challenge or two. She is within breast-groping distance of F6 at this point, and if you’d told me that when the season started, I would have slapped your beautiful face.

-I started coming around on Adore last episode, but this episode I fully fell in love with her. Absolute riot, and surprisingly so -- I was not expecting that level of consistent comedy to come from Ms. Delano. She has had an arc very similar to Alaska last season: big pre-show expectations, very weak initial showings, confidence builds, emerges as a surprisingly strong contender. Adore is unlike Alaska in that her runway is still absolutely dreadful. Those raggedy wigs and that shin-length dress -- girl. NO. You are better than that! Her rap was great and she had a terrific look and attitude in the video. She deserved that challenge win. But someone please take this child by the hand and lead her to the nearest quality purveyor of wigs.

-Speaking of quality wigs, I have to compliment LaganjaEstranja on hers. She really has some serious hair. Unfortunately, that’s the only nice thing I’ll say about Laganja. I don’t know if the editors are deliberately only airing the most infuriating things that come out of her mouth, or if she really is that clueless and self-absorbed. I fear it is the latter, and I weep for a generation. But this episode was another strong collection in the Eyerolls by Laganja line, including her statement that, “In the real world, I’m used to winning, so it’s hard to hear my colleagues getting praised” (I’m paraphrasing, but not by much), and her DERP-grade double-talk about Adore in “Untucked.” But the worse sin is that this queen -- who really can rap (she spit a great verse on her pre-show RuPaul cover) -- was mediocre in a challenge basically tailor made for her. “This is the challenge I’ve been waiting for!” Laganja cried at the reveal. First, why have you been waiting? Show us something worth keeping you around. Second, even after all that, you STILL didn’t show up. What a disappointment she has turned out to be.

Finally, in “Untucked” the girls got a letter from last episode’s eliminee, Gia Gunn, and Gia was predictably awful in it. I get that the eliminated queens can be bitter (and seriously, for those accusing Darienne of being bitter, Gia’s letter was like stuffing your mouth with arugula), but Gia really came for the remaining queens. She was excessively nasty in that letter, particularly to MILK, Bianca, and Joslyn. What an unpleasant queen. I sincerely never want to hear from her again.

Next week: TWO episodes back to back, followed by TWO episodes of “Untucked.” That bizarre arrangement makes me suspect that we’ll get a non-elimination episode. I think we’re due.