Drag Race UK Series 8 Episode 5: Paris Baby Is Eliminated

Five episodes into RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Series 8 and we have finally reached that delicious point of the season where everyone has stopped politely introducing themselves and started showing us who they really are.

And what better way to expose a queen’s nerves than forcing her to produce three pig-themed runway looks while the clock ticks, the sewing machines scream and Just May wanders around looking remarkably serene amid the emotional carnage?

Episode five, The Piggy Pageant, challenged the eight remaining queens to serve three looks — This Little Piggy…, Pig Sty Chic and Go Ham!, an OTT pink fantasy — with Flesh eventually taking the win. Alik and Coral-Hole Mandi joined her among the strongest performers, while KY Kelly and Paris Baby landed in the bottom.

Paris Baby: Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde… and now Miss Sashay Away (FINALLY!)

We have been watching Paris Baby’s strange emotional journey for several weeks now. One moment she has been soft, supportive and almost suspiciously sweet; the next, a sentence emerges with enough shade attached to block out the British sun. Last week we asked what game Paris was playing. This week the answer may simply be: all of them at once.

The tension between Paris and KY Kelly became one of the episode’s central workroom storylines, before the two queens eventually found themselves lip-syncing against each other. It was almost too perfectly produced: the disagreement, the runway critiques and then both queens facing RuPaul together. Reality television loves symmetry, babes.

But there was something slightly sad underneath all the drama. Paris had survived the previous episode’s bottom two against The Delta Quadrant, and there was a sense this week that the pressure had finally started eating into the confidence we saw at the beginning of the competition. The swagger was still there, but it no longer looked quite as bulletproof.

Flesh finally gets her moment

Meanwhile, Flesh quietly did what clever Drag Race contestants eventually learn to do: stop waiting for the storyline and make RuPaul give you one.

Her Piggy Pageant performance earned her the challenge win, while Coral-Hole Mandi also received strong critiques. And if the online reaction is anything to go by, the judging has once again given the fandom plenty to argue about, with some viewers particularly championing Coral’s collection and questioning other placements.

That is probably good news for Series 8. A Drag Race season becomes much more entertaining when there is no obvious inevitable winner and half the audience believes the judging panel needs Specsavers.

And then came Rick Astley

Paris and KY Kelly lip-synced to Rick Astley’s “Take Me to Your Heart”, with KY earning the shantay and Paris Baby becoming the fifth queen to leave the competition. Rick Astley himself joined Michèle Lamy, RuPaul, Michelle Visage and Graham Norton on the judging panel — perhaps the most wonderfully random collection of people assembled around one table since somebody invented Christmas dinner.

And with Paris gone, Series 8 loses one of its most unpredictable personalities. Love her, question her, side-eye her or spend another week trying to work out which Paris Baby has entered the Werk Room that morning — she gave us something to talk about.

That, in Drag Race currency, is rarely a bad legacy.

TGM VERDICT: The Piggy Pageant was ridiculous, stressful, visually chaotic and slightly unhinged. In other words: finally, some proper Drag Race.