It definitely always feels unnecessary, and it's especially gratuitous in a season where nearly every episode has had a tearful work room heart-to-heart between the queens. One theory is the producers started doing the what-would-you-say-to-your-baby-self segment in order to coax a specific sob story out of Pearl and…

Yeah, I agree the recent seasons have been missing the ridiculous drink-throwing, insult-hurling Untucked fights that some of the earlier seasons had. Even though I dislike over-produced, contrived villain arcs, it's too bad everyone is so scared of being perceived as the villain now because they'll be torn to shreds…

How Kennedy and Pearl made it farther than Katya, I'll never know. That's fair. There was a stretch of relatively unmemorable episodes between Charlie's elimination and Valentina's. If memorability is the metric you're using the judge seasons, I can see why this one would rank low. I think that not eliminating anyone…

I feel like the producers usually learn from their mistakes. The point of that disappointing twist was to spice things up, so if I had to guess, I'd say they'll probably come up with some other weird twist instead of using the same one twice.

I agree that it feels somehow off this year, and if this turns out to be the beginning of the end when it comes to editing or casting, I might end up disliking this season more than I do now. I don't mind not having a villain though. I really dislike casting for conflict and I'd rather watch a season of reality TV…

Yeah, watching your favorite go home early always pulls down a season's rankings, especially if she's a front-runner and the person who sends her home goes home in the next episode anyway. That might partially be why season seven is so low for me. I really connected with Max, so it was hard to watch her go home. I get…

I agree she could've done more even with the material she had. Sharon and Violet both came up with some pretty eye-catching and out of the box looks with the material available to them on RPDR.

Did it seem like she didn't have the right material or the right opportunity? Or was she just too scared to take any big risks? I saw a copy of her magazine, and all of the illustrations looking really interesting. It's too bad she didn't quite live up to her boundary-pushing potential on RPDR.

I'd love to see Sasha take a page out of Katya's artsy drag queen book and become a funny weirdo in her second appearance. I also feel like she wasn't quite strange enough considering how often she talked about being different and avant garde.

Bob and Bianca both had more spark for me as well. To me, it's not an issue of work ethic so much as not being as polished as the other two were. By the time Bob and Bianca competed, they'd really honed their skills as comedy queens. Shea was talented, but she didn't seem as steady or confident as the other two. It…

I agree. It probably helps that I didn't love AS2 quite as much as everyone else, but I don't really mind this season. While I liked season eight more because I thought it had a more memorable group of contestants, I don't think season nine has been that weak. There weren't any eliminations I really disagreed with,…

It was worse than season seven for you? Don't get me wrong, the editing was pretty bad overall and the season suffered from 39-minute episodes with sappy, after-school-special moments shoehorned in, but it's still leaps and bounds ahead of season seven for me. Between the racially homogenous, largely unlikable pool of…

I'd love to see either Trinity or Peppermint on AS3. They give entertaining talking heads, which makes for good TV and it'll be interesting to see if such seasoned queens managed to grow as performers between seasons. I'd also like to see Valentina back, not just because she flamed out surprisingly early, but also…

It might not be a conspiracy, but whether or not the judges like a queen affects her chance of winning. If it's a tight race between two similarly qualified queens (like tonight's ball was), the queen who the judges like more is more likely to win.

Damn. After Nina left, I guess all of the negativity transferred to all of the other queens. I'm not complaining though. Watching them throw shade at each other was much more entertaining than watching everyone spend half of the episode trying to cheer up Nina, who wasn't willing to take their support to heart.

I was surprised and disappointed by Shea's fourth win too. Based on what we saw, it seems like she had the most positive critiques. Giving her the win also would've made the season more competitive. Now, unless Trinity snatches her fourth win next week, Shea is pretty much guaranteed a somewhat antic-climactic…

I agree. The truly great queens deliver their lines as smoothly and sharply as if they'd been planned but still manage to make them sound spontaneous. This skill justifies the high placement of queens like Adore and Chi Chi, who're great for the TV character requirements of RPDR but maybe aren't as strong when it…

I feel the same way about Trinity and Shea. Even though Shea's a fierce competitor and she makes the judges laugh, there's something about her talking heads interviews that feel a bit stiff and rehearsed to me. I'm sure past queens have planned out their talking heads quips as well but it just came off as much more…

I thought Valentina would've at least made top five too, but I'm not as surprised to see her leave in seventh place as I would've been during the first few weeks. Unfortunately, Valentina seems to have peaked early on. She was a frontrunner at the beginning of the competition, but she's only been safe for the past few…

That's true. Performative comedy is more studied and deliberate and the stakes are so much higher. It's also a different environment where you don't really have anyone to play off of. There's a lot of technical skill that goes into stand up and other comedy routines that goes beyond just being a naturally witty…