by J †Johnson, Staff Writer 

Dragula: Season 666
A Boulet Brothers’ Dragula Season 666 Serial Commentary
Episode 5 “Dragula The Musical”
Now streaming on Shudder 

You’re an event.
—Alaska 

Who let the rats in here?
—Aurora

We all lip synch for a reason.
—Vivvi

She is also there.
—Jaharia

Start throwing them under the bus instead of helping them onto the bus.
—Dracmorda

Why do we do this?
—Swanthula

Alaska: Are you nervous?
Yuri: Always.

Welcome to Dragula Race: Start your infernal machines and may the best monster win! For Halloween week, the Boulets dressed up their show as that Other Show, and like most Hallows Eve, it’s weird and fun. What we don’t get: Monsters of Rock! Curses! Extermination challenges! Exorsisters! What we do get: Musical numbers! Rehearsal drama! Lip synch for your life! Drag Race All Stars 2 winner Alaska Thunderfuck! Yeah, we said it! Thunderfuck! And Drag Race.

Because that’s the dancing elephant in the room. The show that goes unnamed on Dragula but is always in the air kind of becomes the show we’re watching, or vice versa. It could have sucked! But this game they’ve been setting up in the opening weeks just got legs, and those legs are wearing cloven boots!

Look, we aren’t a musical person. But this is a Very Shitty Musical, and that feels very Dragula. (Keep in mind we are being deliberate about how we distinguish Dragula the show from Dragula the community, which has particular relevance this week.) Watch Alaska pretend to like the performances and get excited about taking one of these monsters on tour for Drag: The Musical! One Night Only never sounded so sweet. 

We tend to write these commentaries before gorging on video recaps (see the end of the episode 3 write-up for recommendations), because it’s fun to compare notes after we’ve made our own tea. We’re always like, Ooh, what will Sigourney Beaver and Jay Kay make of all this!? Because they’ve been there on Seasons 4 and 5, respectively. This week, though, we’re extra thirsty for the Drag Race alum reaction from Nina Bo’nina Brown, who always brings an unfiltered cross-show perspective, and Trinity the Tuck, who has pageant experience as both contestant and judge, and has a handle on all of the conventional drag talents. (And tuck this away for later: Trinity, who won Drag Race All Stars 4, hosts the official Dragula video review, sponsored by the Boulets and debuting this season, so the drag show crossover is highly deliberate.) In both cases, there is a respect and understanding of what distinguishes Dragula, even as the critique is couched in a formal drag background, and a highly refined set of stagecraft and entertainment skillset standards (and even as Nina insists she’s been canceled by the Boulets because she’s never invited to perform with them or guest judge on the show).

Which is to say that for all the fierce monstrosity, resourcefulness, and ingenuity of Dragula artists, on the whole they don’t have the elevated conventional drag chops we’re used to seeing on Drag Race. This is a generalization, of course. Plenty of Dragula monsters would fucking eat the stage on the Other Show. And plenty of Drag Race queens would get eviscerated on Dragula. Meanwhile, Yuri has Drag Race experience, Jade Jolie from Dragula Season 4 was previously on the Other Show, and each has proven they can hold their own in both worlds.

What we’re working up to here is that a) this week’s challenge is straight out of the Drag Race playbook, and b) in execution it would have been a whole different show over there. And let’s put a fine point on it: RuPaul would gag if she had to watch this floor show. Michelle Visage would disintegrate in laughter (though she’d be cool about it—she’s a friend to the Boulets and is as kind as she is exacting). Every one of these ghouls would be lip synching for their lives.

Let’s put this another way and talk about “The Drag Fire Drill.” In the Dragula version, we see everyone getting ready in the lab, when all hell breaks loose. We get flashing lights, a blaring PA announcement (ATTENTION COMPETITORS: THE FLOOR SHOW IS ABOUT TO BEGIN), and maybe the monsters camp it up, throw their arms in the air and scream, “How will I finish my face in time!” And then the Boulets are like, “Start the music, dim the lights, and let the floor show... begin!” And we’re all good. Everyone’s ready to slay.

The Drag Race Fire Drill is when we see rehearsal for a ridiculously ambitious Rusical performance and it’s Not Going Well. Two of the queens can’t dance and at least one of them is freaking out and making it worse. A couple others are Not Helping. We’re stressed. Cut to the actual performance, and everyone hits their marks and looks good doing it.

In Dragula: The Musical, rehearsals are bad… and the performance is also bad.

This episode was disorienting for those of us who have also watched the Other Show, not just because Dragula dressed up as Drag Race for Halloween, but because of what happens for us when we apply a conventional set of standards to Dragula—which we have learned not to do. For this viewer, there was a lot of Resting Vampire Face (think of Nadja’s expression on What We Do in the Shadows when someone else is talking) during the floor show, before we snapped out of it and started laughing. The snaps! Those Rat House snaps saved us. While no one on either team really embraced Bad Performance, Pi probably came closest to self-awareness, and to understanding that this could be parody. We like to think that’s why they won the challenge. That, and the fact that Pi was the chaos choice, and make no mistake about it: The Boulets are actively scheming for maximum chaos. 

This was not Monsters of Rock, even if Team Snake Pit dressed like it. But the crucial tension in that classic challenge applies here: individual vs. group. One group wins the Battle of the Bands, but only one competitor wins the challenge. So, how do you distinguish yourself? The same way people stick out in a band. You either assume the role of leader, or you chew your corner of the stage and steal the spotlight. In Dragula: The Musical, no one ate. Sure, Yuri was surprisingly capable (as a veteran of the Drag Race Fire Drill), and Jaharia was downright competent. But both numbers were train wrecks, complete with halting and screeching. What it came down to was one team not actually exploding on stage, and then deciding who was the leader of that team, since there were no clear standout performers. Jaharia was responsible for charming Snake Pit into some semblance of presentability, but Pi was more assertive in claiming leadership. We noticed it. And so did the Boulets, so they chose chaos.

And then the game reached a new level. To unpack this, we need to return to the present tense. The winning team is tasked with deciding who should face elimination, and Snake Pit takes the bait. Back in the cauldron they split into pairs, because the unspoken theme of the week is “Break up the Band.” All episode Asia and Pi have been less than discreet about their alliance (abetted as they are by conspicuously staggered lab arrivals) and here they go again, plotting under their chestnut tree. Meanwhile Jaharia, still pissed at Pi’s power grab but being remarkably cool about it for the moment, and Aurora, who now goes by Susan and is drinking with purpose, strategize on the couch. Both pairs are done with fair play and are ready to fuck up some frontrunners. They come together to agree that Grey and Auntie have to go. And let’s take a moment to appreciate how Pi really gets into being a snake and plays everyone like the Devil’s fiddle. Well, you know there’s a case to be made for any of them being up for elimination. Let’s see, there’s Yuri, there’s Vivvi, and who else? Oh yeah, how about Grey and Auntie? NOW’S OUR CHANCE. 

So, we’re processing all these delicious machinations as our players take the stage to do what they do best: be monsters! After the awkward Drag Race from Hell routines, we deserve a little treat: a line of beasts on stage, with the Boulets throwing raw meat and roses at their feet.

And then Jaharia goes rogue.

The whole backbiting conspiracy falls apart. It turns out these monsters do have a conscience—and ethics. Sure, put Auntie up for elimination on a week where they flub their lines and fail to assert themselves by not holding their teammates to account for setting them up to fail. It’s brutal, but fair: an off week for Auntie, and they pay in song. But Jaharia couldn’t bring herself to overlook the worst performance of the night, and the one that directly results in Auntie’s falter. Vivvi completely trucks her verse and Auntie slams into the pileup. Blame them both, but don’t pull Grey into this on a week when they are still recovering from near elimination and the saving grace of Majesty’s resignation. The whole cast has been through it, and to descend into Shark Week tactics would truly be to rip out the heart of Dragula. The challenge is an existential one: What show is this? The real drama on stage is watching four monsters correct course on the fly. Jaharia leads the way, and everyone recovers their sense of decency. Yes, monsters have that too. In a cruel fucking world, they have to be decent and look out for each other, or die.

Things to watch for:

† Grey was shocked awake last week but still seems a little off their game. They did, however, take Swan’s advice about dragging up their makeup and footwear, so if they can incorporate those developments and integrate them into what they already do well, they will surge in the second half. Right now, though, they are fading. 

† Look out, everyone, for Auntie, who’s about to go Full Carrie White on this gymnasium. And Jaharia might go Carrie 2: The Rage on Pi. 

† Heading into the second half of the season, the cast gets tighter even as the competition gets more intense. Everyone starts looking around at all the empty seats, but also takes a long look in the mirror: Do I have what it takes to stick around? Am I prepared to do what it takes to continue at someone else’s expense? Does my hair look big in this outfit?

Last season, the Boulets were unhappy with how polite the cast became as the season wore on. There was a veneer of togetherness that the Boulets seemed to view as the wrong kind of artifice. Behind the scenes people’s competitive fires raged, but onscreen they smiled and made nice and didn’t give good Reality TV in the messy Dragula way the Boulets prefer to inspire. The Season 666 emphasis on playing the game is both a back-to-basics Monster Fight and a high production Old Hollywood arc. The Boulets have made sure to keep everyone atomized. Rather than forming a unified front, they have created the conditions for temporary alliances, max intrigue, and betrayal. The larger drama in the second half will be a struggle for the soul of the show: community advancement vs. individual ambition. Call it Dragula vs. Dragula. Here be monsters.