by J †Johnson, Staff Writer

Dragula: Season 666
A Boulet Brothers’ Dragula Season 666 Serial Commentary
Episode 2 “Killer Dolls”
Now streaming on Shudder

Do you lick it? I just did.
—Yuri

The silver lining is Jaharia’s a cunt.
—Auntie Heroine

Enough curse talk, bitches—let’s go play some sports!
—Jaharia

I want everyone to see all the cards—except for mine.
—Asia Consent

(stage whisper) I like that evil laugh thing.
—Jennifer Tilly

I don’t think they know what a doll is.
—Dracmorda

OK, you too.
—Desiree Dik

Fetch me a sweater, it’s getting shady in here! It’s “Can I Steal You for a Sec” week, and no lips are sealed. Pi has a proposition for Asia, Majesty pours poison in Aurora’s ear, Asia spills, and Aurora seems to fall for it. Meanwhile, Desiree is shook, gets a lifeline, faces elimination, and steals the show. Maybe Jaharia has it out for Auntie. Maybe Asia and Pi can’t be friends. Maybe Grey is fading into the background. Vivvi clowns around. Yuri pulls some strings. And we don’t have to talk about Scylla anymore.

We’d like to get further into this commentary before mentioning Majesty again, but they have rudely inserted themselves into the heart of this week’s drama. First, they’re taking Aurora aside to pull the whole “I Heard Someone Is Talking About You but You’ll Have to Guess Who” routine. It’s appropriate schoolyard behavior after we head to the gymnasium for some dodgy drag ball (hosted by this season’s Exorsister, Season 5’s Cynthia Doll, who we last saw on her YouTube channel streaming a delightfully droll watch party for episode one). Sadly, Aurora steps right into Majesty’s web and gets all wound up.

This little dish goes to the back burner, but Majesty isn’t done stirring the pot (just like we aren’t done mixing metaphors). In the cauldron, Asia reveals that Pi took her aside to propose an alliance (to which Asia responded, Ooh, I’m interested, but not with you). This is funny since Asia’s initial response to Pi taking her aside (ostensibly to apologize for a little shade at the workroom counter) was Why not apologize in front of everyone? So maybe selling Pi out is a model of integrity, or it would be if Asia’d done it while Pi was present. No worries though, because Majesty is sure to let everyone know, once Pi arrives, that Asia has something to share with the room.

OK, so yet again Majesty’s playbook is straight out of grade school, and their concerned tone is as treacly as cheap marmalade. They’ll tell anyone who’ll listen (but who’s listening?) that they changed since Season 2, and it’s true! They are pettier, faker, and more insecure than ever, and as soon as the monsters tire of them, it’s gonna be crying time. Sure, we know it’s coming from the season trailer, but Majesty themself admitted in the confession booth at the top of episode one that their self-confidence is shot—and it won’t be long before everyone sees right through their act. Hurt people try to herd people, but Majesty is not playing with sheep and they’re about to find out. We’d love to rise above all that pettiness and feel more compassion for their personality crisis, but as a Dragula veteran on a fucking healing journey (yawn that becomes a meow), they should know better than to be so transparent and conniving, and they could be a lot more understanding of the stress their fellow monsters are under. But guess who Majesty is thinking about? Can’t tell you, but we heard it’s someone!

Ah, but look at us getting caught up in drama, like a mythological sea monster tangled in a boa! Well, we’re here for theatrics, but we’re not trying to recap the whisper network. Ooh, but let’s comment some more on the way to the floor show, pinup, and another prickly elimination! Auntie gets pegged and cursed by Jaharia and has one arm duct taped to her side. So, she runs with that by not running, and boxes her legs for good measure. It’s a huge wager that pays off, as her Jack in the Box is wavey enough up top, and knifey enough down low, to win her the challenge. This despite the fact that she’s sort of a clown, along with most of the other monsters, much to the vexation of the Brothers Boulet, who wanted a doll show, damnit. Ah, but she’s a clown doll, like our Exorsister, Cynthia! Moving on: It’s a small thing, but the moment in the confession booth where Vivvi makes a couple goofy cracks lets some light into her goth bedroom, and we’re here for it. And Yuri’s marionette getup really yanks our strings.

Enough lusty gossip. We need to talk about the Big Mother screen in the workroom, and the (Absent) Apparatus. Oh yes! So, like, this is basically reality TV, right? And we’re grown up enough to understand that all these monsters are pretending not to notice the camera while also constantly playing to the camera. That’s part of the “Inside the Monsters” fun. We can see their gears turning, their little mouse traps springing, their Rube Goldberg devices cycling through endless aimless permutations. Every zinger must be tested for prefabrication, though the best ones land anyway. And this makes Desiree’s cauldron tantrum all the more miraculous. She’s in the bottom with Scylla and smells blood on tulle, so she goes in for the kill, reading that dolled up sea creature to filth. You’re ugly and your Auntie dresses you funny! She doesn’t say that but let’s pretend she did, because the gnarly string of insults that unfurls from Miss Dik’s fishing pole has Scylla thrashing on the line (and we’ve also heard some of it before on the Season 666 trailer: “Your breastplate was bad, your first look was bad, and this is bad!”—and she’s just getting started). Then Auntie steps in at last to halfheartedly protect her drag daughter with a distraction read: You’re a mess and need to clean up your outfits, just like Mommies said! And let’s pause here to see if we can see Desiree’s wheels turning… Uh, nope. “OK, you too,” she says, in the ultimate anti-slay and something we will use for the rest of our lives when we have no comeback but are unbowed. Unbowed!

And sure, we’re getting ahead of ourselves (which we can do because this is not a recap!), because to understand the gravity of this moment, we have to linger for a moment on the most touching exchange in the episode. During judgment, Desiree gets hers for coming incorrect with a baggy look, and immediately bursts into Tough Girl Tears.

And look, there are two main varieties of Tough Girl Tears, and we say this as a lover of tough girls. There are the ones you don’t see, though maybe the eyeliner gets a lil’ smudged. Depending on how we show up in that moment, we are about to gain a lifelong friend or be murdered on the spot. The other variety of Tough Girl Tears is an unraveling that lasts about 9 seconds, after which we are advised not to mention it ever happened. Again, there is an opportunity to gain a champion or get cut and bleed out on stage, as it were.

Desiree cries tears #2, and the other thing about that is it’s heartbreaking to watch a tough girl cry. “I don’t mean to cry in front of my idol,” she says, and she doesn’t have to look up at guest judge Jennifer Tilly for us to know who she means. Reader, are you crying? We certainly are. Because what Jennifer Tilly does is come out from behind that table and approach the crying tough girl. And she hugs the stuffing back into her.

[Pause while we recompose ourselves.]

Cut away to Desiree Dik: “Jennifer Tilly fucking hugged me!”

You win, Desiree. Scylla didn’t have a chance in the Human Pin Cushion Challenge. Desiree is scared of needles, and Scylla is pierced the fuck up already. Doesn’t matter, because Jennifer Tilly gave Desiree life, and now she has the grit to give herself a little pep talk about how she’s bringing that bigger dick, thicker dick, curvier dick, longer foreskin. Grey, if you haven’t gone into sleep mode, did you hear that? Desiree is bringing all kindsa dick to the competition. And sure, you’re flying under the radar, or people can’t see you under that monotone, but if you can hang in there maybe someone will notice you next week. Anyway, here are those dicks you requested!

All that’s left is Scylla’s delusional screen test about how she whooped Desiree’s ass in the challenge. Aaaaaand… cut.

Things to watch for:

† Did We Say (Absent) Apparatus? Uh huh! It’s a theory of the camera in film, where we are of two minds: There is no camera, and the camera is always there. So, any time we see a camera or projector or recording device or media window on screen—Polaroid, cellphone (forbidden on set!), reel-to-reel, opera glasses—we are reminded that everything we see comes from the aperture of that absent apparatus, that eye in the sky, that lens on the mens & thems! Like, we are being watched, so smile for the camera while you talk behind people’s back, you dig?

If the monsters need another reminder of the surveillance state (besides all the cameras in front of them, which they pretend they don’t see just like we pretend the apparatus is absent), that shimmering Big Mother flatscreen the Boulets use to issue challenges might as well be two-way glass. Go ahead, step into the hall to kiki in private, but don’t kid yourself that we don’t all know what’s going on here. Everyone saw you walk out together, all the set is a stage, and Big Mother is watching. But you knew that, and so do we. For the media studies monsters in the house, and anyone who likes to watch people play peek-a-boo, this hall of lenses mise en abyme is the show within the show. Who’s zooming who?

† Majesty, Grey Matter, Vivvi, Yuri, and Pi are on the hot seat in their own ways. Majesty is playing Fuck Around & Find Out (see above), while Grey and Vivvi need to make a move or get off the pot. Everyone respects Grey’s artistry, but they’re letting people snooze on them with faint praise (“pleasant surprise,” oof!). Who are you, Viv, besides a formidable dodge baller and goth clown? Yuri is out there (but stamped!) and might float by another week—plus the floor show was promising, even if it left Yuri in the Safe Zone—but let’s keep our eye on Yuri as well. Then there’s Pi, who’s doing too much but also riding on that, not just in the voluminous, needling banter that tends to blow up in their face, but in all the details of their drag (onstage, and also in the work room, like when they come to the table with painted-on bruises, cuts, and facial bandages—taking damage!). And, of course, Pi utters this season’s more or less official tagline this episode: “Don’t act fucking stupid!” No, OK, it’s what follows: “We’re playing a game, this is not just a competition anymore, this is a game: They have turned this into a game.” To which Asia replies: “Let the bitch run!”