As Season Six of RuPaul’s Drag Race kicks off with a twist, Alan Finnegan gets to grips with the queens on the show.

Just when you thought Drag Race couldn’t surprise you anymore, RuPaul shakes up in the game in the Season Six opener. For a change this season has two premieres. This means two sets of seven queens to meet, two premiere runways and two eliminated contestants. The idea behind this new change is to make sure no queen goes unnoticed in a crowd of 14 attention-grabbing drag divas. Plus, it means RuPaul can clock any of the weak queens – game faces on girls!

In the first premiere episode we met Adore Delano, April Carrion, Ben De La Creme, Gia Gunn, Kelly Mantle, Laganja Estranja, and Vivacious.

Just as the girls were eyeing up the competition, the twist was announced. There were shocked faces all round, but one queen looked really worried. Adore Delano’s nerves were shot, given that she confessed to not bringing a lot of outfits to compete in. Who doesn’t bring a truckload of outfits to a competition like this?

Ru took no time in starting the first mini-challenge. As always in the first episode, it was a posing challenge. Last year the girls were submerged into a tank of water and were made to pose. This season they had to leap from dizzying heights.

Everybody had difficulty in controlling their bodies, outfits and wigs mid-air, Vivacious more than anyone. Well, she did have another head to deal with, after all.

Laganja won the challenge. She modeled from head to toe, knowing exactly how this kind of challenge would be critiqued.

The girls were then presented with mysterious boxes labeled with the names of famous television shows. The boxes contained materials relating to that show and the queens had to make an outfit that revealed both their drag characters and the shows they were representing. They then had to showcase their outfits on the runway. Having won the mini-challenge, Laganja was gifted an upper hand in the main challenge. She could decide which boxes her competitors would get.  This was a chance for Laganja to throw shade on the other girls, but did she manage it?

I don’t think so. If somebody fails with the materials they were given they should be eliminated. Anybody who gets onto this show should be creative and resourceful enough to make some sort of sickening outfit.

While making her outfit, Adore looked plainly out of her element. She didn’t know how to sew, she hated her box of goodies and she managed to hot-glue her outfit to her mannequin. Not a good start at all. With all that shit happening, we wanted her to succeed. Everybody loves an underdog.

The standouts on the runway were April and Ben De La Creme. April’s box contained very butch materials, but she managed to turn it all into a sexy, revealing Mad Maxish outfit. Ben De La Creme looked like she just went and bought her outfit. It was so well fitted and it ticked all the boxes of her Golden Girls look. The rest were just ‘meh’. Gia’s work on the bodice of her outfit was very Kardashian, but the bottom half was just bits of string – a very lazy finish. Adore’s was a mess. As Michelle Visage remarked, it was a bunch of material wrapped around her and tied together with a belt. Vivacious looked ridiculous, but you really didn’t care because of that walk of hers. You could ignore the outfit and watch her serve the judges some runway.

Kelly looked good enough to eat and not in a good way. She wore bacon on her chest. The whole flower concept was so promising, but it turned out so awful. Finally there was Laganja, who slipped all over the runway. She looked like she was missing half her outfit too and her neck was nowhere to be seen.

Ben De La Creme won the main challenge and the bottom two queens were Vivacious and Kelly. Surprisingly, Adore was safe. Based on her outfit she deserved to go, but her personality got her through… this time anyway.

Both girls owned the lipsync to Madonna’s ‘Express Yourself’. Kelly was too concerned with showing leg than engaging with the judges. Vivacious, however, moved around. She had a lot of energy and she kept focus from the judges while popping out some moves.

In the end, Kelly was eliminated.

It’s unfortunate because she had a lot of potential. If she had made it past this episode, she might have found her grounding a little.

Some of the girls in this opening episode really stood out, but I don’t think there’s a winner in this bunch. Even though Ben De La Creme won the first challenge, I do think her personality will get annoying and it remains to be seen if she has any versatility for the challenges ahead.

I am very interested in seeing what the next bunch of girls have in store for us. My eyes will be firmly on Milk and Courtney.