HBO
With three small towns under their belts, Shangela, Eureka and Bob the Drag Queen head further west to the towns of Farmington and Shiprock, New Mexico. The opening of the episode is deceptively humorous as our girls arrive in the middle of the desert decked out like the most stylish of alien visitor. Unfortunately, they’re nowhere near Area 51 (which is in Nevada) and about 380 miles away from Roswell. But these beautiful aliens are in town with a mission to bring love and understanding to humanity.
Surprisingly, the trio receives a much warmer welcome in Farmington than they did in Branson. It may be wrong to assume a small town in the middle of the Southwestern desert would be ultra-conservative, but when hearing how the large indigenous population there seem to have forgotten their history because of religion, specifically Christianity, one would think the Queens would have a very hard time setting foot in town.
As usual, each Queen and their team has a subject or subjects that can use a little drag therapy. At some point, it would be nice if we got a little background on how this show came about, how the subjects were chosen, and how the notion of putting them into drag as a form of therapy was developed. As it plays out now, it seems like drag therapy is the most natural thing in the world so it would be nice to have a little background as to how this all came about.
As the show progresses, it also feels like the Queens are taking on tougher and tougher issues, and this week has some of the most heart-wrenching yet. Shangela is paired with Nicole, a proud lesbian, public defender, and local LGBTQ activist who’s constantly misgendered because she wears ‘men’s’ clothes. Nicole is female, identifies as female, she is just more comfortable in clothing traditionally identified as male, such as the suits she wears in court. And being always addressed with male pronouns is degrading to her morale. She’s also the newly appointed head of the town’s local LGBTQ organization, which is really progressive for a town like Farmington. It’s up to Shangela to show Nicole that she is a powerful woman, a real force to be reckoned with, regardless of the clothing she chooses to wear. Nicole’s drag transformation is stunning, to say the least.
Bob’s subject this week is Nate, a gay, indigenous photographer eager to make a deeper connection with his Navajo people. Nate and his friends meet with Bob to discuss life as a gay, indigenous person. Nate, and his friends, express themselves through their art but they feel so disconnected from their heritage not because they feel like outcasts, but because their heritage has been forgotten, and Nate says that is a direct result of Christianity seeping into their culture. The indigenous people have a long history of non-binary people in their culture who were at one time revered, referred to a Third Gender or Two-spirited. Through a drag performance, Nate hopes to remind his people of what they’ve forgotten, reconnecting to their heritage and remembering that they once accepted these Two-spirited people. And with help from others in the community, projected photos from his friend, and an amazing performance of being ‘re-born’, Nate may be getting his wish.
HBO
Eureka has probably the toughest case yet with Stacey and Jasmine, a mother-daughter duo processing the traumatic suicide of their beloved daughter and sister DJ, who struggled with not feeling accepted as a lesbian in her community. Meeting the pair, it’s palpable the pain they’re still in, especially Stacey, who will shut down and bottle up her feelings rather than talk with daughter Jasmine. And that puts Jasmine in a bad place because she has no outlet to release the pain she’s feeling. It’s clear DJ was loved by her family with no judgment. And as Eureka does get them to lower their walls a bit, they even learn more about DJ that they never knew before after some friends reveal how she helped people around town by doing things like helping install air conditioners. They were even more shocked at DJs funeral when 500 people showed up to pay their respects. So knowing how much DJ was loved and appreciated by friends, family and those lives she touched makes it even more difficult to register that she would take her own life (sadly, Stacey was the one who found her which accounts for her deeper trauma). Performing in the drag show is something Eureka hopes will help them honor DJ and be cathartic for Stacey and Jasmine at the same time. Definitely have some tissues at the ready.
I hope at some point the show will also give us some follow-ups with the subjects to see if they’ve been able to move past whatever issues they had before performing in the shows. I’d love to know how Nate’s performance impacted the indigenous community, and I feel like I really need to know if Stacey and Jasmine are healing emotionally. Having lost two friends to suicide myself, I know that pain that comes with wanting to know why it happened and if there was anything I could have done to prevent it. Stacey and Jasmine must live with those thoughts every day but they did seem to have a weight lifted by the end of their performance. I hope this drag therapy is doing some good. I know watching the show each week makes me feel good.
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