HBO
We’re Here has been one of my top shows of 2020, so I was very disappointed to learn that the season consisted of just six episodes. This week we find out why. As the Queens pulled into Spartanburg, South Carolina and production commenced, it ended just as quickly three days later due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This episode does show us briefly the arrival and the meetings with their drag daughters but then it all takes a turn as Bob, Shangela and Eureka — as well as the crew — are forced to return home to shelter in place. And then someone had the brilliant idea to make this episode about our Queens.
Some people may have been asking how three drag queens could dish out therapeutic information to their ‘drag babies’ without any kind of background in that kind of therapy. Well, as we see in the season finale, they have life experience and sometimes those experiences can offer someone the best advice for whatever they are dealing with.
Bob, Shangela and Eureka each sit down in front of a camera from their homes and delve deep into their backgrounds. If we only know them on the surface from RuPaul’s Drag Race and some of what they’ve shared during this season, they peel back all the layers and give us their raw and emotional stories. One thing they all had in common was denying who they were, especially as teenagers, and not wanting to be themselves in front of their families.
Bob talks of how he spiraled into alcohol and drugs, even contemplating suicide at one point, before discovering drag which literally saved his life. Shangela talks of how he joined every after school activity he could just so he wouldn’t be stuck in his family’s house, and then moving to Los Angeles to make it big in show business. It was his dancing skills that got him into the world of drag and after only ten performances, he was cast on RuPaul’s Drag Race … and was the first eliminated which made him question what he was doing. And a terrible on-stage accident nearly derailed everything. Eureka has the toughest story, and one that is relatable to many LGBTQ teens — his relationship with his mother, which was torn apart when he came out and led to a suicide attempt. But then he learned something about his mom’s past that put everything into perspective.
The episode gives us peeks back at some of the Queens’ earliest performances and childhood photos, while also interspersing their stories with previously unseen footage from this season, including a performance from each queen and one of them as a group from the different locations. The real emotional kicker comes at the end of the episode when the queens and everyone featured on this season unite virtually to lip sync to Alessia Cara’s ‘Scars To Your Beautiful’. It’s gut-wrenching and uplifting at the same time.
I had been surprised by HBO’s decision to rerun the first episode instead of the finale the previous week, but now it makes perfect sense — June is Pride Month, and even though this wasn’t the episode it was intended to be, it’s the episode we needed it to be. It made me think back to meeting my friend Tony in 1982. My first gay friend who made me realize that I was not alone in the world. Tony died suddenly last week and I’m still trying to process that, but I’ll never forget that friendship we had for almost 40 years and how he helped me accept myself. This episode with these stories by Bob, Shangela and Eureka can do the same for the LGBTQ youth out there who don’t feel like they belong, who don’t feel they can be honest with their families, who feel that maybe life isn’t worth living. The art of drag made a huge difference in the lives of these three people and they’ve used that art to show everyone that there is a place in this world for all of us, in drag or not. Our given families may not accept that, but as the Queens have shown, we can also choose our families, the people who will support us unconditionally.
We’re Here has been a fun, entertaining and emotional ride over the first five episodes, but the season finale — and I hope there will be another season — is one of the most powerful and important hours of television I’ve seen in a long time. And with this being Pride Month, I can only hope that HBO will make the episode available to everyone who wants and needs to see it, not just HBO subscribers. This episode has the power to change and save lives.
What did you think of this episode? Tell us in the comments section below!
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