Welcome to burlesque! On Thursday, the gypsies, tramps, and thieves of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 10 turned back time, portraying different Chers over the years. True, none of the contestants were as moonstriking as “All-Stars” winner and “professional” Cher impersonator Chad Michaels, who made a cameo at the start of the episode. And, since they were all singing live, not lip-synching for their lives, some of them did need “Believe”-style AutoTune more than others.
However, the end result — “Cher: The Unauthorized Rusical” – still needs to go straight to Broadway and win all the Tonys. I could watch ”Cher: The Rusical” over and over, and I’d never want to snap out of it. (Side note: This top seven episode’s “Moonstruck”-inspired slapfest mini-challenge was extremely, oddly satisfying to watch, even though RuPaul accidentally clocked Asia O’Hara for real!)
Cher (whose mother, Georgia Holt, and son, Chaz Bono, have guest-judged the show in the past) disappointingly did not live-tweet the episode. But “Drag Race” superfans conspiracy-theorized that the diva’s reply to a fan about her love of tomato soup — a tweet she first posted over a year ago, but then randomly mentioned again while “Drag Race” was in session Thursday — was in fact a Nostradamus-style prediction that contestant Miz Cracker, who played a vocoder-assisted “’90s Comeback Cher” this Thursday, will be crowned the next winner.
Cracker had some competition. Among the standout queens was bodybuilder-by-day/drag-queen-by-night Kameron Michaels — opening the show as “’60s Cher” with her flat-ironed hair and pinstriped flares, and getting Cher’s famously froggy speaking voice just right. Monet X Change also executed a flawless hair-flip as “Variety Show Cher” in a Mackie-worthy halter onesie, and Eureka O’Hara, despite her singing phobia, was ultimately fearless as the cannon-straddling, sheer-bodysuited “Rock Star Cher” of the late ’80s. These queens created some truly Eastwickian magic on the “Drag Race” soundstage.
We’ll find out which queen is “strong enough” when the Season 10 finale takes place in a few weeks’ time.
Read more from Yahoo Entertainment: