Project Runway Season 21, Episode 4
"Sew Elementary"
Director: Ramy Romany
Host: Heidi Klum
Mentor: Christian Siriano
Judge: Law Roach
Cast: Belania Daley, Antonio Estrada, Jesus Estrada, Veejay Floresca, Yuchen Han, JosephMcRae, Joan Madison, Madeline Malenfant, Ethan Mundt
I can tell this season is on the right track because I have no top-level gripes to make at the start of this recap. Instead, I can focus right away on the beginning of the episode (a.k.a. the end of last week's episode). In a not-surprising move, Angelo is sent home — and it immediately feels like an afterthought. Who was Angelo? What did he design? Why is everyone so mad at Utica Queen? It's almost like all of this should have been part of last week's episode so it could be part of a larger narrative.
Okay, I guess I did have a gripe. To be fair, it was last week's gripe. And I know this week is going to be better, because the whole teams thing is over with. Hallelujah, bulldoze the houses.
This week's challenge starts immediately after the runway, with Law Roach whisking the designers away to a random school in the New York metro area. Within the gymnasium awaits this week's Disney cross-promotion synergy: Lisa Ann Walter and Chris Perfetti from Abbott Elementary! As far as cross-promotion goes, it's hard to be salty about one involving the best comedy on TV. My only complaint: could've used more of them, instead of just having them introduce this season's unconventional materials challenge (Law was not going to stick around while the designers ran around a gym snatching popsicle sticks and hoarding volleyballs).
Right away, we get the first acts of the episode's larger storylines. The twins still think Veejay is a bitch, usually because she's just existing in a space without a smile. Like, Jesus immediately pulls a competition show faux pas by tossing everything he sees in a pile and calling dibs. You can't have all the volleyballs and all the nets and all the etc.! No wonder Veejay is poking around your stuff.
And then there's the larger storyline, one that I think is going to last for a few more weeks: will the twins ever stop working together? The answer is no, by the way. And I'm speaking from a place of having seen the rest of this episode, and also from PTSD flashbacks of the Buitendorp twins' harrowing double crash out on Season 16.
If you haven't watched Project Runway Season 16, please fix — especially if you can find the 60 minute edits of those episodes. That season was wild.
As the designers pack up their slinkies and vinyl mats and miscellaneous signage and head back to the work room to commence gluing shit to fabric, we get a few more personal peeks into their lives. Yuchen didn't find the courage to be himself until he heard Lady Gaga's music, for instance. Veejay grew up in a family that celebrated her being trans. Joan was head cheerleader in high school. Madeline ... is staring blankly into the void, which is gradually devouring all light around her.
Y'all, this is not Madeline's week. She couldn't keep up during the mad scramble to grab materials, and now she's in the work room with a stack of silver stars, a glue stick, and a prayer. What I like about this moment, though, is how Christian approaches it. During his walk-through, he cuts it up with everyone. He yells at Joan for making a popsicle dress, he exasperatedly thanks Yuchen for promising to add a few more soccer ball squares to his look, to preserve his model's dignity. But with Madeline, he sees the panic, feels the centrifugal pull of her spiral, and he looks her in the eyes and tells her that she makes great stuff and that the judges like her. I really love that. This is Christian's fifth season as a mentor, and you can see just how much he's grown into the role.
Still, production should have at least given Tim Gunn a courtesy phone call.
The real question mark in the room for me, though, is Antonio. He's crafting a huge puffer coat out of free-floating miniature pennants and draping it over a "bubble dress." It's a whole lot of look intentionally made out of a whole lot of nothing.
And now it's time for some twists! First, the runway this week will be the work room, for the first time in the show's history. Hope those unconventional looks are ready to be seen under very conventional lights! Second, we're having one judge this week: Law f'ing Roach.
Pump the brakes. I need an exposé. This feels like either the runway was being fumigated and the show had to come up with a backup plan, or some wild stipulation in Law's contract that there be one episode all about him. This is crazy, but it's the fun kind of crazy. I can't wait to see how this turns out!
The runway opens with Yuchen, who's model is giving robo soccer pop star from the 31st century. It's borderline costume, avant-garde-adjacent, and a reminder that the designers had no directive other than "use unconventional materials." Next comes Veejay, who constructed a lacey cocktail dress out of cockrings — oh, no, shuttlecocks. Madeline's look — let's just say she was lucky this week, because she absolutely glued a bunch of silver stars together into a pattern that can be called "kinda pretty" and hoped for the best. Luckily for her, there are three people who did worse. Josephmcrae took the science fair banner and made it into a tunic and miniskirt. Belania, last week's winner, gave us jewel tone separates that looked like they came from Target's back to school collection. Jesus — okay, Jesus turned it out, cutting up those volleyballs so deftly and precisely that he created a legit "leather" textile for his dress. Joan ... painted some popsicle sticks black and affixed them to some cork board border. Ethan scored a redemption with a queen of the butterflies and zip ties couture look. And Antonio, it ... it was what it was. It was exactly what it was going to be.
The real gag comes when Law, being the only judge, is just like "Yuchen wins," and it's made reality. Yuchen wins. I don't get it, because I know we've seen soccer ball looks on so many unconventional challenges — including the one on Drag Race, made by Rosé, the same challenge where Utica made that sleeping bag gown. But any time Law gives a critique, it's a reminder that his brain is truly one-of-a-kind. His favorite part of Yuchen's look? The hint of underboob. The thing that killed Antonio's certifiably insane outfit? The denim boots. Sure. Okay!
The bottom placements go to Josephmcrae ("the little droplets look like crack vials"), Joan ("looks like dead vegetation"), and Antonio — whose bottom placement riles Jesus up. And then it's time for the final gag: Law won't be sending someone home. The safe designers will be voting on who goes home.
This is where the difference between designers and drag queens becomes very apparent, or designers and Survivors, because when faced with voting someone out, most of the designers lose their minds. The tears, the tears flow, baby. And the debating gets so intense that I started to wonder if the vote had to be unanimous. I'm still not sure. I don't think it does? But wow, they all make their cases. Veejay says that Josephmcrae's look, cutting a simple square and circle skirt out of a banner, was an "insult." Ethan says Joan made, objectively, the worst look. No one is talking about Antonio, though. In fact, Jesus and Veejay — mortal enemies — are united in the fact that Josephmcrae should go home. What a world!
And that's where things end, with no elimination. And as much as I hate this change in format, I do have to admit ... the bonkers circumstances of this elimination kinda warrant the cliffhanger. TO BE CONTINUED!
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