UNHhhh

This review was requested by Nate Biagiotti. Many thanks to Nate for supporting Post-Credit Coda through our Patreon.

UNHhhh is an internet program in which two Drag Queens talk to each other about stuff. There are as of this writing 143 episode of UNHhhh. Using advanced "Random Number Generator" technology, I selected five arbitrary episodes to analyze. Here's that.

108: R&R

You know, I was in a band with my senior year high school roommate called R&R. It's because we're both named Ryan. I wrote the lyrics and sort of produced, he did all of the actual music stuff. We made one album and sold it to fundraise for the senior trip.

That last paragraph is a completely irrelevant tangent, but that's the stuff of UNHhhh-- two interesting, engaging, charismatic people improvise and reminisce freely about any old dang thing in their lives. This can take the form of little sketches and bits, or more rambling anecdotes with tiny shocks of pathos. This conversational style is bolstered by an aggressive green screen aesthetic, with editing and special effects that are designed to highlight the gestures of the performers. By this point in the series they're clearly comfortable with the rhythm of the edit-to-be, so Trixie and Katya habitually play into the artifice of the green screen to great effect.

One moment of intimacy found amidst the artifice in this episode is a tender touch that inspires an extended discussion about loneliness and relationships. Trixie and Katya are comfortable with each other, and as performers this lets you interrupt and trample when the moment calls for it, or listen and learn when that feels most right. That familiarity is a special gift to give an audience.

Also I like Katya's fingernails.

The cucumber prop comedy is really awful to watch in a good way. The make-up smears off with the veggies as the video goes on and the Queens become progressively more 'undone.' This gets at the fun and intimacy that these two performers are creating together. If rest and relaxation means doing the thing you wouldn't normally do, then it makes sense that the R&R video would involve their looks gradually falling to pieces, deliberately without maintenance. They're giving us a winking peek behind the mask.

136: Moving

Love the contrasting black and pink outfits in this one.

"Are we talking about moving?" Katya asks after a prompt from the producer. It's still unclear to me, do they know what the episode topic will be going into filming, or is it arrived at organically? They have questions from twitter about it and stuff, so they're probably very good at appearing to discover the thing they're meant to discuss.

Moving is one of those experiences that is so universal it doesn't get talked about that much. People have to do it, it sucks, wash, rinse, repeat. But as with anything, the longer you bandy about a topic the more social intricacies and buried meanings you find.

Most of this episode consists of anecdotes from past moves. The advantage of the goofy special effects becomes abundantly clear when they get stuck listing off all the places they've lived in the past. Add a ticking clock sound effect and some sharp edits, this tedious listing becomes a fun bit about the way that our past stacks up on us. And the way that stacking compels us to tell really boring stories. As a bonus, the producers get to splice in fun visual imaginings of strange homes that Trixie and Katya only allude to.

The sparsest visual augmentations are when the greenscreen simply shows the words that were just spoken. This is a nifty way to add extra focus to certain central sentiments of the episode, both by allowing us to (re)read the sentiment, and by keeping the visual landscape simple. At least for a second or two.

69: Reunions

"What's the topic for this one?" Ahh, set topics confirmed.

Trixie and Katya focus on high school reunions specifically. My favorite visual moment envisions one of them busting down the door to the reunion, and the parking lot in the background is just full of pickup trucks. It's a relatively subtle visual reminder of the different cultural landscape so many of us artists/queer folks/weirdos come from. Or in some cases are still looking out from the inside of.

A quality of this show, and drag in general, and good comedy to be even more general, is the ability to speak normally about the bizarre, and strangely about the normal. It creates a dissonance in the audience that causes laughter, but also intense reflection. Our entire known reality is shot through with the absurd, and recognizing that is a great first step to actually having a relationship with ourselves and our environment.

The specter of normalcy hangs heavy over this episode. Trixie and Katya always keep it light; they're joyfully playing with each other in a safe space. But subliminal in all of their 'what would I do at my high school reunion?' rants is a pressing need to push back against that crushing status quo that plagued them in the past. Hence their recurring refrains about how much power and money they have these days, and how much they want to rub that earned symbol of legitimacy in the face of former classmates.

I would/ I would/ I would/ they repeat over and over. UNHhhh operates in the space of fantasy, even more than most art. Trixie and Katya spin out hypotheticals, branching paths, ideas for how they might impact the world to make it different in a way it's never been. The production design of these episodes leans into the fantasies communicated, elevating them beyond simple frippery to something real and important that these two friends share. Even if it is only real and important in their shared fantasy space (the show), the power of art is that it is now real and important for the rest of us as well.

37: New Year New You

"We call the episode New Years, but it doesn't mean we're gonna talk about it!" This is the best way to improvise-- let your thoughts and words be focused if they want to be, let them run unbridled otherwise. Obligation to create a cogent topic/argument will sap the creative juices, and if you follow your impulse, so often you get to that cogent place by accident. It's always more insightful than a forced moral.

The most crucial thing that UNHhhh avoids is the feeling that we're just watching other people have fun without us. Trixie and Katya, as well as their production team, have become masters at inviting us into the joke. Watching this early episode when the show is still finding its rhythm really highlights how good they become at avoiding that pitfall.

In all, the visual landscape is far less frenetic, but you can see the building blocks of the show's unique language. A sudden poke becomes a close-up explosion to emphasize the subjective experience of someone excitedly jabbing at you. Katya's color scheme becomes washed out and spooky when she gets really excited about pickling; who among us hasn't experienced a friend getting so excited about something that it's a little scary?

It is cool to jump back in time and see the show in the process of becoming. As they refer to explicitly in the episode, making a show like this is about relaxing into presentness rather than trying desperately to FORCE your show to fit a CONCEPT. That's a hard lesson to learn.

116: Walking Children in Nature Pt. 2

Amazing, we will be ending with the second half of a two parter.

Some topics let the girls explore something deeply, or spin a weave of fantasy. A topic like 'the outdoors' is so broad that the episode necessarily leans into the form of one-off questions, subtopics, and anecdotes. The rapid fire progression suits the shows style nicely.

Hearing all of these ridiculous stories (Checkers the dog getting eaten by a bear and the neighbor who called to say he's 'just gettin it') and refried facts (did you know in Russia there's a bear in jail?) makes me reflect on the way we humans are fonts of information. Experience, knowledge, hearsay, anecdote, logic, intuition, and imagination all flow through filtration systems of memory, language, ideology. We are each of us nexuses that warp reality as reality warps us. In other words, people say some dumb shit, and it's amazing.

The more you reflect on these things the more you realize that True Truth is unattainable. And the more you don't care. The truth isn't a prize buried in the moral of the story. The truth is the story itself, and Trixie and Katya can tell a hell of a story.

If I had to choose a way to die in the outdoors, I too would be thrown into a volcano, Katya. Dying that way makes a lot of sense to me, and thank you for helping me realize this.

Of course the final moment of our final episode is a Twin Peaks reference. I am sated.