Damn, girl! After what sometimes felt like an interminable wait, RuPaul’s Drag Race is back and the Logo extravaganza is better than ever! But forget the 12 contestants and the slew of celebrity guest judges, including Kathy Griffin, in the season premiere and next week’s Dita von Tesse (not to mention Lisa Rinna, Cloris Leachman and Debbie Reynolds). The best thing about RuPaul’s Drag Race has nothing to do with the hour-long episodes. The fierceness is all in Rupaul’s Drag Race: Untucked, the half hour of unaired footage that runs after the show, which seems to be mostly behind-the-scenes clips of the drag divas acting like bitches in heels.

From the moment Nicole Paige Brooks (“From Atlanta, Georgia,” she simpers every time someone says her name) sashays into the dressing room and teeters in her heels as she tries to decide where she wants to sit, these girls promise to be infuriating, exasperating and great TV. In short order, we have Shangela (pictured), Pandora Boxx, the tattooed and pierced Raven ("I like to be that mysterious dark ice queen”), Tatianna, Sonique (who barely features in the first episode), NYC’s own Sahara Davenport, the plus-sized Mystique, Morgan McMichaels, Tyra Sanchez, Jujubee and Jessica Wild. Was it just me, or was Jujubee giving a little Season One Ongina? Maybe it’s just that they’re both petite and fashion-forward.

Before the girls can get too comfortable, their “She-Mail” arrives (one of the pleasures of RuPaul’s Drag Race is the teasing they give Tyra Banks and America’s Next Top Model). This season will be harder, longer and feature more curves than “Kim Kardashian wriggling out of a pair of Spanx,” RuPaul tells us. Can’t wait! And then the real RuPaul walks in, looking as dapper as ever, and tells the girls that, aside from the charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent, they’ll be judged this week on their Gone with the Wind-inspired photo shoot with photographer Mike Ruiz. Jessica Wild is nonplussed, being a Puerto Rican who has never seen GWTW; Nicole Paige Brooks is, as expected, thrilled. She’s from Atlanta, you know.

The shoot is a masterpiece of sadism. The girls are posed astride a canon while hunky male models pose beside them with bayonets and little Civil War caps. But just as they start working their best Top Model poses, someone cranks up the wind machine. And keeps cranking it up. None of these girls can smile with their eyes when their eyelashes are flapping up and down like some deranged seagull swooping down for the kill.

Raven and Pandora Boxx both give excellent, if similar photos. Morgan loses her wig and can’t quite recover, and Tyra is wearing such a tight dress (and is so intent on being a lady) that she looks stiff and awkward.  And there were more than a few “chicken cutlets” on display, as RuPaul kept screaming over the wind. Raven wins the challenge, which means she gets first dibs on the material for this week’s challenge: making a Scarlett O’Hara curtain dress.

After Raven chooses the zebra-striped curtains, it’s a free for all. As one of the girls points out, “There were no ladies on the set today. There were men running for curtains.” Most people escape relatively unharmed, except Morgan and Tatiana, who get into a squabble over who reached some curtains first. A look at the footage proves Morgan beat Tatiana by a second, but Tatiana somehow ends up keeping the curtains. This little set-to will have some uncomfortable consequences later.

And then it’s Project Runway time, as Ru’s dolls get to work on their gowns. Mystique claims that her drapes aren’t plus-size friendly, which the other girls correctly assess as bullshit. I mean, they’re drapes. How plus-size friendly can material get? Does she want a king-size bedspread?

Pandora turns out to be possibly the sweetest of the girls, as she lets herself get distracted from her own dress to help Shangela with her sewing. She’s annoyed with herself for being such a pushover, but seeing someone momentarily forget that helping others is doing herself a disservice in a competition is nonetheless refreshing. Plus, she name checks Goldie Hawn as an influence. I think I’m rooting for her.

Ru does his Tim Gunn impression, moving throughout the room to check on the ladies. Mystique sullenly complains that her dress form isn’t the right size. But when Ru suggests padding it, she brushes the idea aside, claiming she doesn’t have enough time. “Mystique is a mistake,” Morgan cattily says, and I can’t help it: The nickname has already stuck in my house.

Tyra shows off pictures of his son Jeremiah to Ru; Morgan, after a sewing machine snafu, is a little worried about time; Shangela plans to use corn in her outfit; and Sahara only has a small part of her dress done. It’s flawless, but she’s gonna need more than that to bring it during runway.

Ru enters the judging chamber in one of her typically fierce gowns (what is Ru’s costume budget for this? I hope she keeps all the dresses), and introduces the judges. Joining Santino Rice and Merle Ginsberg for the episode are Mike Ruiz and Kathy Griffin, who could not be more excited about being there. I wonder if this stint will pop up in the next season of My Life on the D List? I hope so, especially since Pandora comes out giving us dead-on Kathy Griffin. Even Kathy’s amazed.

The other girls are an odd combination of great looking but dull or personable and poorly dressed. Mystique, who accessorizes her giant pillowcase dress (cut above the knees) with a basket on her head, wows the judges by doing the splits. Morgan looks fabulous, but lumbers across the stage like an elephant. And Shangela has actually tied the cobs of Indian corn around her wrists, letting them swing beside her as she saunters along the stage.  Jujubee has a stupendous look, with a high ruffled collar that Kathy says Lauren Bacall would wrestle her to the ground for. Raven looks great in that zebra dress and a severe blond wig, but none of the girls look as good as they did when they first arrived. Sometimes a gal needs couture more than draperies and used home furnishings.

The judging seems to take forever, as Ru separates the mediocre from the sublime and the atrocious. During the judges’ deliberations, Kathy says she thinks Shangela (who’s only been doing drag for five months) shows great potential, but Mike Ruiz is not having it. Potential is not enough, he says, and Ru agrees. “This is RuPaul’s Drag Race,” she says, “not RuPaul’s School for Girls.” And though Mystique impressed the judges with her jokes during the Q&A portion of the judging (“Got milk?” she answers when Ru asks if that’s a chicken cutlet she sees popping out in Mystique’s photo), the judges all agree: Her dress is raggedy. And then awesomely tell Mystique so to her face. Mystique looks ready to cut a bitch. Sahara, meanwhile, explains that she’s carrying the skeleton of a parasol because her boyfriend is Asian. “Nothing says Civil War like “My Asian boyfriend,’” Kathy agrees.

Eventually, Ru gets down to business and tells everyone that Morgan is the night’s winner, thereby earning immunity next week, and Sahara and Shangela, friends from college as it turns out, are in the final two. Mystique somehow escaped elimination by being funny. Shangela loses her poker face when Ru tells Mystique she’s safe and lets her jaw drop. Girl, me too.

And so it’s time to “Lip sync for your life,” a line which Ru still delivers with all the lip-smacking aplomb of a gourmand encountering a tasty morsel. It really is addictive to say, too. Try it. And so the girls get in place to perform RuPaul’s “Cover Girl,” and Shangela admits in confession that she plans to bring it. And bring it she does, ripping off her skirt and shimmying all across the stage. Sahara, seeing this, gives up all pretense of being a lady and kicks off her heels before leaping into the air and landing in a split. They are going at it like warriors in mortal combat, according to Sonique. And when it’s all said and done, it’s Sahara who hears “Shante, you stay.” Shangela must “sashay away.” Sahara jumps in the air with glee at first, then realizes she’s just beaten her friend, and soberly hugs Shangela. Aw! Shangela’s disappointed, she admits, but if she had to lose to someone…

And normally, that would be it, but then Untucked comes on. And damn, these girls are bitches! I shouldn’t be so surprised, but things got heated backstage during the judging, with Morgan and Mystique screaming at one another and Tatianna taking Mystique’s side (still annoyed at that curtain debacle from earlier, Tatianna?). To be fair, Morgan did stick her nose in where it didn’t belong, but Mystique seems like such a pain I’d be hard pressed to keep my mouth shut, too. She told the judges she can get down with the skinny bitches, which leads one of the girls to ask if she thinks it’s a competition between her and the skinny girls. Yes, Mystique admits, before dragging that damn dress form into it. “Why didn’t you pad it, like Nicole Paige Brooks did?” they ask. “She tied pillows to the dress form because it was only a size four.” Mystique doesn’t have a good answer for that.

And Nicole Paige Brooks is as snippy and annoying as any Southern girl I’ve ever met. When Tatianna tells everyone over cocktails (god bless this show for getting these girls drunk as often as possible) that she used to go to school in drag, Nicole asks if she’s a tranny. No, Tatianna patiently explains. She doesn’t want to cut off her dick. Nicole, however, thinks she’s in denial, which is absurd. And in true Southern fashion, she shuts down whenever Tatianna tries to explain further. Way to prove that the gays can be as judgmental to one another as the straights, Nicole Paige Brooks!

Next week the girls have to work as burlesque performers. I know where'll I bet at 9 p.m. next Monday.

Photo credit: Mathu Andersen