Beaulah: Queens van die Kaap Season 1 episode 2 recap: Putting on a show

Can you be friends when you suspect that someone is only ever the “pageant-perfect” version of themselves with you? As the queens discuss their fight with Madison at Kat’s birthday party in Beaulah: Queens van die Kaap Season 1 episode 2, the surface is about insults, resentments, hurt feelings and arguments about who stole Madison’s wigs, but the real issue seem to be the far larger one of trust within a community whose lifeblood is being “real”. Whether they’re risking rejection by showing their parents their drag like Fabian/Emogan, or sweating their heart out on stage like Veon/Manila, Beaulah’s queens prize authenticity and vulnerability. With that in mind, Wade/Ina makes a skating date with Madison to work out whether they can bring her into the fold.

What happened in Beaulah: Queens van die Kaap Season 1 episode 1

Beaulah introduced a group of drag queens who are connected through performing at Cape Town’s Zer021 Social Club. We spent time with Veon Wentzel (Manila von Teez) and his friends, Carl Richards (3Divas singer Kat Gilardi) and Wade Khoosal (Ina Propriette), in their daily lives. We went inside talent management agency The Drag Cartel to meet co-founder, proud trans woman Gillian Archer (Maxine Wild) and her drag sisters, Fabian van Schalkwyk (Emogan Moore), and Brandon Samuels (BB Vahlour). We met the queen everyone is fighting with, trans woman and dancer Madison Scarr. And Madison and the queens got into it at Kat’s birthday party, spilling the tea on Madison calling several of the other queens “old hos” online, and BB’s drag daughters allegedly stealing Madison’s wigs. 

Stream Beaulah: Queens van die Kaap Season 1 on Showmax now. New episodes on Thursdays. 

Catch up quick: Read our Beaulah Who’s Who and the Beaulah: Queens van die Kaap Season 1 episode 1 recap. 

The queens of the season are:

• BB Vahlour (she/her)
• Fabian van Schalkwyk/Emogan Moore (he/him)
• Wade Khoosal/Ina Propriette (he/him)
• Carl Richards/Kat Gilardi (he/him)
• Madison Scarr (she/her)
• Veon Wentzel/Manila Von Teez (he/him)
• Maxine Wild (she/her)

Episode 2: Party aftermath

BB drops in on Carl/Kat and his husband Errol while they’re having their party post-mortem on "Kat Gilardi's flame grill patsy". Unhappy with how things stand, Carl/Kat is determined to put in the work to help Madison realise why the queens have issues with her. Carl/Kat asks BB what kind of person Madison is if she can say to their faces, "I saw you perform ... but I didn't want to get to know you as a person." He points out that the drag scene is built on relationships; you need other queens to succeed. Speaking of that, BB isn’t just there to discuss Madison. Carl/Kat is also director of the upcoming Miss Sovereign Western Cape Pageant, and BB needs a little help getting out of her head … and some insider advice. 

Cutting & fitting

The party post-mortem continues at Veon/Manila’s house, where Manila gives Wade/Ina more specifics about the “old hos” situation, naming Naeem (a friend of drag), Jayde (drag artist Jayde Kay, one of Carl/Kat’s 3Divas co-stars) and Madison as the troublemakers behind the original social media post. Proving Carl/Kat’s point about relationships, with just two weeks to go to the Miss Sovereign Western Cape Pageant, Veon/Manila is making a custom gown for Wade/Ina as a favour to a friend – despite his packed schedule and long client list.

Veon/Manila phones Carl/Kat during the fitting, and he and Wade/Ina tease BB about cheating by sucking up to pageant director Carl/Kat, which Wade/Ina gleefully calls "Rigamorris" (using a malapropism from RuPaul’s Drag Race star Alyssa Edwards). And Wade/Ina and Veon/Manila joke around with Carl/ Kat's pageant-perfect poise, which starts them off doing impressions of Faye Dunaway playing Joan Crawford in the camp film Mummy Dearest, with Manila declaring, "I fought worse monsters than you for years in Hollywood." After the fun with his drag family, Wade/Ina decides to try to help Madison find her place in drag by approaching her as a neutral party. 

Give it a trial run

While BB’s jogging through the streets of Grassy Park with her drag daughter, Dee, she admits that she doesn't know how she got to the point that she had a full-blown outburst at Madison, but she was seriously offended when Madison called her a liar. It’s no small thing. Being accused of stealing breaks the trust of the close-knit drag community, placing BB’s sisterhood and livelihood in harm’s way. 

While BB’s on the run, Fabian/Emogan and Gillian/Maxine pop in at Honey & Dora in Cape Town's De Waterkant to weigh it up as a drag venue, sip some cocktails, and natter about the party. The two agree that they'd be fine with Madison openly not liking them or wanting to be around them, but Fabian/Emogan points out that Madison brought other people into it like Carl/Kat, Errol, Jayde and Angel (Angel Lalamore, another of Carl/Kat’s 3Divas co-stars). 

There are more intimate issues to discuss, as Fabian/Emogan weighs up how best to introduce his dad to his drag life. Fabian/Emogan perks up when Gillian/Maxine tells him that having her dad come to her drag show has made something click for him, and helped him to understand her. But she warns that she might not have gone about it the right way. She just invited her dad to her show without telling him about drag first. And she admits that she completely disconnected when she made eye contact with her dad during her number. So awkward! Worse yet, she sensed an emotional distance between them after that. 

At home with Madison

At home, as Madison is packing to go to the Karoo and joking with her aunt, Robin. While she claims that the party fight has cleared the air, she still obviously resents BB for trying to shade her and, hilariously, she hauls out a framed photo montage of herself touring Hong Kong to prove that BB isn’t the only dancing drag queen who’s toured the world. She also tells Robyn, “Her and her family stole my wigs. They're all skollies in makeup". But Madison is excited to get a message from Wade/Ina, who's invited her to come rollerskating with him. “I think Ina is such a fun character, but also she just seems like a cool person," she says, raving with Robyn about how well Wade/Ina paints and dresses. 

Skating on thin ice with Ina

Wade/Ina tries to figure out Madison as the two bumble about the roller skating rink together. When Wade/Ina probes about what happened at the party, Madison admits that she came across as guarded to the other queens at first because she wasn't sure about the world of drag and wanted to know more before getting further into it. In her talking head, Madison claims, "I know at the beginning I said that I didn’t want to be friends with these girls, but if there's one person I know I could be good friends with, it's Ina.” In his talking head, though, Wade/Ina comments that he’s picked up that Madison is clocked out, defensive, and he feels as if he's talking to himself. He muses that Madison’s whole vibe is that she is a competitive dancer, "But that's not how we do things here. We are competitive when it needs to be, that's why we have pageants.” 

Wade/Ina decides they need a vogue break to let some air back into the room. With the mood lifted, he suggests to Madison that they get the girls together and celebrate what they do rather than who they are. As a further olive branch, he puts out feelers to see if Madison would like to test the waters on the ball scene, where her competitiveness will be an asset.

Manila is the whole show!

At Beefcakes, one of Cape Town's most famous LGBTQIA+ venues, Veon/Manila arrives for the show he's been inviting everyone to throughout the episode. He and his mom, Ann Wentzel, chat backstage, and Ann reveals that she first found out about Veon/Manila doing drag by seeing him in the newspaper. She admits that she took all the copies of that newspaper that she could find and hid them so that nobody could see. In his talking head, Veon/Manila speculates about what his mom was afraid of, and reveals how the lack of acceptance impacted him. These days, though, Ann rocks up every Pride to support Veon/Manila with a minibus packed full of their family members. "I love where we are now. It's completely a 360 (180) from years ago," says Veon/Manila.

As everyone arrives to support Veon/Manila, Carl/Kat jokes that they’re giving Real Housewives vibes as they sit dolled up to the max in the audience. And costume change after costume change, song after song, joke after joke, Veon/Manila keeps his audience and his friends entranced. We also get to see a little of how it all comes together backstage, as Veon/Manila struggles through lightning-fast costume changes with his dresser, Barry, tugging skintight outfits onto a sweaty body. 

No matter what he’s singing or who he’s referencing, Carl/Kat notes that it works because what’s being expressed is all authentically Veon/Manila – there’s never a moment when he’s dead behind the eyes.

Stream Beaulah: Queens van die Kaap Season 1 on Showmax now. New episodes on Thursdays.