Drag Race RuCap: Season Sixteen's “Grand Finale”

Nick Taylor and Cláudio Alves watch and recap RuPaul’s Drag Race season sixteen. This week, it’s time for the grand finale…

Look at those ponytails! Sasha Colby's impact is immeasurable.

CLÁUDIO: Better late than never, amirite? Well, even if I’m not, please pretend. 

Many days have passed since season sixteen drew to a close, with Taiwan goddess Nymphia Wind crowned America’s next drag superstar. It was a conclusion I wished for but wasn’t expecting, thinking Philly had the win secured up until those final minutes. After all, nothing in the season’s edit positioned the Banana Buddha as a threat, mostly ignoring her to the point she was invisible for a couple of episodes in the middle. On the other hand, Sapphira had winner energy from the go, a notion bolstered by the judges’ unvarying praise and four wins to her name. It’s easy to see why Miss Cristál’s stans feel a bit flabbergasted, though I wish some of them weren’t so quick to invalidate RuPaul’s chosen champion.

NICK: It’s still a shock! A pleasant one, but an odd one, and one I can understand folks feeling snaked by. As gaggy as Nymphia’s finale lip sync was - and I do think she won that battle - Sapphira gave a winning performance too! She was winning the whole episode, the whole season, until she didn’t. . . .

We’ve talked plenty about how Nymphia’s edit has undervalued how well she’s done in the competition. Bookending the season with a dominating turn while scoring unevenly in the middle is very Violet Chachki of her, especially when she brought one of the best packages this show has ever seen.

But I get the sentiment being expressed that Sapphira did literally everything right to take home the crown, to include being the first finalist to win Miss Congeniality since season one, and still lost at the last second. So many All Stars contestants have walked in saying the only thing they didn’t do on their original season was win the crown, but this might be truest of all for Sapphira. It might be so true I’m not sure what she would even need to prove on a second go-‘round. That’s an incredibly far look into the future even by our standards, so why don’t we start at the beginning and say hi to the queens?

CLÁUDIO: The night begins with Mama Ru arriving in her pink limousine, transitioning into a lipsync of one of her singles - aptly named “Pink Limousine.” It’s a somewhat low-energy turn from our hostess, but you can’t ask too much from the old broad who still shows up looking like an Amazonian diva. My immediate first impressions have less to do with her than the setting, however. Like last week’s lipsync tournament, this episode takes place in a version of the main stage first seen in the Secret Celebrity Drag Race. While much bigger than the usual deal, it’s still considerably more minute than the venues where the show has held its finales for the past decade. Now, I don’t mind a more intimate platform, and may even think it benefits the overall episode. That said, the gals have been directed to look up and into the middle distance, as if to suggest a wider crowd than they actually have. It’s a curious misstep, verging on camp.

Moving on from the intro, we get to witness the girls walking their (quasi) final catwalk on season 16. One thing becomes evident right away. Unlike their sisters from past seasons, this year’s girls didn’t have a post-Drag Race budget at their disposal, making their sartorial output less ostentatious than what it could have been. Reports of the reason why MTV went with this format instead of the bigger venue and mid-airing shoot are unclear. The only certainty is that it left a mark on the show. In any case, here are the girls in elimination order, starting with…

…Hershii LiqCour-Jeté, who looks like she purloined a dress from Sapphira’s wardrobe. Honestly, I’m not too fond of the piece itself, but the girl looks good, and her head styling is on point. The blue trimming the curls is a great touch.

NICK: It’s giving Sapphira, it’s giving the red white and blue group number later in the show, but I do like it! I love the hair piece, which almost look like blue curlers you put on before bed. Maybe she’s not intending for church auntie to be a recurring character theme, but she still looks good!

Next is Mirage, in a Vegas dancing bodysuit still digivolving into a traditional black gown. I am intrigued by all the different pieces here, though I don’t really think they work as a whole. Please tell me your thoughts on that wig.

CLÁUDIO: That wig is a moment and a mystery, maybe even a mess. Whatever the case, it’s mesmerizing. Wish the rest of the outfit was as interesting instead of one more example of why nude illusion isn’t always the best choice. This season is full of ‘em.

Amanda Tori Meating comes next, looking the best she has all season. There’s a keen negotiation between traditional glamour and her offbeat taste, resulting in an outfit near the threshold of overdesigned but not quite beyond it. A vision of gilded eggplant purple, she’s a superstar. Sadly, the wig isn’t up to the gown’s standard. Also, am I crazy or is it sitting too low on her forehead?

NICK: It sure looks like it. The front bang almost looks like a lopsided weight, but it’s not enough to diminish what’s so eccentric and well-assembled with Amanda’s outfit. The gloves are just perfect.

The same cannot be said for Geneva Karr, whose colors and textiles mostly just clash with each other. Her choker looks like it might actually be choking her, too. Geneva’s big hair is a plus, but I don’t have much nice to say about this outfit, so you say all the mean stuff for me and I’ll nod sagely in agreement. God, what is up with that bodice? 

CLÁUDIO: This design was possibly stolen from an independent artist, which makes its ugliness all the more disheartening. If you’re going to steal, at least steal something pretty. Everything clashes, the proportions are all wrong, with the tire purse the only saving grace.

Our lipsyncing revelation, Megami, comes out sporting the devil’s fashion. I mostly like the outfit, but the shoes are a confounding choice and the swell of those hip-pads can read a bit awkward with the tea-length skirt. As always, I love Megami’s mug, and she even picked a good wig to go with it this time. 

NICK: Megami continues to be the season’s MVP of successfully wearing nude illusions. I love how her outfit looks like it was tattooed directly onto her skin. The mug, the ashen forearms, the tattered and heavy-looking cloak, it’s all stunning.

I am struggling to remember the name of the designer who made this dress - did Xunami get this straight off the fashion week? Whatever the source is, I’m quite taken with the curves and patterns of her garment, and the ways her hair and accessories continue those sartorial rhythms. She struts down the runway like that dress was made for her. 

CLÁUDIO: Honestly, she wears it better than the model in the Area Spring/Summer runway show. The gold accents are sheer perfection, especially the tilted halo-like circlets on the wig. G-O-D-D-E-S-S, that bitch is a goddess.

Plasma looks like a million dollars, a starlight spark of old-school glamour. My one critique is that the non-color washes her out a bit. This would have been so much more striking in a richer hue, perchance shades of bronze and rust gold. Her mug is perfect now. 

NICK: Agreed agreed agreed. Stunning, gorgeous woman, beautifully painted, looks fantastic in all kinds of yellow, especially daffodil. She kinda resembles Jinkx Monsoon at the season 5 finale? When she was crowned? I’m sure Plasma would love that comparison.

Mhi’ya Iman Le'Paige is also quite stunning, in a silvery look with so much beaded fringe it’s just begging for her to flip in them like nobody’s business. Imagine how kinetic this would be in a lip sync! It’s so glitzy and attention-grabby. Good on Mhi’ya for soaking up the spotlight. I just wish her dress didn’t have that huge strip of fabric around her throat, swallowing up her neck again.

CLÁUDIO: It’s got great movement, but some details bug, like the mismatch of crystal quality and that ashy mesh over her cleavage. Again, I adore the wig - where was this hairstyling excellence during the season proper?

Dawn’s headpiece is insane, but I’m not sure I like it. The elf ears displaced from her face are an amazing piece of sartorial witticism, however. Similarly, those swaths of blue and pink can read as overwhelming, one of those cases of the frock wearing you rather than the other way around. The general effect of it, however, is better than its parts and makes for a fitting fashion farewell to the Brooklyn queen.

NICK: I’m really besotted with Dawn’s look! The headpiece is incredible, as are the fronds bursting out of her skull. Her limited color palette keeps it from being too overwhelming, and her blue makeup keeps me from agreeing that the dress is wearing her. If anything, maybe this is just her true form? We at least agree that this look is a great sendoff for Dawn.

I would say Morphine Love Dion’s runway similarly distills her Drag Race package. Drop dead gorgeous, somehow serving ass, exactly right but perhaps in need of a little bit more going on. I wish the wig was bigger, but Kirby is otherwise serving. Not the best outfit of the night, but Morphine looks like a million bucks.

CLÁUDIO: Those big mirror appliques will never be my cup of tea, and the cleavage bars are an odd touch, but she does look splendid. When doesn’t she? That mug is powerful enough to redeem any sartorial mediocrity.

After weeks of badmouthing her style, I’m happy to say Q finished her runway package on a high note. It almost seems like we’re back at the start of the competition when the bitch’s fashion sense felt like a force to be reckoned with, awe-inspiring even. Those sleeves are major, as are the spikes crowning the crownless queen. 

NICK: You took the words right out of my mouth. The royal blue is fantastic, and those quills on her head make her look like an exotic pufferfish. Good for us that Q finally wore an architecturally out-there wig we’re both dazzled by.

Nymphia Wind is the first finalist to take the stage, in a bedazzled banana RuVeal moment that distills everything glamorous and goofy and banana-forward in her drag persona. I really just love the creamsicle color palette and the brown end of the stem headpiece she discards. It speaks to how perfect her runways have been that this isn’t even the best thing we’ve seen her wear, but it could very well be the best banana-themed piece she’s worn.

CLÁUDIO: I’m still too in love with her banana wig for the first runway to cosign your last point. However, we’re in agreement regarding the rest. I was especially fond of how the shape evokes classic Mugler as much as it does Nymphia’s favorite fruit - besides Plane Jane, of course.

Speaking of Nymphia’s lesbian lover, Miss Aircraft is a vision in red. As ever, the Bostonian queen’s conception of pageantry is somewhat basic, but there’s no denying the polish in the execution. Not sure this is the right shade, though. More cherry and less tomato would have married better with her coloring.

NICK: Plane Jane does look great, though the Baba Yaga number she wore to the finale viewing party outclasses almost everything we’ve seen on this stage. I hope the weird concepts stick around in Plane’s wardrobe. Even the Milk-adjacent kookiness of her Straight Talk outfit seems like a welcome evolution in her styling.

Saving the best runway for last, Sapphira Cristál steps out in an outfit so outrageous and glamorous it made me think she was wearing her stepping-down look. Adorned in her traditional sapphire with big brown hair and even bigger gold accessories, her waist cinched tighter than I’ve ever seen it in a silver wrap, her bodacious Valkyrie looks like a dream straight out of opera. I’m slightly distracted by how much of her very plastic-looking breastplate we’re seeing, but it’s not enough to really detract from how magnificent Sapphira looks. 

CLÁUDIO: I wish I could agree, but I was a tad disappointed with this look. The voluminous train is gorgeous, if cumbersome, but it’s the top styling that irks most. The metallic touches seem craftier than would be expected for such a venue and I absolutely despise everything going around in the bust area. She exudes majesty because she’s Sapphira, Mother Cristál herself in all her glory. Perhaps the best note I can give is that the ensemble needed some editing.

Even with that sour note, none of it detracts from Sapphira’s runway package, a collection of grandiose outfits whose mere dimension is enough to inspire awe. In any other season, she’d be the fashion queen extraordinaire. However, this year, she’s got mighty competition in the form of early season Q and, of course, Nymphia Wind. Indeed if asked to name my Top Toot of the season, I’d have to go with the Taiwanese star’s homage to the Butoh dance. I was so impressive it saved Nymphia from the bottom after her disastrous Snatch Game, a ruling I’d side-eye in other contexts but not here. She’s that good.

What about you, Nick? What’s your choice for Top Toot of the season?

NICK: This season had a lot of very fashionable queens, and almost everyone delivered at least one knockout look. Top Toot is a difficult question, but I’ll shout-out several runways I haven’t shut up about and we can go from there. Dawn’s sleep paralysis demon was a pretty stellar achievement from an idiosyncratic designer, as was Q’s Man on the Moon realness. Sapphira and Nymphia both cemented themselves as my top 2 of the season with their Faster Pussycat gags. 

Xunami’s Humpty Dumpty was a clear highlight for a queen who didn’t always dazzle me on the runway, as was Plasma’s flower dress and Morphine’s gold chain moment, surely the best outfit anyone wore for a lip sync for your life. I could go on - Sapphira’s Marge Simpson regality and her reappropriated Cher headpiece, Megami’s doll design, Plane’s Cher, Nymphia’s everything. I didn’t actually answer your question, did I? Top toots would be Nymphia’s Mother/Father Eleganza, along with Sapphira and Dawn’s favorite colors.

Anyways, does this mean we have to reward our Golden Boot? Should I be as generous with my criticism as I was with my praise? Plane gets a special prize for the recurring failures of her many nude illusions - a crowded category, but ultimately not a close with - with special marks for her Favorite Color nonsense and that deconstructed suit for her Mother/Father Eleganza. Q’s Robot dance thing was atrocious, and those insane hairpieces towards the end of the season were just awful. I don’t believe Geneva Karr wore one flattering garment on the main stage, save for the "ASMR Lover" getup. Dawn’s Whoville Cher was the worst presentation of an otherwise strong package. And I’ll end this by saying the journey that my beloved Amanda Tori Meating has been on with her makeup and her styling has been gargantuan, and I wish we could have seen more of it. 

CLÁUDIO: Honestly, I’d probably go with Amanda’s runway in the season’s first episode. It was so bad it came to define her for spectators and other queens, inciting dismissiveness from all. The sad thing is that, even in her few episodes, Miss Meating grew a fair bit, both in terms of her mug and general presentation. She doesn’t deserve to be remembered for that botched RuVeal, but here we are. Of all the queens I hope to see on All Stars, I think Amanda might be the one most urgently needing to prove herself to the fandom. Make Plane eat her words.

Moving on from the negativity, it’s time for the first finalist to strut their stuff. Since we’re going in alphabetical order, Nymphia’s does the honors, delivering her “Queen of Wind” performance with polish and star quality to spare. The outfits were a spectacle all by themselves, starting with cultural iconography before switching into pop girl glitz in shiny Sylveon colors. Choreography-wise, she aced everything thrown at her with the smoothness one would expect from a professional dancer. Part of me wishes she looked a bit more gleeful, since having fun on stage will turn out to be a decisive factor later on. Even so, it’s impossible to deny what a major serve this was. 

Moreover, she demolishes the interview portion with Mama Ru, making it clear how much a win would mean to her as an immigrant representing a whole country. The bit with her mother - who looks so much like her son they’d make a killer drag makeover pair - was also pretty emotional, moving Nymphia to tears. 

NICK: It was an incredibly lovely interaction, the kind of reality TV interaction Drag Race has courted many a time but rarely presents this sincerely and non-exploitatively. Every moment Nymphia has been able to show this vulnerability was so moving to witness. I agree about the self-seriousness, but I can understand this perennially silly personality wanting to put on some kind of game face for the finale, especially when her slot in the top 2 isn’t totally assured.

Plane Jane goes next, with just as much on the line as Nymphia. Her number, “Bodysuit”, cozies up right to the likes of Naomi Smalls’ “Legs” as showcases focused on the surface-level pleasures of queens with much more in store. But this bitch wishes she was Naomi Smalls. Plane dances better than she did in the makeover challenge, but it’s the least challenging choreo of the final three, and I didn’t see it as a standout number or an interesting version of her persona, even by the standard of “Burger Finger”. 

More than that, it’s astonishing how bad she is at self-disclosure and selling herself to the crowd. Every impulse to deflect through comedy, project insincerity as a weapon, and tear down others that tripped her up in the Memoir challenge rears its head just as painfully here. Only this time she’s trying to bring up her cultural identity as some narrative, which is actually a dig at Katya, who didn’t even win her season. There are two pluses of her one-on-one with Ru though: Her rapport with her mom is pretty funny, and Mrs. Plane seems like decent company. And the gratuitous, sour reaction shot to Amanda is just priceless, and makes me wish we could’ve seen her face when Plane is axed from the competition.

CLÁUDIO: For a queen that always acted like she was smarter than everybody else, Plane Jane proved that was naught but an illusion when it mattered most. “Bodysuit” was made with her input - she even divulged a demo she sent production - and it’s the sort of number one puts on when they don’t want to win. It sounded basic and trivial compared to her competition. And then that interview portion… did she learn nothing from the book challenge that landed her in the bottom two? I said before that villains never win in this era of Drag Race, but even I couldn’t have predicted how much this bitch would faceplant, startegy-wise.

In other words, throughout Plane Jane’s section, Amanda and I were one, staring stonefaced at the nonsense on stage.

Finally, it’s time for Sapphira, and our beloved Mother Superior delivers. That opera-singing portion is staged like an Eurovision number and I couldn’t love it more if I tried, while her subsequent dancing break is distilled euphoria shot straight into the audience’s vein. Moving to a song aptly called “Dance!,” she’s a force of nature unleashing everything she’s got on that set. As much as I loved Nymphia’s “Queen of Wind,” Sapphira served the episode’s best solo show, even if her outfit was unfortunate. And she was fabulous for her one-on-one with Mama Ru. While I was rooting for the Banana Buddha, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think Sapphira was heading into a crowning after this. Indeed, the edit seemed to be pointing that way, no? 

NICK: You could have told me Sapphira Cristál was about to announce she was running for President and I would have believed you. “Dance!” is just an incredibly showcase for literally everything this queen has done this season. The opera, the theatrics, the choreo, the boundless self-confidence that cannot help but spread to every being lucky enough to witness her. A magical performance, capped off by a fantastic conversation with Ru that also feels like a direct address to the audience. This is what a Cristál office will do for us the people, and I was very ready to live in that future.

After the final three make their last stand, RuPaul begins the show’s second annual tribute to a queer icon. This year’s honoree is Cassandra Peterson, best known around the world as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, and the woman we (you) said should be honored following Bob Mackie’s tribute. I had no idea about her life story, and it’s a fucking wild life. Working in drag shows at fourteen for tips? A dancer in Vegas at seventeen? I knew about the Paul Reubens connection and the turn of events that led to her creating Elvira, but that’s peanuts next to the wild series of events that comprise her life. Why hasn’t Ru brought her back as a guest judge since r season eleven? Why the fuck didn’t she guest judge for the Neo-Gothic design challenge, or take Mayan Lopez’s slot? The important thing is that she’s a national treasure and I really loved hearing about her life.

CLÁUDIO: While I understand why some people are annoyed at how protracted the Drag Race finales are, I love tributes like these. In a world where the Oscars have cut the Honoraries, we might as well indulge when given the opportunity. And indeed, what a life! 

That being said, we might want to step it up a bit and get to the good stuff quicker. Not long after Peterson exits the stage with a new Drag Race-branded hunk of crystal, it’s time for the season’s very last elimination. After the night’s performances, Plane Jane is cut, receiving a nice tip of 25K, and a final farewell from Mama Ru. It’s a fair and expected decision, leaving Nymphia and Sapphira as our final two. It’s yellow vs blue for the crown. If only we had magic wands available so they could duke it out like the fairy godmothers in Sleeping Beauty - blue was the rightful winner then, btw, no matter what the Walt Disney Company might say, those tasteless mouse worshippers. 

NICK: It speaks to Plane’s chronic insincerity that I had no idea if she was genuinely surprised by her elimination or just badly playing her bit. We all knew Luxx and Mistress were pissed as hell about being cut last year, but Plane? Who knows, and at the end of the day, who cares. The bitch was decent entertainment, but it’s just too fun to root against her. Bye bye!! Oh, and she won less money for placing third than Morphine did for winning the lipsync smackdown? Again, I do not want to invite undue schaudenfraude, but that’s fuckin’ wild.

To celebrate Plane’s elimination, Ru brings out season 15 winner Sasha Colby to strut the stage and perform a lip sync to Megan Thee Stallion’s “Her”. We simply cannot go down another rabbit hole of throwing praise at Sasha Colby, we’ll just get lost in it. Let it be said that her ability to play for the crowd and the camera is still immaculate, and you gotta be a special type of bad bitch to get away with unzipping her jacket, zipping it back up, and unzipping it again, and it works each time. What a woman.

CLÁUDIO: Never has a zipper been so powerful as this one in Sasha’s hands. Without stunts or Ruveals, the season fifteen winner shows up every girl in this finale. Giver her another crown just for the way she weaponizes that ponytail!

But the best is yet to come, for, after her lipsync, Sasha returns to the main stage in her final gown, a shimmering silver show-stopper. The skirt looks like the soft sculpture Serena Cha Cha was yapping about all those years ago, while the headpiece is showgirl eleganza elevated to new heights. The pièce the résistance is a pair of dangly earrings, so long and oversized they do double duty as pasties. Now, I know everyone holds Violet’s season 8 finale gown as a fashion moment to end all fashion moments, but I think it’s time we stop holding her up as some sort of never-matched icon. Sasha Velour and Symone’s takes on the same occasion were just as well-crafted and much wittier, while Willow Pill and now Mother Colby may surpass the Chachki queen in pure gorgeousness. Were you dazzled?

NICK: I was gobsmacked. I was overwhelmed. I loved it! Sasha looked so stunning and regal, showing up pretty much everyone in the building. She even out-serves Kamala Harris in a publicity photo - perhaps not a hard goal, but damn does Sasha look good in that deep blue suit. It’s truly rewarding to hear Sasha talk about what this past year has been like for her, and I hope this success continues. 

Ru mentions running for office as a possible future for Ms. Colby, which she wittily deflected before encouraging the audience to vote and to make their voices heard. This scripted tet-a-tet segues into a performance of “POWER” from all of the eliminated queens (besides Plane Jane). The gworls have changed into red, white, and blue outfits, coming out in teams of three and four to strut across the runway. Not much choreo, but they make a strong graphic impression, and at this point in history I cannot remember any of their outfits aside from Dawn’s cunty Elmo. I do remember them looking gorgeous.

Plane’s absence might be explained by the appearance of last year’s Miss Congeniality, Malaysia Babydoll Fox, to announce season 16’s winner. Malaysia is dressed as a bald eagle, which I can’t really hope to describe except to say that she looks stunning, and I love her tendency to incorporate animal textures like fur and feathers into her drag designs. She’s a committed furry, without actually even being one (as far as we know). The Miami queen announces that for the first time in Drag Race herstory, there’s been a tie! The winners are Xunami Muse and Sapphira Cristál! Xunami is gagged and gracious, but Sapphira may be even more stunned - maybe because they called her name while she was getting ready for her finale performance? Are these the queens you would have picked for this prize?

CLÁUDIO: I don’t think there are any wrong choices for the Miss Congeniality title. As long as they are voted into “office” by their sisters, who am I to judge? Still, Xunami and Sapphira seem like fantastic picks, queens of good vibes and candidates for my dream blunt rotation. Fashion-wise, I think I enjoyed a lot of the “Power” lewks more than the proper finale runway. There’s Dawn’s Elmo fantasy, but also Amanda’s blue superhero getup and Q’s sumptuous white confection, Morphine’s elevated makeover gown, and Plasma serving Kylie Minogue realness.

Speaking of Australia’s dancing queen, it’s time for the season’s last lipsync, between Nymphia and Sapphira, to the sound of last summer’s hit “Padam Padam.” I could write nonstop about the ensuing battle, for it’s one incredible showdown. Nymphia comes in representing Taiwan by dressing as boba tea, with a reveal of black balloons representing tapioca balls while also rhyming with the song’s mention of butterflies. From there, she models a paillet-ed cheongsam that gives way to a yellow dance costume through some spinning outfit change. It’s smooth as fuck and oh-so-fun. Indeed, Nymphia looks like she’s having a blast, performing as if she were at the club, more interested in entertaining the audience than playing for the cameras.

Sapphira is no slouch, but she lacks the infectious joie de vivre of her banana-obsessed competition. Instead of using the stage or interacting with the live audience, Miss Cristál spends most of the lipsync in the same central spot. Moreover, her technique of starting slow, orienting the lipsync as a crescendo means she’s immediately overshadowed by Nymphia and struggles to keep up. I still had a lot of fun - the titty heartbeat was great - and the vampire teeth didn’t perplex nearly as much as they did a lot of the fandom. It’s a song about getting excited by your lover’s heartbeat. Of course, a blood-sucking spin on the material makes sense. I just wish she had committed to it, perchance a touch of gore or ruby red instead of her usual sapphire blue. 

That being said, as brilliant as Nymphia was, I still expected Sapphira to win the crown. Ru gagged me with her choice and not in a bad way, for once.

NICK: I still think Sapphira gave a performance that, had the edit gone differently, would have fully earned her winning the crown. The vampirism angle is a fun touch, and she sells it so well with those eyes of hers, but I agree that it doesn’t feel as fleshed-out as it should. That gigawatt Bela Lugosi stare can only go so far, and you know she has some huge Dracula cowl in her closet. She’s such a charismatic performer even when she’s just holding center stage. Love that move when she goes from the splits to jumping into a crouching position.

But it’s not great that she’s confined to the middle of the stage for basically the whole performance.

I can imagine an edit of Nymphia’s performance that pushes her running around as too frantic, flapping like a bird around this diva hypnotizing the audience. It’s a little of how her lip sync feels to me, and in my countless rewatches, I’ve been magnetized to both of them at different times. But Nymphia really did seize that stage, fighting for the crown with every weapon in her arsenal. The many artful and well-conceptualized reveals, the choreo, the Ice Spice pussy rub, the arguably unnecessary flips and splits throughout that were done so well I couldn’t care. Watching her dash around the stage to different audience members (including the eliminated queens!) was so much fun to watch. Look at how she gagged Morphine by hand-standing against the wall! Second best reaction shot of the night. I genuinely wish this had been a tie, partially as a cop-out for undecided emotions, and partially because these two queens have dominated the season so completely it feels wrong to have to choose between them.

At the end of the day, Miss Wind snatched the crown, an utterly triumphant moment that still feels a bit deflating given how well Sapphira’s presented this episode, nevermind this whole season. Nymphia’s a great winner, regardless of the weird editing questions we’ve had throughout the season. Would you like to wrap us up, genius writing partner/faggot extraordinaire? Your pleasantly surprised joy is a better endnote than my ambivalent enthusiasm. Thank you for a wonderful season, hun. I can’t imagine watching it without gabbing about it to you

CLÁUDIO: Talking to you about it always makes Drag Race better, and this season was no exception. I do think Nymphia won that lipsync, not to mention the season, but I can understand where your ambivalence comes from. To me, her crowning was a triumph, a taste of justice after weeks of her extraordinary run getting underpraised by the judges. Looking back, I guess they were forcing an underdog narrative, though it didn’t read as a winner’s edit in the same way Willow or Yvie’s did.

Seeing the Asian queer and drag-loving community rally behind Nymphia has been one of this week’s greatest delights. That is especially true in the aftermath of Aurora Matrix and Marina Summers’ sterling runs, the rare Asian contenders that made it to the finale. And yet, they didn’t get the crown. Beyond the Thai and Filipino shows, Nymphia is only the second Asian drag queen to take the final victory, with Raja being the first, thirteen long years ago. She’s also an immigrant, making this a kind of success story that means all the more in a contentious election year. In summation, Nymphia Wind feels like the right winner for 2024.

NICK: Hopefully, Nympia’s win will mean "Asian queen" stops being a subgenre of contestant the same way "comedy queens" and "pageant girls" are on the show.

CLÁUDIO: Hear! Hear! And in the words made immortal by the famous drag Haus of Looney, that’s all folks!

Previous RuCaps:

• Episode 01: “Rate-a-Queen”
• Episode 02: "Queen Choice Awards"
• Episode 03: "The Mother of All Balls"
• Episode 04: "RDR Live!"
• Episode 05: "Girl Groups"
• Episode 06: "Welcome to the DollHouse"
• Episode 07: "The Sound of Rusic"
• Episode 08: "Snatch Game"
• Episode 09: "See You Next Wednesday"
• Episode 10: "Werq the World"
• Episode 11: "Corporate Queens"
• Episode 12: "Bathroom Hunties"
• Episode 13: “Drag Race Vegas LIVE! Makeovers”
• Episode 14: "Booked & Blessed"
• Episode 15:“ Reunited - LipSync LaLaPaRuZa Smackdown”

Comments

[DK]

Nymphia doesn’t stand out as a great winner but this season wasn’t among the best. By the rules of the road (Sasha Velour rules) she won—deserved to be in the final lip sync and undoubtedly beat Sapphira. Fair play!

It was interesting to watch Nymphia rise and Plane fall in the last two episodes. I feel a bit like Jane’s shtick was encouraged all season long and then suddenly Ru was over it. Imagine if Willow Pill got to the finale and Ru’s attitude was suddenly “ew, what a weirdo.” Just curdled, turned on a dime into amused contempt. You could tell Ru thinks it’s so stupid Plane went to college!