Drag Race RuCap: Time to play the "Snatch Game"

Alyssa and this talking buttplug were more entertaining than some of the season 17 queens.

CLÁUDIO ALVES: Last week, we had the “Let’s Get Sea Sickening” ball. This week, the season 17 girls face another classic RuPaul’s Drag Race challenge in the form of Snatch Game. Sadly, the results weren’t as strong across the board, even if the cast stayed clear of an outright disaster à la season 14. And even if, in an unprecedented move, someone was told they bombed the thing and still placed on top. Madness, Rigga Morris, favoritism the house down boots. No wonder they invited Alyssa Edwards to guest-star! That said, this was still a fun hour of reality TV. These bitches keep bringing the drama and old-school messiness, keeping the whole thing feeling more alive and vital than it has in years.

Do you agree, or do you feel that I, like Suzie Toot, have been possessed by Joella’s delusional spirit? Do we need to call the exorcist? 

NICK TAYLOR: I can’t believe Joella turned out to be the physical manifestation of season 17’s vibes. The girls are clearly talented, but even beyond sheer artistry, they have the indefatigable sense of their own supremacy that makes competitive reality TV so good. This doesn’t translate into being good at competing, but they know how to make a spectacle of themselves, and we love that. Everyone knows *they* deserve to be there, and can only wait so patiently for the other girls to drop like flies.

This brings us to our beloved Hormona Lisa, who went home last week for the second and final time. Kori King is so delighted she can barely fake a farewell in her confessional before busting a gut. In general, the girls don’t seem too cut up about her leaving. Arrietty’s on top of the world after winning the Ball, while Crystal is stewing about almost winning but coming up short for like, the fourth week in a row. Miss Envy in-fucking-deed. But pretty much everyone is hungry for a win, and another win, and the goddamn crown. Lana Ja’Rae, fresh off winning her first lip sync, just wants to redeem herself for the judges and show the girls she’s a real threat.

The next morning the girls congregate for a new day, and discover to their utter delight that Hormona left her bob at her work station for the other girls. No note, but a wig like her is worth at least a thousand words. They only get a few moments to cherish Bobby Lisa before Ru walks in and announces this week’s main challenge is Snatch Game. Pandemonium erupts. Suzie is all but certain her third win is imminent, while Arrietty deflates at the prospect of yet another comedy challenge. 

CLÁUDIO: This episode sure moves fast. So much so that we don’t even get the reading mini-challenge traditionally paired with Snatch Game. Then again, we’re getting the signature maxi earlier than usual this season, meaning a lot of bitches on that little stage.

Moving on from disappointing absences, the preparations immediately begin, with Onya sharing her plans to impersonate Eddie Murphy. Since a lot of the worst snatches tend to come from characters the queens can’t make funny, going with such an iconic comedian is smart on Miss Nurve’s part. The other girls seem supportive of this choice, at first. The same can’t be said of Acacia Forgot, whose Trisha Paytas is immediately cause for some skepticism. After all, Sugar already tried that and failed. Gotta say, one of my first bits of the episode was Acacia dismissing these doubts by pointing out Sugar couldn’t make anything funny. Touché.

Suzie Toot is doing Ellen Greene in Little Shop of Horrors and is awfully confident, which pisses Kori King a great deal. Lydia is indecisive, fearing another stumble after she already failed at evoking Estelle Getty on RDR Live!, and Jewels Sparkles is going full steam ahead on her Big Foot fantasy. I know you have feelings about fictional characters and concepts in Snatch Game. I gather you weren’t a fan of Jewels’ choice. At least on a conceptual level.

NICK: I can’t remember if this is a conversation we had last year, so I’ll be quick. Some paradigm shifted after AS7, with all these folkloric characters popping up semi-regularly and this very concentrated push towards out-of-the-box choices as an end to themselves. After this week you could do a small subcategory of “what if this scary beast man was actually super femme?” We get a good sampling of traditional and proudly bizarre choices when the queens present their concepts to RuPaul and Alyssa Edwards. More surprising is that we get to see them talk with almost all the girls - Acacia’s the only one I remember getting no time chatting with Alyssa, which is bleak for her odds in the competition writ large but at least tells us in the audience she’s not going home today.

Bigfoot’s the kind of open-ended choice that leaves room for creativity but dodges the impersonation aspect integral to Snatch Game. But Jewels has a much surer idea about her outré choice than Arrietty’s Cupid, whose summary of the part begins and ends with the “I’m baby!” meme, to the evident confusion of Ru and Alyssa. Still, I’m even more confused by Lana pitching Rosa fucking Parks, a role she has no ideas for beyond an “Is the bus still runnin’?”  line. Lydia is torn between David Lynch and Catherine O’Hara, and for some reason, Ru and Alyssa are more intrigued by David than the goofy, Tim Burton-starring comedienne. Why? Why??? I’m surprised Ru is less supportive of Onya’s Eddie Murphy pitch. She points out she’s spent every episode referring to Onya as Mrs. Barry White and ever-so-subtly suggests this might be the way to go. But Onya smartly sticks to her guns, because she has no idea who the fuck Goldean White is, and isn’t willing to switch on her instincts to indulge Ru. 

Suzie’s Ellen Greene at least fits in the tradition of Broadway legends who’ve been trotted out on this stage with fondly mocking reverence. Is it genuinely wild to see how high she is on her own supply? Yes, but it’s hard to watch the other queens picking at her confidence the way they’ve been doing all season and not think of the season 8 cast questioning Bob the Drag Queen for being too enthusiastic about her litany of choices, or Coco Montrose saying she didn’t know what a Little Edie was and treating this as an automatic mark against Jinkx Monsoon’s best-in-show turn on season 5. There’s a pattern here the show wants us to see coming, and given Suzie’s comedy chops already, this seems to be setting her up for success.

CLÁUDIO: I don’t understand why Ru pushes girls to play characters they don’t know. It’s the same damn thing she did to Crystal in season 12. I wonder if we’ll ever see a queen take Mama’s suggestions and really go for a snatch they know nothing about. Would Ru be forgiving in the judging panel? I doubt it.

Anyway, Alyssa has some nice pageant-y chemistry with Sam Star, who conspicuously describes Miss Edwards as the Global All-Stars winner. Folks on social media are weaving tall tales and conspiracy theories, but I think they’re overthinking it. Producers ask queens to say all sorts of shit on the confessionals and, in any case, that soundbite sounded edited as fuck. Ultimately, Sam picks pageant legend Kim Gravel over a Toddlers and Tiaras starlet that might have given Ru some Eureka flashbacks. Or maybe bring the sort of energy that netted Lemon a maxi challenge win on Canada’s Drag Race. We’ll never know. 

We do know that Lexi Love’s doubts over being able to sustain Gilbert Gottfried’s perpetual holler throughout an entire Snatch Game are justified. But there are more queens to discuss before we get there. Kori King, for example, trying to re-heat Pearl’s nachos with Big Ange (Is that how the kids speak, nowadays? Help a golden girl out), though Ru is more interested in shading the bitch for her dancing shoes. Hell, the host even goes behind the cameras set up to retrieve the offending thing, meaning this was an impromptu decision. Love the chaos, hate the shoe. It makes Crystal wearing her own pair for the lip sync later on even funnier. Sorry, again, for getting ahead of myself, but it’s clear from the get-go that the Envy queen’s Nicole Richie will be DOA. Ru keeps talking about her need to loosen up, and that’s when you know the girl’s doomed.

NICK: Let’s list off the queen’s roles for the hell of it before digging into the challenge proper. We have, in alphabetical order:

Acacia Forgot as Trisha Paytas
Arrietty as Baby Cupid
Crystal Envy as Nicole Richie
Jewels Sparkles as Miss Big Foot
Kori King as Big Ang
Lana Ja’Rae as Rosa Park
Lexi Love as Gilbert Gottfried
Lydia B. Kollins as David Lynch
Onya Nurve as Eddie Murphy
Sam Star as Kim Gravel

Where to begin, honestly? There’s something truly special to watching Lexi and Lana realize their bits are utterly doomed the second they start talking to Ru. Lexi can’t keep up Gottfried’s voice to save her life, and more disastrously, she can’t stop cursing herself under her breath. We spend more time watching her mutter to herself than actually doing the bit. Lana is completely flummoxed after Ru asks her if the bus is still running, because she wanted to ask Ru, and simply had no other material prepped. She flounders, badly.

More confident but no less distressing is Arrietty’s Baby Cupid, played at one grating, inflexible note. It’s amazing how badly this approach nukes her from engaging with any bawdy humor without being deeply uncomfortable to watch - the baby stuff almost feels like some sort of kink play, and I hate it. To steal a joke from this week’s Pit Stop, Crystal Envy somehow looks like she’s doing whiteface, her makeup as stiff as her performance. And speaking of whiteface, I hated looking at Lydia’s David Lynch makeup, which resembles the man already embalmed and powdered for a wake. She’s decent at doing a dry weirdo turn, but she coulda pushed it so much farther.

Lydia’s also barely in the final edit. Neither is Acacia, who’s not doing a lot of Trisha mannerisms but still manages to be funny. Surprisingly, Kori’s not here much either, after a great zinger to Lana asking Rosa not to take her seat at the front because she’s also black. The vibes are the best Kori’s had all season, which may not be saying much, but it’s something. I’m not sure we get a ton of Suzie’s Ellen Greene either, but that’s okay. She talked about how well the bit does with people who know about Greene’s mannerisms, and maybe that’s true, but those people aren’t it. Why is she slurring her words so badly? Do you know what the fuck all those scissor/scissoring jokes were about? It’s bizarre and unapproachable. But it did get Tommy to watch Ellen Greene performing “Somewhere That’s Green” for the Evening Standard Awards in 1983 and it nearly brought him to tears, so Ellen got one new fan from this, and Suzie got compared to Miss Edited Out of Season 12’s busted Katharine Hepburn.  

CLÁUDIO: You are much more generous with some of these girls than I would be. Most of them simply didn’t bring any jokes or even the faint concept of one. Lana is the worst of the lot, but Lydia isn’t too far behind. Why pick someone with such a distinct voice for an impersonation challenge and then refuse to do said voice? What was that nonsense with the fancy coffee? Does she know anything about David Lynch? Maybe I’m tetchy because of the man’s recent death but Miss Butthole would have landed straight into the bottom for this. Because, at the very least, the concept of doing Lynch had promise, unlike Arrietty’s Cupid, which doesn’t really feel like a wasted opportunity. It’s merely a waste of time. 

Lexi gets points for being entertaining in the same way Nina and Valentina were fun to watch during their disastrous season 9 TV promos maxi-challenge. Crystal is there. And Suzie Toot is an overworked misfire that’s commendable for its commitment to the bit, whatever that bit may have been. I get going for Little Shop of Horrors Ellen Greene, but her Pushing Daisies character seems like a much better fit for Snatch Game. But what am I saying, this could have been so much better even within the parameters she set for herself. Why not pull out a little hand puppet, Bianca-style, to represent Audrey’s dorky beau? Take short king and pocket boyfriend to their grotesque extreme and smother that fucker against a titty plate. After her one joke, Kori was also there. But was Acacia there at all? I forgot. 

All that nonsense aside, we do have three snatches worth praising. Sam Star is a tad stiff as Kim Gravel, but she brought jokes and a point of view. In better Snatch Games, this would have been the safe performance of a consummate professional, but here, it deserves some applause. We should also cheer for Jewels Sparkles, who, dubious character choice aside, knew what she was doing, got some good laughs, and even turned one of the episode’s most memorable moments with one simple answer - it’s blood. I was surprised and delighted. She might have won if not for Onya Nurve’s Eddie Murphy, a spectacular impersonation, classic and funny as fuck, complete with the right look and the right mix of pre-planned gags with off-the-cuff jests. Also, whoever says she was just playing herself needs to get their head checked. I’m looking at you, Floppsie Toot.

NICK: Onya’s a slam dunk winner for this challenge. The weak quality overall of this cast might even lead me to take her for granted, but this is a fucking splendid performance. Suzie’s wrong to say Onya’s playing herself, but I see the positive version of this in Quinta Brunson’s praise later on, where part of Onya’s talent is how we can see her flamboyance and comedic smarts all over this character. She’s not “disappearing” into Eddie Murphy, and it’s such a richer effort for it. Love how she immediately clocks her little mustache flapping in the wind and just keeps on trucking - again, a sign of her own charisma that also fits her take on Eddie.

Sam’s spunky, slightly canned pageant queen reminded me of Katya’s Suze Ormond, right down to wearing the same wig. It’s a good, professional turn in the exact right environment for this to feel like a life raft. Jewels Elisabeth Sparkles saying “It’s blood.” has the same gleefully demented energy as Xunami Muse’s Golden Tooth Fairy saying she’s digging for bones, though where this was the one good joke in Xunami’s whole snatch, Miss Feet is brimming with demented jokes like this. Making her character a New Jersey broad is such an inspired move, too. I’m still skeptical of queens pulling shit like this on the regular, but if this is what it takes to see some truly deranged characters bantering with RuPaul, so be it.

The next day in the werkroom is perhaps not the usual strutting of overconfident queens flocking together before someone goes home. Or maybe it’s just that Suzie’s used up this week’s supply of Delusion by Jinkx Monsoon. Not a single queen is amused by this. As a viewer, it’s a bit disarming to see the dynamic of Suzie vs The World from the RDR Live! play out again and be on the exact opposite side I was last time. It gets to the point where Sam, acting as an emissary for at least half the girls, tells Suzie she was let down by her Snatch, and Miss Toot responds with the same unflappable confidence as she did two weeks ago. But this time it looks ridiculous. 

Aside from Suzie, only Onya, Jewels, and Sam are queens truly looking forward to their critiques - everyone else is just happy to have survived knowing two other bitches did worse than them. And again, two queens are going to be proven wrong, but each one of those girls knows it’s not gonna be them. Am I making sense? Does anyone have a sense of impending dread hanging over them I’m not remembering? 

CLÁUDIO: Nah. I think you mentioned everything except Kori’s trash-talkin’. Then again, that’s her standard state of being on this Drag Race edit, so it’s not really worth pointing out. I still find her more entertaining than her plain sister, but it’s so much more difficult to swallow her cocky attitude when none of her challenge performances warrant it.

Cut to the main stage, where Mama Ru is sporting a fringed number that only looks good when she’s walking down the runway and Michelle Visage is doing Sugar and Spice drag. The hilarious Ross Matthews is auditioning for the part of Overlook hotel carpet, and the week’s extra special judge, Quinta Brunson, looks a dream in a sparkly mini and a swopped bang. She’s outserving everyone on that panel and a good portion of the contestants, too. So, let’s get to the catwalk presentation and read those girls. Category is “Nailed It”...

For once, Acacia Forgot made up for a forgettable performance with a stellar runway. Going the Swiss Army route was a smart interpretation of the nails theme, and those scratchers actually read from a distance. Love the hat.

NICK: Acacia looks fucking great. Fantastic presentation of the nails. Body’s padded marvelously. Happy to co-sign everything you said, hun.

Suzie Toot comes in clutch with the best runway of the season thus far, presenting us with a Hellraiser character made out of an Iron Maiden. I love how many nails she’s wearing, from her serrated fingernails to the differently-sized spiked across her entire body - girl probably gives a hug that’ll change your entire life. The face on the back of her headpiece is my favorite bit of grotesquery.

CLÁUDIO: Fantastic work, like some long-lost kinky sister of Maria from Metropolis. On a very nerdy note, I appreciate that Suzie mentions the Iron Maiden is a fictional thing that has little connection to actual Medieval history. For once, she’s being specific with her references and this geek’s here for it.

Do I wish Lexi Love stopped relying so much on her hot bod? Yes. Do I think those intricate nail portraits were a weird choice for a runway presentation when they’re barely intelligible for the cameras when not in extreme closeup? Also yes. Do I love this Cher fantasy despite it all? Of course, I do. Just look at her! That’s mother.

NICK: Lexi’s been serving a lot of fashion along with all that body for most of this competition, so I’m here for whatever her sensibilities guide her to do. The Cher fantasy is so good it almost pisses me off she didn’t serve her for Snatch Game.

Sam Star is serving a plastic surgery fantasy we’ve seen many times on Drag Race, but this looks kinda cunty so we’re living. The giant shoulder things are a fun addition to the silhouette, and though the hypodermic needles may not necessarily fit the nail prompt, they look cool as shit. Mrs. Dalloway decided she’d be performing the breast augmentation surgery on herself.

CLÁUDIO: Don’t you love when a daughter pays homage to her mother like this? It brings a tear to my eye. Anyway, great lewk, re-interpreting a tired concept with enough pizazz to make it feel dazzling, if not necessarily fresh. My favorite details are the rhinestones on the syringes and the dark stripes on her hair, continuing the garment’s graphic quality unto her head styling.

Lana looks gorgeous in her Violet Cahchky cosplay, perfectly accessorized and as elegant as can be. My only quibble is that the hand wrapping around her should look more like a hand for the full effect of the garment to register. Maybe add some stuffing to give it volume?

NICK: Look at us gays, always going on about stuffing things. The volume would have helped a lot, thought on that note, I’m just glad to see her wearing a padded top. The breasts really make this figure more appealing. Lana’s pearls are simply to die for, and I love how she’s painted her face.

I am less impressed with miss Kori King, whose thicc-ass mime looks fine - though I HATE how those shoulder pads look - but doesn’t make much sense for the prompt. If you’re going to just do French tips, please make them more exaggerated. This feels like a belated vindication for Suzie’s clown - it takes real taste to be a quality fool. The worst runway of the night by a good margin.

CLÁUDIO: You’re absolutely right. Kori Scott King-Kollins should be quiet about Suzie for the foreseeable future because she just proved how hard it is to actually do that clown shit right. Watching this mess go down the catwalk, I couldn’t stop thinking of ways to make this work. Switch the rolled-up cigarette for a fabulous quellazaire, prolong the stripes into the tights, but go vertical. Maybe ditch the whole top and get a more couraçe-like bodice where the stripes are achieved by rows of nails. And let’s re-think the whole head. Let’s try 60s Bardot rather than clown hooker realness.

We love a gal who takes risks, and Crystal Envy took one hell of a risk with this prehistoric woman illusion. But was it worth the trouble? No. This could be good, don’t get me wrong, and the idea’s fantastic. But she needed to commit to a nude outfit and ditch those bits of faux fur that looked like nothing more than bathmats. And what’s that wig? She needed wild frizz rather than polished waves. More last act of The Clan of the Cave Bear, less pageant. The pedicure’s amazing, though.

NICK: The immediate impact of Crystal’s runway is pretty impressive, but I’m less sure about it the more I look at the details. I’m also a bit unclear, the more I look at it, if she’s doing some sort of werewolf bit or a lady Neanderthal. Either way, Evah Destruction beats her on both counts.

Does the silhouette of Jewels Sparkles’ runway remind you of her original Ball design from last week? Or is the asymmetrical floof just bringing me there? Either way, I like the idea of the multiple hands grabbing onto her body like some metallic nightmare, though the mix of black fur and shiny grays does make it all blend together a bit. Love how her gloves make me think of giant fuzzy spiders, and for the confetti shooting up from the back. It’s an engaging runway, but I don’t think the whole matches up to the sum of its parts.

CLÁUDIO: Her personal story does a good job of contextualizing the look as a prime example of drag as a form of personal expression, mayhaps a way of making sense of the world and life. And, to be honest, the whole thing looks very appealing to me as a visceral representation of feeling betrayed by one’s own body. I just wish the base for this - that metallic bodysuit and boots - weren’t as basic. Still, great stuff with a nice kinetic feel to it, present even in still shots.

Lydia Butthole Kollins-King serves her version of conventional glam, and I mostly like the results. That deep green velvet is certainly a fantastic choice to offset her red, tendril-like nails. Two things: as arresting as those baby hands are, they make no damn sense with the rest of the outfit; and the nails erupting from gloves rather than bare flesh takes away a lot of their gross-out impact. 

NICK: I do appreciate that her baby hands are also immaculately manicured. They’re weird, but I’m happy to take them as part of her overall thing, especially when the actual glam is so ravishing. She reminds me of Francine Smith in the one American Dad episode where she grows her nails for the Guinness World Record - a look I might have chosen to replicate for this runway. I’m sure it’s easier to get those insane nail things stuck to gloves rather than her own hands, so I’m not too tetchy with it. If it’s actually harder tho, then I’ll be outraged.

Arrietty looks goddamn fabulous in this grayscale elf bitch fantasy, with her multiple hands joined at the elbow and the many weird protrusions coming from her “skin”. Whatever fabric she’s using for the main body looks smashing, and I’m delighted she found a way to include her signature nose/brow paint on a mostly all-white mug. It’s such a captivating mix of textiles on a garment that simultaneously looks elegant and jagged as fuck. Maybe her best look of the season.

CLÁUDIO: She’s a miracle maker for the simple fact she got me to love crushed velvet. This is spectacular from head to toe, from alien-like cat ears to stalagmite claws erupting from those customized heels. Who’s a good kitty? Who’s a good kitty? Arriety is. Meow.

Onya Nurve comes last, serving character and cultural specificity like only she can. I love almost everything about this except one thing - the writing on the t-shirt brings it down a notch, especially since the back is obscured by more hair cascading down from the headpiece. Also, like Lexi, she’s going for tiny details on those nails -writing her name in stylized cursive - that don’t register from a distance. The mug, as always, is to die for. 

NICK: Oh I love the writing on the shirt. I feel like she’s hyping up her own salon at a community outreach event. It deepens the cultural aspect for me, and it tells me something about the woman Onya’s strutting down the runway with. She look magnificent. Daisy dukes with suspenders on them?? A huge wig with press-on nails cascading like fruit from a magnificent tree??? What can’t she do.

The girls assemble for final judging. Ru sends Kori, Lydia, Acacia, and Suzie to untuck backstage, and Miss Toot is aghast. In competition with Lexi for the best face crack this season, especially with that mug making her unhappiness look even more browbeaten and sad. The girls love it. That leaves Lexi, Onya, Sam, Jewels, Lana, Crystal, and Arrietty. Most of them know their fates as far as top and bottom placement.

Only Lexi is truly shocked by the judges, who tell her she “flopped funny” on the main challenge. We’ve seen queens do so bad they end up being iconic, take a dubious path to great reward, or get sent home for being visionaries beyond the judge’s meager comprehension, so in theory, I don’t hate this sentiment. Bitches can fail upwards! But this is baffling to me, and feels kinda nasty to Lexi. This is her first time getting critiqued by the judges and they tell her this shit? At least they agree she looks fabulous, but god, either call her safe or actually criticize her for not doing her bit. The single weirdest placement of season 17.

I’m much more in sync with the judges on the other six girls, though not without reservation. They’re not wrong to neg Sam for “not being vulnerable” in the same way other competitors have been, but this is the wrong week to criticize a bitch for being hypercompetent, especially when the entire bottom is composed of look queens with much less personality and/or versatility than Sam’s shown. Yes, she’s a plastic doll, but this reads more like the judges pre-emptively telling Sam she’s not going to win this week and a pointed reminder that America’s Next Drag Superstar usually needs an arc to get her crown.

Onya and Jewels get the lion’s share of unreserved applause, and I couldn’t be happier. I’m Team Onya between the two, but I wouldn’t have minded Jewels getting a win for taking such a weird risk - we love spreading the wealth. I’m also simpatico to the bottom three, all of whom are serving on the runway in roughly equal but opposite proportion to how badly they bombed the challenge. What are your thoughts on the judging this week?

CLÁUDIO: The Lexi thing is mystifying and reads more like the producers marking her for the finale and making it clear to the editors that she’s a priority. It’s too much favoritism for my liking, even if I generally love the doll. 

Indeed, I think this episode deserved four bottoms over the quartet of tops we got. Throw Lydia in there for good measure. Or, honestly, give me five bottoms and only two tops, because, really, Onya and Jewels were a step above the rest. Sorry Sam. Brunson was so funy reading the bottom bitches - she'd have aborted Arrietty's baby Cupid! - that giving her more material to work with would have only improved the episode. And since I’m a fan of spreading the wealth and Jewels’ Uta Hagen prep - which she revealed on social media - is the kind of nonsense I appreciate, let’s throw the Latina a bone, too. Let her have this since Onya feels so predisposed to nab another win sometime soon. Hell, I’d say she and Lexi are the clear frontrunners for the crown as of this episode. I’d also pencil in Suzie for the finale despite her flop, and Sam.

Oh, how time flies. There was a point when you and I were debating over which pageant blonde would make it to the finale. Guess we got our answer because the judges had no issue throwing Crystal to the bottom two, even though Arrietty was evidently worse. I assume it’s because they know the elvish princess brings good drama and she’d struggle to win against Lana based on her past duel with Lydia. Nevertheless, wouldn’t they want to pit two besties against each other? It’s an odd choice all around that brings us to another unremarkable lip sync.

This week, Lana and Crystal perform to the sound of Selena Gomez’s “Hands to Myself” and it’s a slam dunk victory for Luxx’s daughter. To put it simply, one of these girls understood what the song was asking for and the other didn’t, doing far too much in paroxysms of naked desperation. Some fans have made a big deal out of Lana losing her wig midway through, but let’s be serious - she was smooth and professional, solid throughout, and knew damn well to put that bitch back on her head. Crystal didn’t stand a chance. It’s sad because she’s been bringing so much to the challenges and the runways, but this is Drag Race, and lip syncs matter.

NICK: Crystal lost fair and square. Her being in the bottom two is an interesting thought experiment on how track record can save you, with Crystal’s consistent runner-ups status not being able to overcome Arrietty’s challenge win despite her having already been sent home. I do also get Arrietty’s outfit being great enough to save her from lip syncing, but I’m gonna need her to do well at literally anything besides sewing challenges. 

But back to the point: Lana walked over Crystal with such confidence that it makes me rethink her longevity in the competition - so long as she gets the right song, she can kick a bitch out with ease. She’s so sexy, and though she trots out some of the same moves she used last week, they feel more purposeful this time. Hot damn. The audible gasp from the other queens when Crystal is sent home is poignant, and Lexi’s shocked “shit just got real” quip as the bitch exits the stage is about as direct of a stake-raiser as you can hope for. It’s also surely reflective of how different the edit is from actually being in the room. Crystal always felt like a bigger threat than the show was giving her credit for. Now I see why she didn’t get a bigger showcase, but there’s a clear path for framing her akin to Q last season if she went home at the girl group episode, craving a win so badly it ends up fucking her over. I’ll miss her, and I hope she gets another opportunity to strut her stuff on TV soon. 

Next week’s episode is the Rusical, a parody of Wicked, The Wiz and The Wizard of Oz. This could either be a great showcase for Lana’s physical prowess or another acting challenge for her and Arrietty to struggle through. We know Ru loves this shit, so failure seems actively dangerous. Good luck to the girls.

Previous RuCaps:

• Episode 1: “Squirrel Games”
• Episode 2: "Drag Queens Got Talent"
• Episode 3: "Monopulence!"
• Episode 4: "Bitch, I'm a Drag Queen!"
• Episode 5: "RDR Live!"
• Episode 6: "Let's Get Sea Sickening Ball"

Comments

[NATHANIEL R]

Is it too early to call Quinta Brunson the best guest judge of the entire season? Good luck topping her. Insightful critiques, hilarious and spontaneous quips, and she looked better than any of the queens.

The most shocking thing about this episode was how much I hated Suzie Toot who was by far my favourite of the other episodes. What particularly irked me is her insistence that fans of Ellen Greene would love, understand, and appreciate what she was doing. As a lifelong fan of Ellen Greene, I did none of those three things. I was actually kind of angry at her because she made Greene seem braindead or drugged up or something instead of how singularly comic and cartoonishly innocent her persona is.

They chose the right top two with Jewels and Onya both slaying the challenge AND the runway. But I can't say I agree with the results. Crystal Envy is a way way more interesting queen than Lana Ja'Rae who hasn't done a single memorable thing yet and seems to have no range and none of the supersized (even delusional) confidence you need to compete at this level. How has she lasted this long?