Drag Race RuCap: "How's Your Headliner?"

No, your eyes don't deceive you. It seems the Love-Toot feud is over. Everybody say love!

NICK TAYLOR: Mama. This was ass. It’s not just that my beloved girl went home right before the finale when she definitely won the lip sync, though that would be enough to sour the episode even if it’d been better. But the sheer number of moving parts to this maxi challenge that aren’t adequately showcased and the bizarre judging make the episode’s criteria hard to evaluate and the queen’s talents minimally showcased. I have no quibbles with the episode’s winner or the final four we’ve arrived at, yet I’m surprised how much this elimination stunted my invested in seeing who crosses the finish line. I’d argue there’s a clear top 2 of our finishing quartet, yet, for the life of me, I can’t tell who’s facing off against Onya for the crown. Am I getting ahead of myself? Almost certainly, but god, I have such sour grapes about the whole thing. Are you in better spirits than I am, hun?

CLÁUDIO ALVES: Glad to know I’m not alone in my grumpiness this week. While I agree that the right girl won and loved the runway lewks across the board, almost everything else about the episode fell short…

Things started well enough, with good vibes all around, as the top five celebrated last episode’s non-elimination. Suzie and Lexi are especially ecstatic, with the former saying it was one of the best performances she ever saw and the latter clapping for the girls with her heels. Sam is also happy, but there’s a nagging feeling that she’d have preferred if one of the others had been sent packing. It’s an understandable thought, especially as a place at the finale is dangled in front of these contestants like a carrot to a donkey. Still, the niceness prevails over potential drama - a first for the season 17 crew - and we even get to see a Love-Toot hug. All is fair and fabulous in the Drag Race kingdom, and the modd follows these bitches into next morning, when everyone seems to be wearing a hat except Jewels. Did someone forget to inform the Latina princess about the dress code? For shame.

Mama Ru is fairly amused at the western realness some of these cowgirls are serving, but there’s no time to waste on werkroom shenanigans. Because, this week, the queens have one hell of a multi-faceted challenge on their hands. To celebrate the continued success of the Las Vegas RuPaul’s Drag Race Live! show, the maxi-challenge will see each contestant do a photoshoot, an interview with Vegas-veteran Latrice Royale, a promotional video, and perform to a new song being added to the revue - “Giftshop.” It’s a lot. But also, maybe, not enough?

NICK: It’s a lot of challenge, like the book cover/press interview challenge last year mashed into season 12’s Vegas show. This could be a fun way to make the queens spirit before the end, but it could also mean a very compressed presentation that undersells each individual element and the contestant’s overall performances. Guess which one happens!

Ru leaves by telling the queens “at least one of you will go home”, and Jewels is not having that shit at all. What do you mean we could be sending multiple queens home? Is this because no one went home last week? Fabulous bit of psychological torture. 

The queens quickly start brainstorming their approaches. Sam says she wants to put the “Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent” into country, which Lexi thinks is a terrible idea and keeps it to herself. Suzie pivots hard to an Anything Goes revue persona, with sailors and tap dancing and what have you. The other queens are more vocally skeptical about this one, but Suzie isn’t bothered. As she sees it, she’s done her thing all season with her sisters working against her, so how is this any different? Sound logic, even if it may be misplaced. We don’t get much detail about what the other queens are doing - a very early sign about how this episode is going to go. But isn’t the plan for all of them to lean into their brand?

CLÁUDIO: Which is sensible but also a bit silly since this is very explicitly a sort of audition for the Las Vegas show. So, one presumes, the queens that can better adapt their brand to a showgirl presentation will be better off. Which is why Suzie’s train of thought is a total trainwreck. What does Anything Goes have to do with anything? Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to approach this from a Gold Diggers musical perspective or, better yet, lean into the Ziegfeld Follies glamour of it all?

There are ways to stay faithful to the Toot brand while still delivering what this challenge is asking for, but our beloved Susanne is too locked into her strategy to consider an alternative route. My conspiracy theory is that she was running out of clothes and got fixated on the idea of wearing that sailor costume to her own detriment. Why else would she wear the same thing for the photoshoot and the promo video? And then repeat the same dress from the musical performance for her runway?

You know who had enough fashion, a good attitude and an even better approach to this challenge? Jewels Sparkles herself, who is nothing short of delightful for the photoshoot portion of the episode. She takes Ru’s directions like a pro and also seems to understand that an unspoken part of the challenge is entertaining the host through these “backstage” moments. And girl, the episode’s funniest moment has to be the quasi-instinctual, hyper-excited voice drop when Jewels realizes Ru is asking her to be on her knees amid all the hot dancers and not the other way around. We love some pass-around party bottom realness.

NICK: It’s giving Riley Keough in that one scene of Zola where she’s in the middle of all those Samoan dudes, equally emphatic but much less trashy. Jewels is thriving in the photoshoot, relishing in the boys’ attention and playing it up for Ru with the right blend of saucy and professionalism. Onya gets the memo too, though she dresses in a very strange, feathery garment with plumes exploding from her sleeves and a giant afro. Black on black fabulousness, with an unusual silhouette, all of which could theoretically overwhelm a lesser queen than Onya. Instead, she makes the absurdity work with her glamour and charm. Miss Nurve is thriving in front of Ru’s camera.

I don’t love the nude illusion Sam’s wearing, but it’s a pretty outfit, and she looks uncommonly good in orange. She has almost as much positioning herself around the pit crew as Jewels does, though I wish her final photo with them was in the thick of their meaty hides, rather than presenting them from the sidelines. Still, she understands the assignment and executes it well. Suzie, on the other hand, has never visited Vegas in her life, nor done a professional modeling gig. Yes, she gives it her level best, but the sheer disparity in vibes between her blue sailor suit and everything else going on is a lot to overcome. She’s not giving a bad cruise ship photoshoot, but again, that’s not the assignment, and though Ru gives Suzie a fun group photo with the pit crew as they hold her in the air, she seems a little unsure of how to work with Ms. Toot. 

Lexi Love is the only other queen who really struggled to take Ru’s directions, but given how a lot of them have to do with showing the exact right amount of teeth when she smiles, I can’t blame her too much. Or maybe she’s just very funny miming it back in her confessional. Maybe it’s really not as intuitive an instruction as a flick of the wrist or a shift in posture. It does, however, mark yet another challenge where Ms. Love has a hard time getting her feet under her. At least she has the boys to support her, to decent effect.

CLÁUDIO: Jewels was the only one to pick a perfect outfit. Onya’s is strange as fuck, especially for a Vegas promo shoot. I have already talked about Suzie, and though Lexi and Sam’s fits are pretty, they also limit how much they can do with the models. Trinity’s daughter has trapped herself in grand dame poses because of her gown. Miss Love, on the other hand, is struggling to wear the fashion rather than have it wear her. Don’t get me wrong, I love that silver frill that complicated the silhouette of an otherwise conventionally fierce gown, but even Lexi seems to realize halfway through that Ru can’t see her arms when she’s not raising them awkwardly and there’s no way around the outfit.

After this session with Ru, it’s time for some one-on-one chats with Latrice Royale, who’s taking over the role the host and/or Michelle Visage usually get on these late season episodes. Honestly, it’s a great choice, even if I have some quibbles about Latrice’s approach. Mostly that, at times, this feels more like a job interview than a talk show sort of thing. Which, to me, seems to miss the point of the enterprise, but maybe I’m wrong. First up, Sam flashes that megawatt smile to marvelous effect but seems to get a little lost within the limits of her own shady southern queen persona. Considering the judges’ comments later on, they wanted authenticity out of these interactions, and the Alabama superstar gave them character instead. Onya has no such trouble, though Latrice apparently thinks she sounded miserable. I don’t know where that came from. Maybe she was talking about Onya’s daytime wig - miserable, indeed. 

NICK: Honestly, I think these table talks work best with Ru and Michelle there to pick over the season together, but even Matt Rogers had more incisive questions last year. Latrice is great with the girls, but I wanted more from her questions. Hell, there are nits to pick: I have no idea where Latrice got that impression from either. Here, as she has throughout the competition, Onya reads as punchy, approachable, and utterly clear-eyed about the choices she’s made and the path in front of her. Why she’s dressed as a pastor’s wife, I do not know, but if that helps her unlock her true self, so be it. I’ll co-sign all your comments about Sam, who at least has a good rapport with Miss Royale but has similar problems of falling into a plastic persona as Plane last year.

Lexi is candid as ever, and we learn another genuinely traumatic piece of her history: she’s a victim of human trafficking and was tied to a bed for forty-eight hours after a night out partying with some strange men. It’s insanely emotional, and Latrice responds by praising Lexi for being so open-hearted and unabashedly herself despite everything she’s experienced. It’s a tremendously moving interaction.

I would not call Suzie’s interview moving, exactly, but she is as authentically herself as she’s ever been. Frankly, it’s a great showcase for what’s so charismatic about her and so grating to her fellow queens. Ms. Toot already knows Latrice, and is deservedly proud of being the first queen since the season 4 diva to rep Fort Lauderdale. When Latrice asks if there’s anything Suzie regrets on Drag Race, she says it’s being “too niche” with her Snatch Game choice. Her summation of her unique strengths as a queen is a little too “no one can do Alexis Michelle like Alexis Michelle” for my liking, but she’s otherwise professional and assertive of her strengths without being standoffish. Girl has a good rapport with Latrice, and the mix of her usual clown mug with a sharp olive blazer is oddly fitting for a Vegas job interview.

CLÁUDIO: The interview is, without a shadow of a doubt, the best part of this week’s maxi-challenge for the tap-dancing diva. Indeed, I’d say she was second to Jewels in terms of strong performance, give or take how well both Latrice and the cameras ate up Lexi’s rawness. The latter also has a great outfit, which isn’t true of most of the contenders in this episode. This far into the season, I guess it’s starting to be a challenge all in itself to make up an outfit for these skits. Hell, I’ll even forgive another one of Sam’s sculpted blonde wigs.

Speaking of uninteresting gold tresses, Jewels really committed to the flaxen-haired glamour this episode. Hers is the last interview and the numpiest of the lot, culminating in a moment where the Latina princess is stumped, needing a moment (or two or three) to gather herself. It’s a testament to her charm that this hiccup ends up aiding her on the bitch’s trip to a second maxi-challenge win. Because, again, the judges were looking for authenticity, and there’s nothing more authentic than a twenty-something freezing when asked where they see themselves in five years. Confession: I hate the question and feel it is unfair to the queens. What was Jewels supposed to say? She’s frank, stating it’s hard to see past getting on Drag Race, which was her goal so far, and that’s completely understandable. Especially since so many of the opportunities RuGirls get are still inextricable from their tenure on the show.

That said, I feel there was a way to turn this question around into more than just a bit of forced reality TV introspection cum peptalk. Why not make it political? Who knows if Jewels will still be legally allowed to do drag as she does now in five years, so might as well just say she’ll be still performing, defiantly and no matter what comes, drag as a form of resistance. I bet Ru would have loved that. Then again, Jewels had no trouble snatching the win either away.

NICK: As one of many who’d cynically predicted Jewels would be sent home this week, and having argued she should’ve lip synced a lot more the past few weeks, I’m genuinely surprised the show was so positive on her inward-facing reboot. You can absolutely imagine Latrice and Ru tsk-tsking Jewels for not having an immediate answer, but instead she’s given real grace. Maybe she got goodwill for being such an open, vivid presence up til then, painting a very clear picture of what her Vegas residency would be before dishing about Arrietty’s betrayal and the ease with which she sent the offending bitch home.

After this, the queens convene at the makeup mirror for the last time, in preparation for their performance of “Gift Shop” on the main stage. While they doll up, our final five go over their time together these past 14 weeks. The queens exchange their initial impressions of each other, how they’ve grown to better understand and appreciate their sisters while learning about themselves in the pressure cooker known as Drag Race. 

Summarizing it like that makes it sound trite, but it’s moving to see how deeply the queens care for each other. We get an idea of their bonds and their growth as audience members, but it’s nice to be reminded how much we don’t get to see, how our impression is necessarily condensed for a time slot while they talk about how quiet Sam used to be, how much Onya and Jewels have come to respect each other, so on and so forth. Maybe it’s not groundbreaking info, but it’s intimate and affecting without feeling manipulated, and straightforwardly presented. Not gonna get much more of that for this episode.

CLÁUDIO: It's a pleasant, if not especially illuminating makeup mirror moment. But, like you, I'm not complaining. This has been a season defined by such messiness that many, including us, were talking about the return of the old days of Logo Drag Race. In that context, the sweetness showcased here feels refreshing rather than cloying, or worse, an overproduced bit of reality TV insincerity. Even Lexi and Suzie seem to be getting along which is a shocker after so many episodes of non-stop strife. Maybe last episode's epiphany stuck. If so, good for Lexi. And good for Suzie who has one less voice clamoring for her elimination.

Anyway, cut to the main stage where Tracee Ellis Ross is our extra special guest judge, looking gorgeous in designer paillettes that make her look closer to some sort of underwater creature come ashore… but cunty. Mama Ru is also sporting a great look. Indeed, the back of the season has seen the Emmy-winning host sporting some of the best fashion of her recent tenure. So, everyone looks great and the entire panel seems ready for a good time. I can't say they got one, sadly. Well, they seem to enjoy the queens’ performance of “Gift Shop” but I was rather unenthused.

The tune is fine, if unmemorable, but the lack of individual verses for the girls to showcase their brand is glaring to say the least. Moreover, the whole thing is edited to smithereens, with so many cuts that you can't really get a sense of any of the bitches’ performances. I guess Lexi looks a tad awkward in a couple of shots and Suzie’s expression is a tad somber throughout. The gal’s too focused for her own good, too concerned with serving serious theater. Come on Suzie, give us some Broadway Baby effervescence!

In terms of concrete critique, I guess the best I can do is go for the fashion. In that case, points deducted from Toot, points given to Love. As ever, Jewels is the best in show, getting the cool girl stylishness the Drag Race Live seems to want from its performers. Can you provide anything more specific about the dancing? I'm stumped. 

NICK: Remember how I used to mention Dragula all the time? This reminded me a lot of that show’s occasional difficulty with editing group numbers to properly showcase their performers. The lack of RuGirl verses is a bummer, as is the realization there were no songwriting challenges this season. As corny as they can be, it’s really a valuable chance for the queens to personalize a challenge and sell their brand, and this number specifically makes that absence deeply felt. Jewels more or less set the standard for the challenge, though I thought Onya did a good job of serving face amidst all the choreo and throbbing masculinities. Suzie’s mug upstaged her skill with the choreo, and Lexi seemed . . . . fine? Surprised she wasn’t better given the dancing skills she’s previously showcased. I have zero thoughts on Sam’s performance.

After this happens, we move on to the runways. Category is Outerwear O-P-U-L-E-N-C-E, and the divas are ready to serve. As you already mentioned, the judge’s panel set a high bar for fabulosity, so let’s see what we got!

Jewels Sparkles is first, looking like a living ice sculpture. Her runway reminded me of Trixie Mattel’s chic poodle runway on AS3, insofar as denoting a “final form” moment of a diva growing into her own. I would not have minded more color than her whites and silvers to make all her patterned fabric and glistened jewelry pop more effectively, and the flavor of blonde in this particular wig makes her seem older than her 22 years. Still, she looks good, and she models it well.

CLÁUDIO: She models the shit out of it, which almost makes me like the ensemble more than I would have otherwise. The coat is the real deal, and I especially love the brocade lining - this runway was a feast of expensive looking textiles, which is rare on Drag Race. My big issue is the skirt. As beautiful as that is, it would have looked better with a lining. The Barbie crotch is more distracting than fabulous, I’m sorry to say.

Lexi Love brings her 2000s aesthetic and streetwear meets passerelle to the Drag Race catwalk and I like the effort. Is it a bit repetitive after so many similar looks over the season? Yeah, and it sadly doesn’t feel like a culmination in ways Jewels, Onya and, especially, Suzie’s getups do. I find the nakedness contrasting with the giant puffer fun but not fabulous, per se, and almost wonder what a bodysuit or even a gown would have done with the same coat. Also, I wish the crystal motif in the back was bigger and not just a heart. The sparkly drawing looks too small when you stop to consider the big picture.

NICK: A gown would’ve been a great idea, hot damn. But yeah, I find both the bathing suit and the jacket to be underwhelming on their own and working in tandem. As always, the mug and hairstyling are impeccable, but she’s outdone herself many times on this stage.

Onya Nurve synthesizes her brand marvelously with high-glamour African prints decorated with giant door knockers. This might be the best mug Onya’s had all season, and the dress is just fabulous to me, somehow grand and heavy while still allowing for sweeping, flowing movement. She looks like someone turned the contents of a grande dame’s mansion into a single, magnificent garment. Is this your favorite runway of hers? It might be mine, give or take her nails runway and that fucking turkey. 

CLÁUDIO: This sort of maximalism really speaks to me. And yeah, I guess this is my favorite Onya look, with only her quilted waxprints putting any sort of fight. I just adore the mismatch of patterns, the textures, the sheer volume of it as she floats down the runway looking like an extra from some second Black Panther sequel. The fact she’s not even pretending those giant earrings are connected to her ears is a great piece of camp nonsense. Attagirl!

Sam Star stuns in a velvety orange sherbert of an outfit, appealing to an old-school sense of drama and pageant-ready drag. But does she look too old? The outfit’s fine, but the styling is majorly aging, as if underlining the vague staleness around her own aesthetic. And that’s not smart so close to the finish line. Plus, a word of advice for Trinity’s baby daughter. If Sam wishes for people to stop asking if she’s a Republican, she might want to avoid styling herself as Ivana Trump. Another nitpick - the cape, while lovely, hardly reads as outerwear. Indeed, it’s hard to even see it as a cape and not just an extension of the gown. That said, it’s beautiful to behold. 

NICK: I don’t disagree about the premature aging - if you told me *this* was the woman everyone joked about being the oldest bitch in the world at the start of season 17, I’d believed you. Still, within those caveats, I think Sam looks gorgeous. Especially with all the rhinestones bedecking her shoulders, as if her necklace was slowly taking over the rest of the outfit.

Last on the runway is Suzie Toot, looking the most chic and sophisticated she has all season in a fabulous boudoir red. Love the plush textiles of the jacket, the luxurious softness it exudes, and the sheer amount of fabric coming off that oversized collar. It’s almost certainly too much coat, but she carries herself so marvelously it’s never in danger of swallowing her alive. Her gams look terrific. Her makeup is splendid, and the feather on her cap balances this silhouette so well. Yes, Suzie’s leaning hard on her brand, but it’s the best she’s looked doing her ‘20s theatre persona all season, and she deserves credit for it.

CLÁUDIO: Suzie looks like a Paul Poiret sketch or an Erté illustration illustration come to life. This is the peak of her aesthetic and one of the best things to walk down that runway all season. I’m left speechless by how good the Toot looks, somehow rendering a pretty great period costume into drag that doesn’t feel out of place in the venue. The proportions are perfect, the makeup makes sense for once, the quillezaire is bedazzled as it should be, and the hint of a more stereotypical flapper frock underneath gives the ensemble a trashy kick. Honestly, the only thing stopping me from declaring this THE look of season 17 is that hideous footwear. If you’re a drag queen, please throw away all your basic nude heels. They never look anything other than pedestrian. 

And now we come to the portion of this episode that totally broke it for me. The judging is a whole mess. First up, before any queen gets her critiques, we see the final portion of the challenge in the form of a little promo video where each gal must make the case for herself as a new star of the Vegas show. It’s very Showgirls meets the influencer age. Jewels is clearly the standout, while Lexi sounds like she’s advertising a brothel. Sam’s southern schtick and Suzie’s Anything Goes routine are totally wrong for this, though the latter makes it worse with a bunch of nautical jokes that couldn’t be more out of place. Onya is fine, resting on her charisma. But you can do that when you’re this much of a superstar. 

The judges mostly agree with these assessments, but they make sure to throw in a lot of bullshit, too. I don’t get the praise for Lexi’s dancing, nor the love for her runway. Onya being dinged for her attitude is bizarre and I feel Ross put way too much stock in the interview outfit to the point it felt like the main reason Miss Nurve wasn’t in serious contention for the win. I get criticizing Sam’s Southern gal presentation, but the judges are downright contradicting themselves at this point. They actively pushed her into leaning on this thing in the past. So why is that a problem now? And surely there was another way to ding her pageant vibes without saying she was too cocky when talking about her school bullies just being jealous.

But nothing beats the inanity of their words for Suzie. Don’t get me wrong, she was the worst of the week by a wide margin and her strategy was all wrong. However, the tap-dancing diva has served range, variety, even some different aesthetics all throughout the season. And the judges have commented on it in the past - remember the quilted runway, the rocker performance, the trashy babysitter? Yet, now Michelle says that variation never happened. It’s infuriating because, again, it’s super easy to lambast Suzie this week without the need to make shit up about her performance in the season so far. There was no way she wasn’t landing in the bottom, so why did the judges need to inflate her failure so much? I’m confused and enraged, to be perfectly honest. Most of all, I’m annoyed and a bit bored by how over-produced it all feels.

NICK: God the judging was so bullshit. The critiques Suzie received are so infuriating. Again, she did badly in the maxi challenge, and I can’t push back on their criticisms of her performance in the episode. But judging her and Sam for leaning hard on their particular brands while trying to prove why their personas would be so valuable to the Drag Race lineage is a maddening way to frame it. Hell, I’d bet Suzie’s variations to her makeup all season was geared in part specifically so she wouldn’t have to hear Michelle talk her shit about needing “versatility” from the weird girls while all the glamour queens get to wear the same pretty face. Line up any of the other queen’s mugs over the last fourteen weeks and you tell me who’s being repetitive.

So Suzie makes her first trip to the bottom two, and must lip sync for her life against Sam, for some reason. My question is, if you’re gonna rig any possible match-up right before the finale, why not Suzie and Lexi, given their narrative together all season? Let them duke it out!! You may literally never have this chance again!! What on Earth was production smoking for this challenge???

Anyways, it’s Suzie vs Sam going up against each other to Diana Ross’s “Love Child”, a ballad traversing an unhappy life with a beat just too infectious to be a park-and-bark. And they’re performing right in front of Ms. Ross’s daughter, who might have won from the judge’s table either way. For my money, Suzie takes it pretty handily. The regality of her coat, the sheer kineticism of her dancing once she tosses it off, all that while serving oodles of face. At no point does she lose the lip sync, but I have to say, the second she started to tap I got a little nervous. If Ru’s gonna be a bitch about my style not fitting the mold, you gotta decide whether to swallow those orders or double down and hope it pays off. To Suzie’s credit, it payed off in that she won the lip sync. It just didn’t save her.

CLÁUDIO: I think Suzie won, too, though I think Sam was smarter about her performance. Does that make sense? Suzie had variety in her pantomime belting, getting some fun with moves with the coat on, using the mass of it to punctuate the music, the style, the mood. And yet, taking that thing off and taping, while in rhythm with the tune, feels like a self-goal. Because, as you said, Ru and Michelle decided they hated her brand this week. Moreover, Mama loves herself some classic Ross, and Diana wouldn’t have tossed that majestic fit for some commonplace fringe number. Indeed, that’s the same dress Suzie wore for the musical number early on. A dress Ru specifically said she hated during deliberations.

So, while I think Suzie won, I also can see exactly why the judges chose to keep Sam over her. If nothing else, Trinity’s daughter listens to them. She embodied the song with a park and bark style, minimal variation, just like Ru likes it for one of her fave’s hits. It was very Bebe, only without the oomph. So, “Patsy Stone after she took the substance” gets to stay, and the girl many thought would be top two shantays away. I can’t be too mad since she did the worst of the episode, while Jewels did the best. That means the results make sense. And yet, this felt sour on the mouth, the spirit, the heart. Personally, I think the finale will be poorer in her absence, though next week’s lipsync smackdown might just be enriched by some of that Toot energy. I can’t wait what she does in that format. Same goes for Kori and Lydia. I’m excited to see all those gals put on a show.

As for the final four, I think Onya is pretty well locked for the final lip sync of the season. Storytelling-wise, I guess Lexi makes sense, but she’s faltered so much and been so often saved that such a result would probably incur the fandom’s wrath. Right now, it’s clear that the show’s biggest supporters want to see Jewels up there with Onya in the end, so that might just be our result. We’ll see. If it’s like last year and season 14 before it, the original song performance they deliver will be a deciding factor and anything can happen. If it’s like season 15, they’ll go with narrative and track record. I only hope these next two episodes redeem what had been a smashing season until it all started to go wrong around March. Fingers crossed.

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"
• Episode 7: "Snatch Game"
• Episode 8: "The Wicked Wiz of Oz: The Rusical!"
• Episode 9: "Heavens to Betsey!"
• Episode 10: "Villains Roast"
• Episode 11: "Ross Matthews vs the Ducks"
• Episode 12: “Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve & Talent Monologues”
• Episode 13: "Drag Baby Mamas"

Comments

[NATHANIEL R]

well, though I've been disagreeing with you all quite a lot this season with these rucaps, I will undersign most of what's been said here. Suzie Toot was grossly treated this season by everyone. She may have gotten in her own way in this last challenge (yes, she was the worst for once) but it annoys me that they can never decide when to judge on track record and when to judge on THAT challenge. Stick to one or the other since toggling back and forth is enraging.

But yeah, why a sailor theme for a landlocked desert town?

I want Jewels Sparkles to win the season.

[Philip H.]

I couldn't stand Suzie Toot all season... I thought she was delusionally mistaking her knowledge of old references for intelligence/talent/skill/uniqueness. Her drama club president energy really turned me off at the beginning of the season as her aesthetic didn't work for me most of the time--even when I liked her outfits, I found her mug quite difficult to look at it.

However, I did warm to her when she was paired with Onya in Untucked, as well as when other queens acted so utterly ridiculous in certain moments and Miss Toot showed she was actually quite chill and level-headed, despite her delusions of grandeur re: her drag.

I definitely think she was the worst in the challenge... But her runway was phenomenal, definitely an elevated version of her aesthetic, and she served exactly what one should at this point of the competition. Additionally, she 1000% won the lip sync, without a doubt.

Sam should've gone home, bar none. I thought they overpraised her this entire season--"stop trying to make fetch happen"--because she's Trinity's daughter. Winning the rusical was actually insane. She's cute and solid, but very boring and I feel most of what she's done has felt conceptually recycled and, thus, painfully unoriginal. She's also really annoying in the confessionals too. She wound up switching roles with how I felt about Suzie originally. Seeing her stay when she clearly lost that lip sync and has already been in the bottom was annoying.

Lexi was my initial fav at the start of the season bc she's the only one I saw star quality in immediately, but she is far too immature for my liking. She's on her own journey, I respect that, but she was favored way too much by the judges, especially when she was always solid but not as good every single week as they made her out to be. Her video was awful and I didn't like her runway, either, this week. She has done similar designs so often and this week it didn't work for me.

Onya has been the most consistent and solid, although I did find some of her performances to be the same thing we've seen from her before. Even with her video this week, it wasn't bad like Lexi's or Suzie's, or unmemorable like Sam's, but I was like girl, why are you yelling? lol. Overall, Onya is my runner-up... Her fashions have been the weakest of the remaining girls, however. I think her style is a bit crunchy at times and needs elevation.

Anyway, Jewels is easily my #1.

Overall, I feel like Jewels should've won more challenges than she did; namely snatch game and the rusical. In fact, while she deserved the win for that Betsey Johnson design challenge, I actually thought Lexi kinda deserved it that week, but I was so happy they finally gave Jewels something and it wasn't undeserved at all.

But I knew going into this week (especially after her abysmal makeover of her dad--what were those outfits, girl?!) she absolutely had to blow the challenge out of the water and win in order to not only stay in the competition, but also entertain her winning the crown at all... And thank God she did! She was easily the best this week.

Honestly, at this point, I see Jewels taking the crown. She's the only one that gives me winner energy.

I've had trouble seeing Onya and Lexi as winners this entire season, despite how well the competition has treated them.

So, with Jewels peaking at this moment, now having two wins, and the fan support online (which they definitely take into consideration), I am praying Jewels Sparkles will be crowned America's Next Drag Superstar. :P

But if Onya won I wouldn't be mad... A little disappointed, but not too upset.

I'd say Sam is the only queen in the finale without a chance in hell.

My rankings of the queens for the crown:

1. Jewels Sparkles
2. Onya Nurve (easily the best drag name in a long time)
3. Lexi Love
4. Suzie Toot
5. Sam Star