Drag Race RuCap: “Mammas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Drag Queens”

This episode is dedicated to the memory of Terry Covington, who passed last year.

NICK TAYLOR: In the grand tradition of the Drag Race makeover challenge, I have no idea what some of the judges thought they were watching. Hyping up how bullish Michelle is about drag family resemblance really just emphasizes how vague and stupid her standards are. Our dear eliminated queen seems to have been sacrificed primarily based on the track record, and since the judges have largely been under-acknowledging her performances of late, I call bullshit. Meanwhile, I don’t see anything to the challenge winner except honoring a good track record and cementing her place in the finale. The queens and their cowboys were a delight, reminding us how much pathos this challenge can inspire with guests who want to be there, but it’s a bitter aftertaste to end the night on.

CLÁUDIO ALVES: The first 40 minutes of this episode were representative of the best Drag Race has to offer as queer television, mixing camp and pathos, bawdiness and cute men with fagcents and even some advocating amid the fun. The last 20 minutes were some of the most infuriating nonsense I’ve ever seen on this program. These judges were trying so hard to jam their crap down my throat, I felt like I was suddenly living through Pasolini's Salo…

I am going to rant a lot when we get there, but before, let’s spread positivity and celebrate what works about “Mammas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Drag Queens.” The episode starts with a celebration of Kenya Pleaser’s charisma, as the queens honor their fallen sister. She’ll be dearly missed. There’s also time to applaud Darlene on her roast victory, which leaves poor Discord as the only remaining queen without a single maxi-challenge win on her track record. Nini’s also in her head about her first low placement, while Jane is starting a campaign to put Miss Mitchell on the Emmy FYC material as part of Drag Race’s costume and hair team. Oh, wait, that’s not Jane, it’s me. Because, at this point, she might as well be part of those departments with the amount of nonsense she has let the other queens borrow. Why did she bring so much stuff? And how is it possible that it’s all useful? Is she a plant by production? Much to ponder.

NICK: No production plant would be as creatively resourceful as Darlene. The clown nose, the wigs, the shoes. Harkening back to our conversations on her drag being a throwback to earlier iterations of the show, Darlene’s on track to win season 4 of RuPaul’s Drag Race using only clothes she repurposed from estate sales. I for one hope she goes all the way. She’s so refreshing in her tacky-brilliant fits, her silliness, her joy. Well, almost everyone this season seems like a ball of sunshine, but she and Discord are the only ones who could sub in for the sun baby on the Teletubbies.

The next morning, Ru enters the Werkroom in rodeo realness attire and leads the queens in the fourth(?) mini-challenge this season to hit prime time. She instructs them to get into cowboy quick drag, where they’ll race across the Werkroom on inflatable bouncy horses. Everyone looks insane, though it must be said that Discord is lowkey serving cunt in this field of busted broads. And Myki’s got Hormona’s bob on! Thank fuck the race was edited into a slo-mo pulse-pounder, because god that was funny. Juicy Love Dion crashes over the hay barrier in the last leg of the race. Half the divas lose their wigs, hats, and bra-stuffings completely, which the sound team has a field day with. In a photo finish, the winner is our beloved Discord Addams, who decides in the confessional that her two mini-challenge wins add up to a full maxi victory. Checks out for me!

RuPaul gives Discord a tip of 2.5k, and is given the power to assign partners for this week’s maxi-challenge. With a flick of her wrist, six handsome, masculine gay cowboys saunter through the Werkroom’s main doors. Ru announces this week’s maxi-challenge is the makeover, tasking the queens with transforming these hot hunks of men into members of their drag families. She really emphasizes the drag family resemblance bit, as well as Michelle’s famous fire-breathing rage for anyone who fails to honor this not-at-all-abstract guideline. I’m excited already! 

CLÁUDIO: Excitement and dread are so easy to mix up. As you well know, I hate this perennial Drag Race challenge, mostly for how fucked up the judging always is, with Michelle leading the charge. It’s been like this since its very first iteration, when the Visage woman was still far away from the Drag Race main stage, and the panel decided to honor Rebecca Glasscock’s mall drag pedestrianism and force the two frontrunners into the bottom two, leading to a fantastical lip sync between Bebe and Ongina, before the latter’s elimination. Then, next season, Pandora Boxx should have won the whole thing, but instead was sent home. It hasn’t gotten any better in the interim 16 years.

Regardless of their ominous fate, all the queens look fairly excited to meet their cowboy partners. Discord picks an alternative-looking stud for herself, immediately drawn to his ear gauges as a point of connection between herself and her future sister/daughter/clone. She doesn’t seem especially concerned with sabotaging the competition, though, pairing itty-bitty Nini and Juicy with the broadest cowboys of the bunch seems a tad shady. Then again, every one of these six manly men is a hard canvas to work with, facial hair and all, so it’s not like Discord had a lot of leeway to play mind games. That’s not to say they are hard to bring into the mentality one must embrace in this challenge. Some of them have been queens in the past, and what is rodeo if not a form of drag?

But, as ever, I might be getting ahead of myself. Let’s assess the pairings: 

Discord and Colton, an Oklahoma speed racer who likes to ride fast and hard;
Juicy and Greg, a Phoenix local who’s the current Gay Rodeo All-Around champion;
Myki and Michael, a Colorado cowboy who prides himself on being the vice-president of the International Gay Rodeo Association;
Nini and Jason, a steer racer from Colorado who’s also an army vet;
Jane and Terry, a retired rodeo judge from Oklahoma;
Darlene and Chris, an Oklahoma fella known for roping events and who claims to be able to ride anything with hair on it.

Do you think any of the queens have any special advantage or disadvantage? And what cowboy would you want to ride? To save a horse, of course, since we’re animal lovers out here. I think I’d go with Colton, though Chris' combo of burliness and gay voice is very appealing to me, personally. 

NICK: All of these cowboys seem like fun to ride! I’d probably pick Colton first as well, though Greg and Chris are also very tempting. As far as special advantages, I’m struck by how Darlene and Chris are almost instantly on the same wavelength. When Darlene says she wants to go the route of trashy bitches hitting the town in Vegas, Chris is immediately on board and ready to party. 

Other than this, all the other duos seem promising. Jane is deeply moved by Terry’s life story and dedicates herself to ensuring he has a good, safe time on set. Myki is delighted to learn that Michael ran drag bingo queen nights in Denver for several years in the gay rodeo scene, making them fellow hostesses with the mostesses. Greg is ready to match Juicy’s polished, pageant presentation, bringing a mature eye to her still-developing POV. I also love seeing Discord discussing her tenure on the show with Colton, letting her confidence shine in its least delusional iteration. Plus, he walks in heels better than she does! Boy’s got talent.

Really, the only pairing I’m worried about is the buggery Nini is inflicting on her partner. Out of all the queens, Nini seems very empathetic to Jason without the edit presenting a connection between their experiences. It’s also mystifying to watch Jason talk about never being allowed to explore his feminine side only for Nini to give him a felt cap with antennae on it. I remember similar side-eye being thrown Suzie’s way last year for wrapping her mom in monochrome and scotch tape, but that read as a diva constructing her drag family outfits on set, with Mama Toot giving very removed input. Jason tells Ru he’s enthusiastic to be the caterpillar to Nini’s butterfly in their one-on-one table talk, but it’s presented like he’s being slotted into a theme without the room to give much input. 

A caterpillar and butterfly has to be one of the easiest metaphors for a child and their parent, yet even this concept earns a warning from Ru about “Drag Family Resemblance” criteria. He gives the same spiel to Discord when she presents her theme of Mean Girls: Prep vs Punk, and seems maddeningly obtuse to the dichotomy she’s playing with. It’s literally Sugar and Spice! How is this so hard to grasp?

CLÁUDIO: I am of two minds about Nini’s idea. On the one hand, it’s exceedingly clever and a fantastic way of approaching a challenge whose results can lean toward rote and unimaginative. There’s rigor to her Bug’s Life fantasy, going as far as having matching nail art and accent lashes for her partner and using the exact pattern of a monarch butterfly caterpillar to further underline the narrative of a drag mother and drag daughter of the insect world. On the other hand, out of all the participants this year, Jason seemed the keenest on confronting the idea of femininity as applied to himself, which, sadly, does not gel with the cartoonish gender-fuckery Nini’s going for with her skull caps and unorthodox strategy.

I almost wish she had cast herself as the caterpillar and let her partner be the fully formed butterfly. Part of winning this challenge has always been about providing the story editors with the most inspiring angle, often verging on maudlin. Though they are rarely submitted for awards consideration, these makeover episodes tend to get people talking about the importance of drag in the queer community and Drag Race in our media landscape. Hell, there’s published writing on RPDR that highlights it as the best and most vital challenge/episode format in all of the show’s herstory. A very uncharitable read of Nini’s approach could come down to saying the queen wanted to deliver something she could be proud of on the main stage, rather than something that would meet her partner’s needs.

Ru is much more into the story Myki’s selling. Indeed, the Florida princess in charge has decided to make her and her daughter’s looks from scratch, while every other queen is working from a template they prepared at home. Though it doesn’t come up in the convo with Ru, I imagine Juicy also gets points in the judges' eyes for how much she had to adapt her plan, shifting her petite drag to a broader frame and going so far as to stitch an underlying bodysuit to keep the lewk together. Finally, Mama Ru is delighted with Jane and the recently baptized Maybe Don’t, down to how much the grizzled cowboy is happy to vamp around with a cock feather boa. So far, the vibes are good, apart from these hints of judging nonsense.

Still, it’s hard to think of such depressing possibilities when the cowboys offer to demonstrate some of their rodeo moves and teach the queens a thing or two. Nini is especially quick in getting into position for… honestly, I can’t remember the exact context, but I know what I usually associate with a twink on all fours.

NICK: It’s a demonstration of how to wrestle steers, which doesn’t explain for one second why Nini gets on all fours like that. At the very least, it makes me amend my earlier summary of Nini and Jason’s relationship. She’s totally willing to meet him and his rodeo self where he is, and not just because she’s a flexible bottom who hasn’t been handled by a masc man in weeks. Bless her.

The next day, the queens and their cowboys are getting ready to put their face on. It’s a big deal for the men, especially the ones required to shave their beards for the first time in years. Terry’s had his moustache since high school! There’s so much masculine baggage in facial hair, and as someone who held onto their beard for much longer than she needed, I completely sympathize with the teary-eyed anxiety Michael expresses when he gets to the makeup chair. His heart-to-heart with Myki about gender expression and feeling comfortable in your own body is so touching. It’s also the kind of tender moment Ms. Meeks hasn’t had yet in the competition, and the show stopping for this exchange while folding Jane’s attentiveness to Terry into the momentum of the episode feels like an interesting signal for which comedy queen is getting a winning narrative arc.

Nini’s mirror conversation with Jason hits a much heavier tone when, upon reflecting on the last time he was clean-shaven, he begins talking about his service in the military. He entered that space as another way to try and reconcile his masculinity and sexuality. Jason became friends with Barry Winchell, a gay soldier who was murdered in his sleep by two of his fellow infantrymen because he brought his girlfriend, a transgender woman named Calpernia Addams, to the company picnic.

This happened in 1999. It’s a harrowing fucking story, one I’d only tangentially heard of because the story was dramatized as a TV movie called Soldier’s Girl. No one at my watch party had heard of this, and they were as shocked to hear this story as Nini and Myki. It’s the first time Drag Race has reckoned with an anti-gay murder since the Pulse shootings in season 9, and I’m mostly just grateful for how impactful this moment is, both as a personal interaction between two queer people and a moment of mourning for a national audience. Praising the tonal balancing act feels inappropriate to what this story is, but amidst a time of escalating anti-queer legislation and attitudes in the US, this is such a sharp reminder of how things have - and haven’t - changed in 25 years.

It’s a powerful scene, no matter how silly it feels to use that adjective for such a silly program. And it’s amazing how, after these hugs and tears, Jason casually throws the fiercest read of the episode at Chris. These cowboys are so catty! Negotiating this kind of emotional minefield is a very human experience, but this is such a specifically queer series of interactions. I’m as moved recounting it now as I was when I watched it.

CLÁUDIO: This entire passage, wavering between remembrance and a bitchfest, between a tender talk on gender expression within the gay community and shittalk about drag nonsense, is the peak of the season for me. I can scarcely add anything to your own summation. I guess I’ll say that, over the past few years, Drag Race has cast this challenge with family, friends, fans, and queer folk of a similar generation to the queens competing. Often, when discussing how drag embraces forms of femininity, the queens are either reflecting upon a relationship with someone in their lives or leading a cis straight person into a world of experimentation and fantasy. With these cowboys, the show is striking a similar yet distinct note, which becomes especially harrowing when two generations of gay men come together in such ways.

It’s not just Jason’s traumatic history, Terry’s insecurities, or Michael’s complicated relationship with his drag past. It’s also Chris’ vulnerable musings on how noticeably queer and effeminate he sounds within a social context that privileges, mayhap fetishizes, traditional masculinity. It’s Discord and Colton bonding earlier in the episode, and Juicy learning of a different racialized queer experience through Greg and his Native American heritage. Articulating how special this all was is really difficult, down to the surges of levity as when everyone in the room fawns over how handsome Terry looks clean-shaven, supporting him even as they continue to have fun in this Western-themed kiki. Truly, the episode should’ve ended here!

But it didn’t, so we need to move to the main stage, where the judges await, steaming in their baffling opinions and obvious visual impairment. At least, they look good. Well, Ru has gone with a very boring ensemble, the exception that proves the rule. Michelle has decided to pull from the monochromatic twenties, as she has been infected by the Suzie Toot mind virus. Or maybe she just recently re-watched Chicago and wanted to cosplay Velma Kelly. Law Roach is also present, looking sharp in stark contrast to his appearance on the Oscars’ red carpet last week. Last, though not least, Ghosts’ star Danielle Pinnock is pretty in pink. The poor woman was there to feel the love and celebrate good drag. Too bad her colleagues were on another frequency altogether.

Do you have anything to say about these judges, whom we are sure to lambast once we get to the end of the RuCap? Do you have an alternate theory to explain why Michelle decided to go Louise Brooks on our asses this week?

NICK: Love Danielle Pinnock. Did Michelle just watch JLo in Kiss of the Spider Woman? Was she watching Teen Titans with the kids and got inspired by Madame Rouge? Flexing on the sister from Fleabag? That bob is the only enticing mystery Michelle offered.

First up is Nini and Patsy Coco, serving insectile realness. Patsy is getting her life on that stage, and I really love that. The body is right for both of them, and the matching eyelashes are pretty perfect. But I’d have liked to see Patsy’s final runway show more custom tailoring, rather than having large strips of fabric coming off her headpiece, and the short slit up the back of her dress isn’t fashionably integrated. Give this diva some leg! It’s not uncommon for a drag queen to look better than her makeover partner, but this is a big gap. Last note: Patsy’s backpack wings mess up her silhouette, and they invoke Kenya’s Winx Club moment last week, but that’s no excuse for Law Roach to think she’s out here dressed as a bumblebee! Dumbass.

CLÁUDIO: Between Juicy’s lack of references and several folks’ reactions to these lewks, Drag Race season 18 has been an indictment of the American school system. The life cycle of a monarch butterfly isn’t a great mystery, and Nini’s designs are simple enough to get the idea across. However, a bunch of tiny mistakes detracts from it. Like you, I disliked how Patsy’s headdress tied as a scarf, how it prevented her from further exploring her femininity through wiggery, and found the caterpillar wing thingy rather inexplicable, a misstep that muddies the fit. Moreover, the backpack straps on both of the outfits look clunky as fuck. The feather accents were a great touch, though. Loved the fluttering movement as they walked down the runway.

Thanks, I hate it. Myki devised hers and Morgan Meeks’ looks in the Werk Room, and you can tell by their flimsy construction, down to raw edges showing, weird hems on the cowboy’s skirt, and a scarf that looks like a strip of sequined fabric cut straight from the bolt, unaltered. Morgan is doing a lot to elevate their collective presentation, though she’s struggling against an unflattering paint. What works with Myki’s round features won’t necessarily gel with a more angular face. The lips, in particular, look moustache-like, while the blush feels needlessly harsh. Hate the mismatched gloves and shoes between the two of them. Cheap and basic… c’mon girl, pick a struggle.

NICK: The fact that Morgan is able to sell the look so completely is a great testament to her skill as a drag queen, and I look forward to seeing her compete on Drag Race in a few years. Hopefully, she can style herself better than Myki. Her mug is rough, the construction of the outfit is rough, the scarf is rough. Great wigs, at least?

Juicy and Loosey Love Dion deliver the first knockout of the night in their Carmen Miranda tulle extravagance. Nymphia yellow and Sapphira blue are a winning color combination, and the form-fitting tops contrast beautifully with the layers of tulle on their sleeves and dresses. Juicy transposes all the softness of her mug onto Loosey while still matching the shape of her face, and Loosey sells the hell out of it with a pouty lip and an air of superiority. Watching her strut down the runway with those legs is a goddamn treat. More than a family resemblance, Juicy and Loosey look like the same woman at two different points in her life. Also, how hilarious is it to think none of the Dions would win this challenge if they went onstage as a family?

CLÁUDIO: A major part of the makeover challenge that went pretty universally ignored by the judges this episode is the ability to paint a face other than yours and do so as an act of translating your drag aesthetic into a different canvas. On that front, Juicy had maybe the best performance of the night. I was agog every time I looked at Loosey’s puss. The outfits are good, if a tad unimaginative in their variation. To me, they read more like Celia Cruz knock-offs than an homage to Carmen Miranda. I appreciated how much work Juicy put into adapting the outfit for her partner, going so far as to reconstruct the back with extra fabric from the one she used to fashion a bodysuit. My one serious complaint is that the piece was weirdly fitted at the crotch. Thankfully, because of all that tulle, one only ever saw brief glimpses of that problem area.

Like Jinkx Monsoon before her, Jane has proven herself a Seattle witch. Because what sort of necromancy did she perform to resurrect Charlie Hides (killed by Trinity the Tuck, so sad) and put her on that stage in Rita Hayworth drag? Damn, but Maybe Don’t had the best body of the lot, corseted and padded to va-va-voom exquisetness - okay, that trumpet skirt is giving sad trombone, but nobody’s perfect. The makeup is impressive, too, especially the ability to soften Maybe’s face and have Jane’s parrot-like highlighter-blush combo work on a different mug. The hair is beautiful, too, complementing a pair of frocks that sell me the idea of 1940s glam as reinterpreted for a 1980s soap opera. I don’t think either look necessitates the cock feather boas, yet the girls were having so much fun with them that I can’t be too bothered.

NICK: There’s no reason to have less cock in your life, Cláudio, and no reason to ask why anyone wants it in theirs. Jane and Maybe are fucking dynamite, cinched and padded to absolute perfection. The variations in their accessories and the lines of their outfits are just enough to avoid copy-paste allegations. Terry looks like a billion dollars.

It’s crazy how Discord and Harmony Addams have the exact same mug. From the shape of their faces to the paint job itself, they could pass for twins in any of the canonical teen movies being used as reference points. They’re the stars of Heathers 2: Hell for Heather. I do think it’s hilarious that this is the one time Discord chose to make a color other than black the star of her ensemble - would the theme have gone better or worse if she were wearing pink? - but this is otherwise a pretty solid answer to the prompt to my gay eyes. Discord, in particular, looks cute as a button. If anything, I wish she’d gone a little farther with Harmony - full stockings instead of knee-highs, more padding on the hips, fix that goddamn hairline - give her a little more fantasy to feel out! Discord’s look is more fully-realized, but they both look good. The miracle of that mug transfer should’ve gotten way more attention.

CLÁUDIO: The painting job is tremendous, though I have some issues with Harmony’s blonde unit and that crooked wigline. The way Discord even copied her beauty mark placements onto her sister’s mug helped sell the whole twin girl fantasy. My favorite detail is probably that, though Discord is the punk one, Harmony got the Vivienne Westwood bling on. Overall, I really like what’s going on here, but I have quibbles. Like most queens in this episode, Miss Addams found herself with some fit issues regarding her drag family. Harmony’s jacket is too small on her, and I almost wish Discord had tacked on some white faux fur to lengthen the sleeves and better tie their outfits together. Also, her own ensemble risks being a bit simple, with the mismatched bouclés.

At last, Darlene and Bonnie Mitchell come out as a pair of ditzy blondes taking Reno by storm. It’s giving Romy and Michelle Go to Vista del Mar, Nebraska. It’s giving B.A.P.S: White Trash Edition, costumed with the leftovers of a community theater’s failed attempt at staging the Grey Gardens musical. I love it, from head to toe, a joke in every detail. I guess one could argue the shoes are needlessly unremarkable and that Darlene’s paint looks better on her sister than herself. My only real critique is that the padding isn’t serving as much as it could, which, looking back, has been a recurring issue with this queen. 

NICK: You’re right about the padding, though there’s something arguably character-appropriate to these boozy, fun-loving dames having absolutely no hips to speak of. They don’t need body-ody-ody when the spirits are moving them on the dance floor like polyester goddesses. I’m being overly generous, a symptom of Darlene’s infectious charisma, but she and Bonnie gave me so much joy. The mismatched, Midwestern garishness is such a perfect way to meet the spirit of the makeover challenge without replicating outfits directly.

Now we get to the dread part of the episode: the judge’s critiques. We inevitably disagree with them, but the substance of a lot of their critiques are so bizarre. Why were almost all of Nini’s critiques about her story being hard to grasp? Is there any real ambiguity around Darlene and Bonnie’s family ties, and if so, is it that big of a deal? Let the headcanons go crazy! I personally think they’re girlfriends who learned they were cousins and decided to stay together anyways. That’s art. I’m happy for Darlene and Juicy’s good reviews, though I have no idea what inspired their affection for Myki’s makeover. 

As you said, there’s no mention of anyone’s makeup, which should be kind of central to the whole thing! Michelle Visage’s inexplicable distaste for Jane’s runway has gotten a lot of hate already, but it bears repeating how unintelligible this line of thinking is. Even the other judges seem thrown by her little tirade. It’s so stupid, and does nothing to clarify her own standards for drag family resemblance. And I just don’t believe their inability to grasp Discord’s whole concept. What is the point of a Law Roach-esque celebrity stylist who can’t clock a prep vs punk theme? Did Zendaya teach him nothing on Euphoria? I just hate it.

 

CLÁUDIO: There’s a part of me that responds positively to a sociopath in a cunty bob lying through her teeth, straight to camera, and emotionally terrorizing a buxom redheaded hussy who was getting too confident. It’s the same part of me that wanted to scream “DIVA!” every time Varang did some psycho shit in Avatar: Fire and Ash. However, I cannot condone Michelle’s “gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss” schtick this episode. Honestly, the entire judging section made me feel insane, with only Danielle Pinnock seeming to be within the realm of reason.

Watching the WOW affiliate shows react to this nonsense has been a trip and a half, with queens showing bewilderment, while Michelle herself sticks to her guns and even pulls for some bullshit about being adopted and placing great importance on family resemblance. At this point, I’m convinced she’d watch Sinners and assume Michael B. Jordan and Michael B. Jordan were playing unrelated close friends. She’d ding The Parent Trap for failing to convince that Lindsay Lohan and Lindsay Lohan shared any DNA, and would tell Sugar and Spice they’re not similar enough to pass as siblings. The darndest thing is the judges’ appeal to a nebulous idea of drag family resemblance, as if drag queens in the same family just walk around looking like clones of each other. Are they blind? Or just demented? 

How can they claim Discord and Harmony don’t look similar in the face? How can they claim to not want matchy-matchy as they have in seasons past, and then say the mere fact Jane is in all red and Maybe in blue is too much of a contrast to convince as members of the same drag family? How can they sound so enthusiastic even as they praise Juicy, who should probably have won this week? If not her, Jane or Discord or even Darlene. Not Myki! Allow me this tangent as a further argument against the judges. The makeover challenge is always something of a branding exercise in disguise, which makes some of the criticism even stupider. Glancing at most of the cowboys, you’d be instantly able to surmise which season 18 contestant they were affiliated with. Not so with the Meeks sisters, who are the only pair so generic that they risk anonymity. I haven’t agreed with all the wins this season, but none left me as dumbfounded as this one. The remaining placements follow the same rule of madness, with Juicy and Darlene high, Jane low, while Nini and Discord are made to lip sync for their lives. While I sort of agree with the bug queen’s fate, Myki should be right there beside her.

Not that Discord makes much of a case for herself when performing to the sound of Ariana Grande’s “We Can’t Be Friends.” Miss Addams uses her face and gestures to emote without discernible purpose or clear intention, a lot and a lot of mess. It’s akin to seeing the diametrical opposite of Juicy’s precision in this season’s lip syncs. The articulation is also lacking, while Nini hits all the right beats and generally seems to have a plan to tackle what turns out to be a very poor choice of tune for such a smackdown. I assume they kept it for these two because of their vague animosity towards each other, which has mostly been playing in the background all season long.

In other words, Nini gets to stay in the only fair bit of judging in the entire episode. Discord is sent packing, charming even when she exits the competition. Her mirror message also seems to be a barnburner, which makes sense for Drag Race’s most politically engaged queen in a minute. At the beginning of the season, you couldn’t have convinced me of how heartbroken I’d be to see her go. Still, I assume you were even more dissolute than I, as you’ve been endeared by Discord from day one. Do you agree she lost the lip sync, or would you have kept her?

NICK: Discord lost this lip sync fair and square, though I want to know who the fuck thought this was a remotely interesting lip sync song. Nini keys into the fragility of the song fine, but there’s not really anywhere for her to take it. Somehow, the queen who tore apart a Cardi B rap feels dramatically monotonous. It’s a nothingburger song, which is maybe what this terribly judged episode deserves. Jane’s low placement is a joke, and it bums me out to see Juicy’s achievements be treated so unceremoniously despite her positive marks. Winning the very challenge her drag mother was eliminated on two years ago would be such a fabulous narrative, but Ru apparently isn’t interested, since the weight Juicy felt to prove herself was only brought up in Untucked.

Myki’s win is maybe the least explicable of the season, which sucks to say when she’d have been an exemplary winner for the past several challenges. I still think Myki and Jane have too many overlapping qualities as competitors for both of them to make the finale. If this episode is about moving pieces on a board, I wonder if this win is a conscious move to push Ms. Meeks as a real contender, or make her ultimate exit even more heartbreaking. Next week’s improv challenge virtually guarantees Juicy is going to send one of these girls packing, and I don’t know that anyone should feel secure in their placement. 

Lastly, bless Discord Addams for being such an unexpectedly nuanced contender, someone who had the energy of an early elimination and emerged as having one of the most interesting points of view Drag Race has shown in a long time. Her vocal politics and calls to action on and off the show are so fucking awesome. Her unwavering confidence in herself is frankly inspiring to me, in no small part because she revealed more and more impressive dimensions as an artist with each passing episode. I’ll miss Discord on my TV very much, and I’m so happy I got to see her and her art. Keep killing it, diva.

Previous RuCaps:

• Episode 01: "You Can't Keep a Good Drag Queen Down!"
• Episode 02: "Q-Pop Girl Groups"
• Episode 03: "RDR Live Returns!"
• Episode 04: "Red Carpet Mash Up"
• Episode 05: "The Rate-A-Queen Talent Show, Part 1"
• Episode 06: "The Rate-A-Queen Talent Show, Part 2"
• Episode 07: "Drag Queens for Change"
• Episode 08: "Snatch Game of Love: Island Edition"
• Episode 09: "Fannie: The Hard Knock Ball Rusical"
• Episode 10: "Drag in a Bag"
• Episode 11: "A Toast to Alyssa Edwards"