The Film Experience

"Fannie: The Hard Knock Ball Rusical" as told through wigs.

NICK TAYLOR: It appears a major theme of this season’s post-talent show episodes is the psychological torment of Juicy Love Dion. The diva has gone from being season 18’s first two-time winner to sending home two of her closest friends in the competition, including her own grandmother. She’s been struggling hard, and who knows how long this gauntlet of pain will last. You can tell Ru really wants to push her queens this season, all the better to win that Emmy and make some drama. This push has led to the best Rusical since season 15 and a heartbreaking lip sync battle, in spite of a guest judge and lip sync song with the combined impact of powdered milk. The race is tight, the queens are on fire, and the teaser promises even more shenanigans to come. But let’s not hit the end before the beginning, yes? What’d you think?

CLÁUDIO ALVES: What did powdered milk ever do to you? Anyway, I’m happy that my predictions in our private convos have proven mostly right, while also begrudging the show for being so damn predictable in its storytelling…

As you said, Juicy is the protagonist of the tragedy that is this post-Talent Show Drag Race arc, at least, as far as House Dion is concerned. Myki is getting a hero’s story, but the Florida clan is crashing and burning, and the hardest pill to swallow might be that the producers have had to manipulate very little to get this outcome. If anything, they could’ve been even more ruthless and had Juicy eliminate Mia, too. Not that the baby queen of the bunch is any less distraught, her sorrow sucking up the air out of the Werk Room to the point it almost feels cruel for Nini to celebrate her win. At least, there’s some fun to be had with the Dions hugging over poor Discord, who’s almost crushed by all that Floridian love. Literally! Miss Addams is tiny, please be careful with her.

Next day in the Werk Room, it’s Nini Coco vs the World, as David Attenborough’s tethered is being given the Blu/Dawn edit. By which I mean, while little of it makes the final cut, it seems the other girls see their sister as a shady bitch who’s always shooting strays. Which, honestly, might be a good attitude to have going into this week’s mini-challenge, where judgment is key. Sponsored by Grindr, Ru comes over with a couple of hunks in branded briefs to ask her queens what they think of each other. Though it’s always revived with a new name, the game is always the same - a question is made about the group, the girls choose one of their own with a handy paddle, and whoever agrees with the majority gets a point.

Were you surprised by any of the revelations? Did you know Nini wanted a manly man in her DMs? That Athena lies about being verse and about her age on the apps? Scandalous.

NICK: I wasn’t expecting Nini to be masc4masc! Is she the trade of the season? Do they still ask that anymore? The funniest part, besides all the kinkshaming (kink celebrating?) of Athena, was Kenya Pleaser winning the challenge by picking herself as the next to go home. She wants those points! Discord is the co-winner and the only other queen picked for the chopping block by Athena and Nini (again with the conflict between them!). They each get $2500 and no power in casting this week’s maxi-challenge: "Fannie, A Hard-Knock Ball." A dragged-up restaging of Annie as a Paris is Burning-era story of a plucky drag orphan entering a ball to win her way into a prestigious family, the potential here seems much stronger than the past two seasons’ Rusicals.

As has been the case lately, casting is a relatively smooth process of queens immediately jumping on roles that speak to their personas. The exception, as has occasionally been the case, is Nini Coco’s flip-flopping and getting in her own head. She and Myki both want the role of Fannie, and after Myki trounces her in a brief audition, she refuses to back down. Myki makes the bold move of offering her Fannie, correctly believing Nini won’t know what to do once presented with what she wants and the difficulty of the part hits her in the head. But she’s still fuming and tries to bargain with Athena for the house mother role. I’ve never seen Athena swat someone so fast, shutting down Nini’s whining before it can gain more steam. Good for mama! The final call sheet is:

Myki Meeks as Fannie
Darlene Mitchell as Brandy, her dog
Athena Dion as Mother Bigbux
Kenya Pleaser as Grace Cartier, the ball’s Master of Ceremonies
Juicy Love Dion as Cecile Cartier, the winner of last year’s ball
Jane Don’t as Miss Shenanigan, a boozy house mother
Discord Addams and Nini Coco as Lil’ Salty and Big Peppa, members of Haus Shenanigan

CLÁUDIO: These bitches are dumb. Sorry for being so mean, but there needs to be some truth-telling ‘round these parts. Unless one is 100% prepared, the lead is always a huge danger, so fighting for it when she is unsure is uncharacteristically dumb of Nini. Look what happened to Bosco! Same goes for the duos, especially if they have matching costumes. Well, not exactly the same. But queens in these parts never win, and, more often than not, one of them is singled out to be in the bottom, the process made easier by direct comparison to her scene partner. Conversely, the one broadly comedic character that appears late into the challenge and has their big, if short, moment and then recedes into the background is always primed for victory. Consider Shea, Silky, Anetra, and many, many others.

Stop arguing about the lead and start paying attention to Jane, who you practically handed the win this week! These girls are bad strategists and it’s pissing me off.

I’m not the only one vexed about this episode. Though the ballroom community isn’t up in arms about the queens being bad at reality TV competition. Instead, they are, once again, mad because they perceive Drag Race as appropriating their culture, mocking it and disseminating a skewed idea of what ballroom truly is. The ballroom scene has always been a big part of the many influences that shaped Drag Race, its language, lingo, the challenges and even expectations. Early on, there was a more serious attempt at educating the audience about it - remember when the show had little informative text? - and even cast faces from the community like Mariah Balenciaga. Lately, this isn’t as true, and the constant inclusion of ballroom moves that are praised to high heavens despite not meeting ballroom standards has left many irate.

While I understand all these arguments, it’s also difficult not to feel like this is too serious a conversation for a show that’s vehement about not taking itself too seriously. This challenge isn’t any more a mockery of ballroom culture than season 13’s dance challenge was a mockery of disco, or season 5’s recital a mockery of ballet. Moreover, the ballroom is a setting rather than a subject, a milieu that twists and sets the Annie scenario, making it read queerer than the original. As always, the Rusical primarily parodies musical theater traditions, and even then, the joke is delivered with a lot of affection. Basically, I’m not sure this Rusical or the duckwalking or the rebranding of dips as death drops and whatever else represent an active, intentional disrespect of ballroom culture by Drag Race and its participants. However, I can see why folks are offended, especially when you consider that this is a culture and artistic practice born on the margins of society, which has been previously appropriated in ways that didn’t give back to the community but instead profited off it. Do you have any opinion on this matter?

NICK: To me, this feels of a conversation with other discourses about Drag Race accurately reflecting the larger US drag scene. That’s an impossible task. This year’s cast being primarily 30-somethings with storied careers as drag artists is a long-awaited response to critiques of mostly casting baby queens, yet no one season can rectify patterns of tokenizing demographics. Are we gonna get more grown divas again next year? Can we do that and cast trans contestants and more than one AAPI queen? Can we do that and invest in good scripts? I’m not asking rhetorically, I mean it.

The proliferation of other drag competition shows like The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula or Camp Wannakiki, the now-cancelled Legendary at least helped remove that weight, showcasing artists and subcultures usually relegated to RuPaul’s peripheral vision while allowing Drag Race continue to grow and be what it is. I agree the show’s competitive camp isn’t meant to parody ballroom culture, but that doesn’t mean the show shouldn’t be asked to actually represent that community. I got to show a friend Paris is Burning for the first time last year and they were shocked to realize how many of the film’s quotes were shorthand to him as Drag Race vernacular. When queens on the show regularly look into the confessional camera and say “this show is but one iteration of drag, pay attention to your local scene and support the girls” every goddamn year, I have to imagine a ballroom queen could physically reach through the screen at Drag Race viewing parties and slap anyone trying to leave the bar before the local legends perform.

Back to the challenge! Once casting is settled, the queens are shuttled to rehearsals. Their recording sessions with Leland and the dearly departed Gabe Lopez, who gets a lovely tribute at the end of the episode. Jane and Myki are just astonishing. You’d think the queens couldn’t be surprised by Jane, but she’s even better than they expected, and Myki is so beyond her vocal performance in the girl group that everyone is thrown for a loop. Nini looks humbled in the corner, and then she records her verse and looks even humbler. Kenya is another knockout, doing the ball announcer voice with her own unique verve.

I have no distinct memory of Discord beyond her usual stiffness, and the sense that her punk vocal stylings aren’t quite right for this genre. Juicy is similarly proficient at serving attitude. Darlene’s assignment allows for Scooby-Doo vocal rintonations, a goofiness she’s exploiting much better than last year’s animal sidekicks. But really, the star of the show is Athena Dion, who Jane accurately diagnoses as suffering for a disorder where she can only sing in the style of a Dr. Seuss book. It’s mesmerizing in ways I could never have imagined, like all the wrongness of Discord’s walk transmuted into words. Truly, who else is doing it like her?

CLÁUDIO: Thankfully, no one. I do enjoy an unintuitive delivery from time to time, but the Dion matriarch is going a bit too far. Girl has no sense of rhythm or beat or musicality to speak of. Also, I wouldn’t describe Juicy as proficient, since she can’t seem to find levels in her delivery. It’s all very monotonal, if not monochordic, which is an ill omen for the Rusical to come, no matter how much she might ace the choreo.

And speaking of dancing, when the scene transitions to main stage rehearsals with Jamal Sims and Carlos Basquiat, Discord continues to surprise. She’s not great, but she’s putting her whole Discordussy into the assignment, faring better than Nini whose effort is just as evident with even stiffer results. The bright side is that they seem to gel well together, which isn’t true of every scene partner in this bunch. Indeed, Athena seems surprised to discover she has to dance at all. Even the watered down ballroom moves are too much for her, inspiring an attitude of “just getting this over with” from the Floridian queen that extends to the rest of the episode. Darlene is just as uncoordinated as her sister, but she quickly figures out that gracelessness played as comedy is the right way to go. She’s a smart cookie.

One thing is evident - Jane and Myki are almost certainly going to wipe the floor with their competition this week. Even though the Seattle clown has little to no dancing, mostly moving comedically across the stage, she delights Sims and Basquiat almost as much as Myki’s vocal prowess impressed Lopez. This might not be a race for second place as some challenges can be, since twink Maisie Williams puts up a fight, but the rest of the cast is surely only fighting for third place. I feel that, by the end of rehearsals, they were all self-aware enough to see that. Which might explain why so many of the girls were emotional and willing to go vulnerable on elimination day, making for a melancholic edition of RuPaul’s Drag Race: Mirror Moments ™ after the last few weeks of political seriousness and Mia Starr-provided nonsense.

NICK: Kenya at least recognizes she’s at a secure third place, and is in much brighter spirits than she was this time last week. Good for her, and allow me to formally retract my bitching about her viability in the competition after she was saved.

The mirror makeup conversations are quite lovely, starting with Nini apologizing to Myki about trying to steal her gig, adding that extra bit of validation on top of everything Ms. Meeks received from the very pedigreed rehearsal team. Myki goes deep on her history growing up in the theatre and getting formal training, having abandoned the stage as a career path because she believed she wasn’t good enough. She left before anyone could kick her out, in contrast with Jane Don’t being the black sheep in her BFA program for being too visibly queer to get many casting opportunities. It’s a nice reminder of the ways even queer-friendly communities can still be difficult to navigate, as well as the ways artists can unfairly judge themselves despite their own skills.

We also get a fuller portrait of Athena and Juicy’s relationship. Athena talks about the ways Mama Bigbux fits her own style as the matriarch of House Dion, attempting to walk back some of the ruthless elements before Juicy chimes in. The line between house daughter and backstage hand was not always clear, and Athena can be more demanding than she realizes. It took a while for them to build their current relationship, but they love and know each other unconditionally, better than anyone else ever could. Juicy knows she’s lucky to have a Yiayia like Athena to rely on. Bless them.

CLÁUDIO: We’ve been getting glimpses of Juicy’s struggle for a while now, and, indeed, part of her breakdown at the episode’s beginning was because of Ru saying she doesn’t know who the Dion’s youngest member is during the Snatch Game critiques. Turns out, Juicy also doesn’t quite know who she is right now either, alluding to a fight with addiction in her past. Athena’s support, even as the episode gestures toward her diva ways, makes for a central tenet of this season’s narrative and points toward the inevitability of a lip sync between Dions.

But first, we make our way to the main stage, where Ru is wearing a hideous dress and Michelle isn’t far behind in sartorial floppery. Colored lace over ill-fitting shoulder pads is not it, even though her jewelry is gorgeous. Who could have predicted that, out of a panel that also includes Jamal Sims, Mr. Selena Gomez would manage to be the best-dressed? Even typing out that sentence feels like a hate crime.

It’s time for a Rusical, with Myki and Darlene opening the show by indulging in pup play. Honestly, the Mitchell girl would’ve been better served with some actual leatherworks rather than this puerile canine fantasy. At least, she’s having fun, leaning into the role’s silliness without ever even considering the kinky readings it could benefit from. Myki, for her part, is going full Broadway on our asses, surpassing the high expectations her work in the recording session and dance rehearsal had already set. It also helps that Frannie is a parody of Annie in the ballroom scene that also carries Disney Princess vibes - she’s got a talking animal mascot!

Next come Kenya and Juicy, serving two very different vibes. Regardless of her occasionally imprecise lip syncing, the self-proclaimed Southern showstopper is perfect for this brassy ballroom broad, welcoming the audience into her world. I’d go as far as saying she had the funnest vocal track out of them all. The costume and hair are a miss, it must be said, but those were provided by production, so I can’t judge her for those. Juicy’s lewk is similarly subpar, but the issue is her performance. Don’t get me wrong, she dances the shit out of it, going so far as to perform the now-signature jump into the splits. Yet her face is never with it, eyes looking down in nervousness or some stage fright timidity, seemingly afraid of being perceived, which is the worst possible approach to the role of last year’s ballroom champ. The contrast with Kenya only makes baby Dion look worse by comparison.

NICK: Christ, imagine Darlene in Sapphira’s leather pup play look. That would’ve been incredible, especially with the Scooby-Doo vocal realness. That being said, making the dog a pervert is probably crossing a line I’m not sure I want to see on Drag Race, especially when Darlene looks like Shaggy and Scooby’s progeny. Myki is note perfect, nailing the earnestness of the role without tilting into one-note naïveté. While these hoes are trying to win RuPaul’s Drag Race, she’s filing a petition to compete for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical.

Kenya’s lip syncing and face acting are slightly below Myki’s standards, but she’s a gust of energy, and I agree that her track might actually be the most fun of the bunch. She tears into it like nobody’s business, providing out entryway into the Paris is Burning riff like she’s watched it a million times. Juicy’s tentativeness occasionally translates to better-than-you aloofness, but I wasn’t expecting to see her misfire on a dance-heavy challenge like this.

Athena is similarly uneven, sometimes nailing the den mother iciness and sometimes appearing to wait for her mark. The same can be said for her choreo, which always looks worse when she’s visibly thinking about it, and she never reconciles the stiffness into a character point, but she gamely pushes through. The bigger surprise comes from Discord not just holding her own in her little duet but outshining Nini by a good margin. She immediately connects to the messy, DIY energy of their characters in a way Nini is never totally comfortable with. I wouldn’t have wanted a second more of it than we got, but Discord gets the job done, and her sister never catches up.

Was Miss Shenanigan always going to be slathered in Lil’ Poundcake makeup? I’m assuming it was, or the judges would’ve praised Jane for thinking of it, but it’s a fabulous detail I need to highlight. She tears into this drunk, unhappy clown like a fucking monster, joining Myki’s petition to cosign herself as a potential Featured Actress in a Musical contender. It’s high drag, it’s ridiculous physical comedy, and she breaks her hip more fabulously than Ru ever could. Just watching her crawl off to the side while everyone ignores her, it’s brilliant. Myki’s return at the end and her big dance number are sensational, a great finish to a surprisingly entertaining Rusical. But please, extol Jane Don’t’s brilliance further.

CLÁUDIO: She’s really something. Though I, again, acknowledge that she didn’t have nearly as much choreo to get down as her sisters, Jane’s physicality is still a huge part of her performance. It’s also some of the best work in the entire season, a knockout of a performance that would make for a good Miss Hannigan audition even beyond the world of drag. My one quibble is that Jane was suffering a bit from a reverse Dion, in that she kept connecting with the judges and the camera at the expense of her scene partners. When Jane was reaching for Athena in all her Grizabella pleading glory, I kinda wanted to see them share the moment for a bit instead of mugging to the judges in an ugly twist on declamatory theater.

Still, that’s a minor quibble. Jane’s highs are higher than anyone else's this week. Athena, on the other hand, almost seems bored by the whole thing, performing her role professionally but with none of the gusto one would expect from a drag queen living up to the fantasy of an absolute diva terrorizing her subjects. Oh well, at least the little orphan girls don’t feel like such a wasted opportunity after all. Yes, they’re as unentertaining as most matching pairs in Rusicals. However, Discord is invested, Nini mostly keeps up, and the costumes are the best of the lot, styled to serve some mop-based fashion tomfoolery I’m rather fond of, against all odds. I even liked their awkward wigs.

So, a fine Rusical. Not the best, but far from the worst, which can be unbearable beyond words. After they bow to their audience of four (plus the crew), our girls are made to parade down the runway in their best fits. Category is… “Beige Against the Machine!”

For such a dicey prompt - dress in the color of oatmeal, boredom as a hue - the resulting runway was rather smashing. First, Myki Meeks, modeled this Mugler-esque number, riddled with quilting and other textures to vary the feel of all that beige. Does she look as if she’s wearing a skinsuit made from fellow lily white queens? Sure, but there’s something appealing about that sort of horror woven through executive realness. Maybe the hair isn’t ideal, and the blush blindness is strong, yet I enjoy what the non-Dion Florida girl had to offer.

NICK: Myki looks like she just took a fresh hit of the Substance. It’s an unusual look, browsless and severe in its fleshy cuntiness. Should she have gone bald? All my descriptors for her are just catty one-liners, but my love for this is earnest and real.

I continue to be blown away by the fashion stylings of Darlene Mitchell, who approaches the prompt with mountains of tweed structured to maximize her silhouette. She’s incredible, mugging the house down with her pale rouge and her seven-foot-tall self, even with a lapel flower being as big as her face, threatening to steal the spotlight. Nicole Kidman would be lost under that wig, but Darlene? No ma’am. She’s got that shit on.

CLÁUDIO: The wig is so wrong it’s right. I do not dare say I completely understand Darlene’s sense of style, but I’m liking how she expresses it. The head is giving Golden Girls, the frock is giving Clarabelle Cow attends Paris Fashion Week as a special guest for the Chanel show. And the shoes give Michelle Visage an aneurysm. The best part might be the white trash insanity she was hiding underneath in case she needed to lip sync.

Kenya has an advantage over the remaining girls, as she has the deepest skin tone and will not, under any circumstance, be washed out by or blend into the beige wave hitting the catwalk. Even so, she delivers her best look of the season, startlingly simple apart from that swirl of structured fabric she supposedly had imported from Nigeria. Her wig is tremendous, too, balancing the ensemble’s proportions in a way that gives high fashion. Honestly, I didn’t expect it from Miss Pleaser, and find myself delighted to be proven wrong about her style.

NICK: Dare I say this gives Chaka Khan better than her runway did last week? The wig is astonishing, floating like a cloud despite its imposing stature. Kenya’s never looked so regal on this stage.

Juicy Love Dion continues to surprise in her architectural runways. I’m a bit confused by the wig, both in its odd shape and the way it rhymes with the folds of her garment. The construction of her giant sleeves is major, but she’s fighting to pop against this shade of beige. Pretty, alien, and a clean fit in her catalogue, but a much less imposing statement than her sisters.

CLÁUDIO: The head styling feels wholly disconnected from the fashion below, even the jewelry that’s all starburst straight lines clashing with the dress’ wavy dream. It’s a great attempt at bringing Iris van Herpen textile manipulation to the Drag Race runway without going for the usual symmetries such references entail. I like it, the piece is gorgeous by itself, even if the middle of the skirt appears unresolved. I guess it’s just a case of the outfit wearing Juicy rather than the other way around.

After the baby, comes the grandmother, and all high-fashion vibes go out the window. This is very costumey and not in a good way, standing out like a sore thumb on a runway full of more fashionable inspirations. The garment itself is very technically impressive, mixing subtle patterns, different kinds of burlap, competing trims, etc. Hell, Athena’s wearing another of her beloved tiered, ruffled trains, and, as usual, it’s perfectly constructed. I get what she’s going for, but wish this were more refined, less busy, maybe without those rigid apron panels in front. That said, I don’t get the color story of her makeup, nor the out-of-place necklace choice.

NICK: Conceptually yes, practically no. I don’t get the cattails, which just fuck with her silhouette tremendously. At least she feels puss.

Discord Addams bravely enters the runway in a dress she can barely walk in, despite everything. At least she gets a hilarious back-and-forth with Ru about it, but girl, the danger!! I love the spermy waves and the leather nude-illusion dress, maybe more as an art piece than as clothing. The wig is a mystery to me, as is the chunky jewelry, but she’s feeling her oats, and I respect it.

CLÁUDIO: Leather? Those are sequins! And honestly, the base is my biggest issue with Discord’s look, wobble skirt and all. The shade leans too much into yellow, breaking its purpose as a nude illusion and further washing out a white girl whose heavy paint already looks weird against the blonde Designing Women castoff wig. I also don’t get the jewelry. The swirls are enough of a statement that they don’t need drag queen stones to up the drama. Poor Discord also has the misfortune of modeling what looks like the lesser version of Kenya’s frock.

To no one’s surprise, Nini Coco fares much better than her Rusical scene partner. This sort of patchwork creation risks coming off as crafty rather than fashionable on the runway, yet the construction is so great, the styling so on point, that Nini overcomes it. Love the use of buttons as jewelry and accents. Love the way her signature lash almost seems to guide the eye along the geometry of her sculpted wig.

NICK: Nini outdoes Juicy and Discord in the sculpted wig department. My favorite iteration of this look is when she’s wearing her unbuttoned jacket in Untucked, letting the white of her dress shirt really pop underneath. Other Nini looks excite me more, but the level of detail here is spectacular to study.

Last and 100% not least is Jane Don’t, serving the most high-fashion cowardly lion since Kim Chi ten years ago. She’s the only diva to spring for beige furs, with a giant orange feather to crown it all off. Love the sparkly vulva that starts her giant train. The giant jewelry matches the maximalism of the hood nicely, and I like the impression of excess even if the judges loved it far more than I do.

CLÁUDIO: Thanks, I hate it. Look, a May West fantasy is very appropriate for a theatrical queen such as Jane, but this isn’t the way to do it. The velour is pulling in a bunch of weird directions as she walks, puckering everything on the way, including that bizarre middle panel on the skirt, covering what should probably have been a slit. The body is more taupe than beige, while the furs and wig pull toward yellow, which clashes horribly with the cool-toned pinks she’s painted herself with. Also, why is the bling so big, disproportionate to the point it doesn’t even fit the giant collar’s opening? I usually love Jane’s maximalist fashion because she executes it so well, but this one’s a miss. Not that anything could’ve convinced the judges to deprive her of a well-deserved maxi challenge win.

Ru and company dismiss Darlene and Nini as safe and heap praise on everyone left, except the Dions. Honestly, while official accounts seem to classify Discord’s placement as low, the critiques themselves didn’t feel that negative, mostly expressing surprise at how such a stiff girl managed to let loose for the Rusical. Maybe they also thought her nude illusion looked jaundiced and were personally offended by the wig. I wouldn’t go that far, but I get it. Kenya is especially pleased by the outcome because, though she never feels like a threat to Jane’s assured victory, it’s the rare occasion when the judges have something nice to say about the queen that’s not about her personality. She actually delivered this week!

And for as predestined Athena and Juicy’s fate was, how evident it looked for everyone in that studio, I commend Ru for reminding his girls that, at this point in the competition, they’re splitting hairs. The Dions were the worst of the bunch, but they weren’t disastrous. All in all, the judging felt fair this week. My only change would be to switch Discord and Nini. Apart from that, everything feels copacetic with their conclusions. Well, not Mr. Selena Gomez, mostly because he was such a non-entity and contributed very little. But again, that was a nice suit he was wearing. Silver linings and all that.

Do you agree with the judges, or would you have changed the week’s final results further? Would you have saved the Dions by any chance, or given Myki her second win?

NICK: I’m very tempted to reward Myki. The runway’s enough to split hairs, but I also think she nails the earnestness of her role quite powerfully. Jane’s doing something special with a role designed to steal the spotlight, but leading the Rusical has waylaid far more divas than it’s helped. Plasma winning is the exception to the rule Acacia, Loosey, and Bosco have recently defined. Myki gets to be sweet, gritty, saucy, with real body and depth - she bookends the show with a full meal. I don’t think this is me taking Jane for granted, as I’ve never quite loved her as much as the judges have, but I can’t deny her win is deserved.

Benny Blanco’s greatest sin is that he represents a marketing ploy, repping for this week’s lip sync tune “Call Me When You Break Up,” a track that’s made a pit stop on Drag Race before arriving at the Khia asylum. Juicy and Athena are already too distraught to perform at their fullest capabilities, but the song fundamentally robs them from approaching the gut-wrenching sadness of Jujubee and Raven’s battle in AS1. Why is US Drag Race so afraid of using showtunes in lip syncs? Drag Race UK does it all the time, and it’s resulted in some of the best lip syncs in the franchise (hi, Tayce).

Juicy and Athena’s fate is unavoidable, and by “fate” I’m using it in the sense of a Greek tragedy. Ha, which it is! Athena starts on the wrong foot by lip-syncing the voice message bot, but her decision to go full park-n’-bark connects with the song’s emotions better than her Talent Show top 2 performance. Juicy’s movements are as precise as ever, even if kicking off her dress threatens a Kenya Michaels escalation she thankfully avoids. The Dions are both professionals and perform the number, and then they start holding each other, and Athena pats Juicy to sit on her lap, and I suddenly became very teary-eyed! It’s so moving, using the song’s lyrics but mostly cutting through the airiness to confide something beautiful to each other.

Ru looks quite touched, which doesn’t stop her from sending Yiayia Athena packing. It wasn’t lovely enough for a double save, and as it turns out, we might be seeing Athena next week anyways! Is it the season 7 makeover challenge format, with the return of the eliminated queens? Or is Ru pranking us somehow, and we’re gonna see them work with queens who never made it to the makeover challenge in seasons past? The possibilities are tantalizing. The reality likely may not match up, but when is a meal more salivating than right before you taste it? Any last words on the lip sync, bestie?

CLÁUDIO: You’re salivating about potential makeovers. Ru is salivating about psychologically torturing a new twink, her eyes shining with Eldritch hunger as baby Dion basically stops lip-syncing to cry on her grandma’s knee. While I know the hostess with the mostest would never pass up an opportunity to milk sweat, tears and emotional breakdowns from her daughters, part of me almost wishes she’d have eliminated both of them. Neither Athena nor Juicy lip sync to the whole song, and while the younger queen’s physical expressivity tends to make her look like the winner, her face was utterly disconnected for most of the showdown. Athena’s stillness feels more cohesive with the tragedienne take she’s applying to this song. And yet, I can’t deny how moving that final moment was, nor that I want to see more of Juicy. More fashion and more lipsyncs that are not against her drag family, at least.

Oh well, I’m mostly sorry for Juicy who seems heartbroken beyond words as Athena says her last goodbye. I can’t say I’ll miss the Greek woman to end all Greek women on the show, but I’m certainly enjoying her online presence, both the unc Tweets and the nonsense videos.

BUT, if we’re going to see her again next week for some sort of makeover for returning queens, I hope we can see a new twinkle in Juicy’s eye. Or maybe we’ll get to see more bickering between Athena and Briar. That could be fun… right?

Previous RuCaps:

Episode 1: "You Can't Keep a Good Drag Queen Down!"
Episode 2: "Q-Pop Girl Groups"
Episode 3: "RDR Live Returns!"
Episode 4: "Red Carpet Mash Up"
Episode 5: "The Rate-A-Queen Talent Show, Part 1"
Episode 6: "The Rate-A-Queen Talent Show, Part 2"
Episode 7: "Drag Queens for Change"
Episode 8: "Snatch Game of Love: Island Edition"