Drag Race RuCap: “Karens Gone Wild”
Wednesday, April 1, 2026 at 8:00PM
Cláudio Alves in Drag Queens, Drag Race, Julianne Nicholson, LGBTQ+, MTV, RuPaul, RuPaul's Drag Race, TV, TV Review, comedy

This episode of Drag Race is brought to you by the STOP! THAT! TRAIN!, in theaters this summer.

CLÁUDIO ALVES: Well, that was an interesting hour of television. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss would be proud of Mama Ru, because she truly subverted our expectations. Now, let’s wait and see if Drag Race can stick the landing after this shocker or if, like the last season of Game of Thrones, it’ll crash and burn and relinquish all the audience goodwill it accrued so far. Maybe it’s wrong of me to reduce the entirety of “Karens Gone Wild” to its ending, but that’s surely what it’ll be remembered for, a moment of such unprecedented Drag Race gaggery that we must go to the All Stars seasons to find another example of someone with so many challenge wins going home before the finale. I’m still trying to process the results, whether they’re fair, so this RuCap will be an opportunity to sort out my feelings. How about you, dear Nick? Are you glad for a surprise? Or are you livid? Somewhere in between?

NICK TAYLOR: It’s a gag, though mostly it just bums me out...

Is this the monkey’s paw curling at our wish that Drag Race would be less precious towards its favorites? Maybe, but I find this very hard to square with Jane’s performance in the challenge, which isn’t nearly as egregious as Nymphia’s Snatch Game or Onya’s makeover. Is this another form of transparent production-guided dramatics, or is Ru simply trading in comedy queen favorites in real time? It’s like watching Ru do the “I don’t wanna play any more” Toy Story meme with Jane and Myki in real time, without either queen really varying her comedic stylings for the challenge. Yes, our eliminated queen lost the lip sync, but did she deserve to bottom anyways? It’s disorienting, but it’s down to the rest of the season to determine if it’s satisfying.

We start off with a fond farewell to Discord Addams, whom I would have LOVED to see walk this week’s runway. Nini is deeply shaken at having to lip-sync for her life for the first time in the competition, and is ready to never do it again! Juicy’s high placement after four weeks of low placements is given about as much praise from her sisters as Myki’s win, and I, for one, couldn’t be happier for the Baby Dion. But really, the center of attention is Jane Don’t, who’s still a bit shell-shocked at having placed low after a historic streak of high placements. She’s not even chiming in much during the post-elimination kiki. Has the pressure she’s put on herself all season finally been compromised by the judges, or is she confused at her sudden turn of fortune despite not actually doing a bad job? Either way, Jane’s confused and uncharacteristically somber.

The next day is no help, despite the queens deciding it’s Crazy Hat Day in the Werkroom. RuPaul arrives to announce the return of a vintage mini-challenge: the bitchfest with puppets! Because everyone loves puppets! It’s just that no one can make any jokes from them. To a one, all of the girls bomb. The funniest moment of each performance is when they realize they have absolutely no material despite their well-dressed puppet caricatures. Juicy’s do-up of Darlene is major. But in the end, Ru decides to split the $2,500 tip between the crew members who had to watch that trainwreck. Good for them!! Plus, we got to see a lot of RuGirls share fond stories about this crew on social media. The number of queens thirsting for the moustachio’d man on the left has to be as rewarding for him as the money.

CLÁUDIO: Honestly, for such an aggravating episode, “Karens Gone Wild” started on a really fun note.

Myki’s deep cut joke, summoning the ghost of Asia O’Hara’s butterflies to smack Nini a lil’ more? Hilarious! Darlene showing off the red thong she wore over those bike shorts, even though nobody would see them? A fashion farce! Juicy doing a headstand and walking out of the Werk Room on her hands, changing her mind and coming back? The sort of silliness I can endorse! The nonsense with the hats, going from devilish sequins to some cringe babiness? Funnier than anything those gals came up with for the supposed comedy mini-challenge! Still, the funniest shit of all was denying them a win altogether, reminding me of Ru’s last Down Under season, when the hostess with the mostest was so offended by her cast’s poor reading skills, she gave the prize money to the Pit Crew hunk in attendance.

Still, Mama Ru has no time for reminiscence, as she is here to share a particular hyperfixation with us all. Namely, Karen meltdown videos on the internet. Oh yeah, we’re doomed to another improv comedy challenge, shot all over the WOW production lot with none other than Ru herself as the queens’ co-star. Obviously, this is all coordinated to serve as promotion for her upcoming big-screen project, a spoof of disaster movies that will see the Emmy Award-winning diva play an alternate-universe POTUS dealing with a runaway train. Adam Shankman’s Stop! That! Train! will be coming to a theater near you this June.

Ad break aside, our girls are quick to choose their parts and scenarios, avoiding casting drama for once in a season that has already had too much of that craziness. They all seem fairly excited, even if Juicy is nervous about another comedy challenge. What do you think of this maxi challenge premise?

NICK: Not much! This feels like a better mini-challenge premise: get into quick drag and have a total meltdown doing a one-on-one with Ru. Short, sweet, give the girls a thing to melt down over and then make that thing the focus of the maxi. It just feels slim! Which could mean a lot of room for creative personal stamps, or it could go the other way, towards looking and feeling like a cheap exercise before the final four. If you’re gonna do this, go all the way and get Brandon Rogers or fuck right off.

So yeah, not super interested! I’m also not a connoisseur of Karen videos, unlike Ru and many of the queens. Jane is the only one who doesn’t watch them, as she’s not interested in watching endless videos of women devolving into angry breakdowns, and I completely agree with her. Their entertainment value is lost on me. Yes, there’s probably a self-read in there about the kinds of actress vehicles I like, but we’re not getting into the semantics of cinematic breakdowns vs amateur recordings of real people displaying terrible behavior.

Anyways! Jane’s got a pretty quick concept for her skit, so our champ isn’t too worried about the proceedings. In fact, everyone seems pretty certain about their character-building, including Juicy. After some coaxing from Darlene about letting loose with the catty bitch attitude her Miami besties joked about, she’s decided to lean into a Latina caricature, which gets to an interesting wrinkle for me. Do the white queens lean as explicitly into racial humor as Juicy does? They’re all playing different caricatures of white entitlement, so it’s baked into it, but I’m surprised Ru doesn’t even mention it when he’s talking to the queens as a group before filming. Ru loves racial humor! Do you think these Karens were racist enough? And how were you feeling after Ru had his group chat with the queens?

CLÁUDIO: Ru does love racial humor - this is the diva who walked into To Wong Foo in an ironic Confederate Flag gown, after all - so I am sure the way these viral videos tend to portray the extreme grotesquerie of white privilege is part of the pleasure she gets from them. And on that note, all of these sketches had that avenue open to them, mostly by pitting a Karen against Ru as some unfortunate service worker. It’s fascinating that the only girl to really go there was Juicy, while everyone else seemed too timid, unwilling to be truly vile in a way that almost detracts from the comedy. On the other hand, we are not living in the same times that saw Manila Luzon lean on Asian stereotypes to win a challenge, or Phi Phi O’Hara summoning the spirit of Sarah Palin to possess her for a political debate spoof. I feel like many of these girls played it safe out of discomfort, perhaps timidity, or fear of what going too far could entail for them.

It’s also notable that, by virtue of being the only queen of color left, Juicy has a much harder challenge than the rest. Because she’s not going to convince as a white Karen, so to lean on awfulness removed from the racial dynamics commonly associated with the very notion of a Karen is both a logical choice, maybe her only one, and a very risky move that might throw everything into disarray. It helps that Ru gives her seal of approval, even if indirectly, by calling to mind her own sister and using her as an example of the annoying awfulness that so delights about Karen videos. For once, I feel she’s actually giving good advice to the queens while also coming close to admitting that this entire challenge exists because it amuses her, specifically. There’s an appeal to notions of absurdity for Darlene, character work for the theater gals, a willingness to delight in stupidity and roll with the punches.

The puppet catastrophe at the beginning of the episode gives Ru pause and a way to needle the queens a little bit, but, at the end of the day, one leaves this convo feeling as if the show’s host sees something special and purposeful about this circus she’s devised. And I can kinda see why. Maybe because anticipation for Stop! That! Train! is so prevalent this week, the challenge strikes me as Mama testing these gals to see who she likes to share a scene with and maybe, one day, invite into one of those side projects. In many ways, “Karens Gone Wild” is reminding audiences that this is not just Drag Race, but RUPAUL’s Drag Race and that, at the end of the day, the judges might say whatever they want, yet the final decision is up to her. Which is another way of saying that the true criteria for the challenge at hand isn’t even delivering good improv. It’s entertaining Ru and successfully pitching yourself as someone she’d like to work with in the future.

NICK: It’s entertaining Ru and also generating good chemistry with him, which proves to be the most important criteria of the challenge. Re: racial stereotype, we can even look to the recent example of Nymphia’s caricature during that awful drag queen presentation challenge, where the judges politely decided to just not evaluate it. East Asian queens doing racial stereotypes have always been iffy ground, especially compared to how Ru delighted is when other racial or ethnic groups pull the same shenanigans. Ru goading Athena into a nonsense Greek stereotype is a pretty good example of white-on-white crime. Meanwhile, it appears no one got Q’s blaccent from the premiere’s leftover materials challenge, which could have been invaluable here. 

First up is Juicy Love Dion’s parking lot Karen, wearing an orange Chi Chi Rodriguez ensemble to play a petulant mother. She starts the challenge off strong with some inspired physical comedy as she stumbles over a hand railing, and never lets up. I love how combative she is towards Ru. Juicy is basically the only queen who avoids any traps from Ru, turning their chemistry into buddy-comedy riffing. Instead, she’s pissy and demanding, throwing out some scathing zingers (“Where’s your ring, my love? I don’t see no ring. LIAAAAR!!) before sacrificing all dignity in the name of feigning assault, hoping the threat of jail will make the problem go away. Her whispering threats between wails for help is great, and she’s the only bitch who really YELLS at Ru, another choice I’m amazed no one else went with. Ending by climbing back over the handrail and pretending to limp away is a perfect finish. 

Nothing can prepare you for Darlene Mitchell’s look. Everything happening with her eye makeup is giving Brandon Rogers down boots, and her costume looks like a sadder version of her makeover madness. It’s fascinating, ultimately more so than her performance, as it fits this challenge. Her chemistry with Ru is fabulous, and I really enjoyed watching Darlene try to charm her way out of getting arrested, but even at her most wheedling and demanding, she never really becomes the Karen meme. Loved her coming back for the chips at the end, and Ru was clearly getting her life on that stage. It’s fun! It’s also not fulfilling the brief as written.

CLÁUDIO: Juicy really surprised me this week. She tapped into some Cuban Karen energy and went for it with a level of malicious intent nobody else even attempted. Her stage whispers, the deliberate breaks in character to punctuate the charade, the whole slapstick of her physicality, made for a winning combination. I may quibble with some details of the look - is this her comedy wig? Why does she wear it for all comedy challenges? - but she aces this in ways I can’t even begin to imagine the rest of her extended drag family doing. I imagine Ru was probably charmed by her willingness to get down and dirty more than anything.

Darlene was, honestly, the funniest of the lot and the one whose character work left me most unmoored and fascinated. Even stuff like her obvious nervousness - like in the roast, her hands kept shaking - came together to sell this idea of a good Christian woman with a taste for reckless theft and the right amount of delusion to believe she’ll get away with it. However, as you pointed out, she ignores the brief completely, even more flagrantly than she did in episodes past. I’m really torn about how to critique her because of this, as her scene is probably the most watchable while also reaching a point where it’s pretty impossible to compare to the other girls, who, on some level, at least tried to meet the challenge of being antagonistic toward Ru. That said, the look is truly something else, the kind of shit you’d see on Mink Stole in some long-forgotten John Waters curio. Her eyebrows have been on one wild journey this season. 

Myki Meeks comes next and she’s the only queen that comes close to acing every part of this challenge’s basic premise. Like Juicy, she’s doing some car-related comedy, but she’s the one behind the wheel this time, dressed up as Hormona Lisa’s evil sister while making the most of the skit scenario. There’s a precision to her spiel, stemming directly from the sovereign citizen movement crap that has seduced many a Karen in the wild, while using every part of the vehicle to set up a gag of some sort. At times, as when Ru asks her to fit a fist in her mouth, the acrimony defining the relationship between Karen and cop gets a bit muddled, a tad lost, but Myki always brings it back to a performance of self-victimization that further gives the opportunity for Ru to be the hero/avenging angel of the scene. She played her cards exactly right, so even if she wasn’t the funniest, the boldest, or the most charismatic improviser of the lot, I still feel she deserved the win. We’ll discuss the judging later, but what did you think of Myki Martha Marcy Marcia Marcia Marcia Mikey Madison May Marlene Meeks’ performance?

NICK: I liked it! Myki’s physical comedy really is special, and she uses every bit of the car to her advantage. On a moment-to-moment level, I think she had the highest peaks of anyone. I’ve thought a lot about when she leans her car seat waaaay back with a stony pout, and her sprint away from the law. She presents a solid character without getting bogged down by her own script. On the other hand, I do wish there was more tonal escalation to Myki’s performance, and she’s lacking a real antagonism even at her most evasive or dismissive. Totally solid, but not a complete package.

She’s at least better than the last two acts. Jane Don’t is airport Karen, who she’s imagined as a good-time girl trying to acquire a lifesaving mojito in Palm Springs. I like how she uses offscreen space by constantly reaching for her girlfriends on a plane she’ll never reach. It’s a solid freestanding character, but a bit disconnected from the space. Is this not a great interactive environment, or is Jane not being as pushy as she could be? Does Ru seem less involved as a scene partner, or is Jane not jumping to volley back lines about her weight as she should? It’s funny, but is it funny enough? 

Is it better than what Nini Coco’s cooking? Yes. The best parts of Nini’s HOA bitch are her storky physicality and Alyssa Edwards accent. It’s fine, but she’s tepid and one-note despite good ideas. Her breakdown, tearing down Ru’s Christmas decorations, feels self-conscious more than anything, neither monstrously unhinged nor methodically controlled, and it peters out once she runs out of things to do. Nini’s history of aggressively safe performances in the non-Snatch Game comedy challenges caught up with her here.

CLÁUDIO: I am baffled by a lot of Jane’s choices, or lack thereof. Why didn’t she try to push her way across the barrier? She pats it and threatens to go through anyway, but never commits. I liked it when she tried to take the airport phone, but she could’ve done more, like actually go to the back of the desk to interact with Ru even more. And I’ll say something for Ru - it’s interesting how he seems to have taken a different approach to each scenario. He’s a fellow caricature with Juicy and just as active in their scene as she is. With Darlene, it almost seems like the security guard is having fun with this whole ordeal. With Myki, she went for a more authoritative sexed-up register and, with Jane, it’s giving bored and tired, no shits left to give airport worker realness. In some ways, it provides a bigger contrast in energies for the Seattle queen to play against. In other ways, it gives her less incentive and clear direction than Ru provided the other girls.

All that said, I do feel Jane is markedly stronger than Nini, who comes in strong as the most stereotypical Karen of them all, the HOA queen supreme with a clipboard in hand. Unlike you, I was not a fan of her vaguely avian jitteriness. I also didn’t get her move with the board, moving it around in a parody of a scammer who doesn’t want you to read the fine print. But then, when pulling out her phone, she starts the meltdown by showing the paperwork. So what gives? Wouldn’t this woman be shoving those signatures in Ru’s face rather than initially act as if those were fake? It’s confusing character work. There’s also a fundamental problem with how she approaches the scene with little to no modulation. Ru has a clear plan for the moment, starting confrontational before almost taunting the Karen with her insouciant calm as the phones come out. Instead of changing courses or selling an escalation, Nini mostly stays on the same level of outrage.

Failing to respond to what your scene partner is giving you is an issue for both people in front of the camera. But since Ru is in control, Nini should have adapted accordingly. In the end, the two last Karens feel too stuck in their plans, and their struggle to run with whatever Ru gave them proves to be a misstep too far. I don’t think Jane was necessarily bad, yet I get the feeling she didn’t fully clock what this challenge was about. Sorry to bring back ancient history, but it reminded me of Suzie Toot’s inability to adapt her brand for the Vegas vibe the challenge required in her elimination episode.

NICK: I wasn’t expecting the Jane-Suzie comparison, but it’s an apt one. I’m not even sure Jane did as badly as Suzie in that Vegas challenge, but she also had a much more direct target to hit and was way outside of a bullseye. Also, if it’s not too late to ask, how would you have played this challenge? My first thoughts were Zola’s Stefani, possibly while wearing the same locs as Spider from the Avatar films, or this crusty old lady who swipes at some guy in his parked car that I always see overlaid with Resident Evil music and visuals. Some incredible edits to that twenty-second video. I’d go for either the parking space or getting pulled over, there really is so much you can do with a car.

CLÁUDIO: I think I would’ve gone with the airport scenario - I have actually witnessed Karens in the wild at the airport, so there’s real-life experience to draw from - and gone with some older movie reference points. Mostly. I’m thinking of playing this as Lee Grant in The Landlord. Perchance, as Shelley Winters in a variety of roles over the years, maybe some Bloody Mama explosiveness or the histrionic mess that won her a second Oscar for A Patch of Blue. Very bad blonde wigs all around. Lots of overt racism with a preposterous accent and a sense of Southern respectability gone wrong. 

Also, I couldn’t do the Myki scenario because I am a gay stereotype and can’t drive. I’m a public transport queen, thank you very much.

NICK: The next day in the Werk Room, the queens put on their makeup with a uniformly cautious sense of optimism. Working opposite Ru, who’s meant to be playing against them, with no audience to speak of besides the crew, made it difficult to gauge how well they were doing in the moment. Jane, Myki, and Nini are self-aware about the skills and their rapport with Ru, but too pragmatic to feel safe, especially when there are only five divas left. Darlene knows she got Ru to laugh, but she’s also not sure she really played Karen like she’s supposed to. Only Juicy seems confident, and given how she’d walked away from past comedy challenges getting ready to lip sync, her sisters are happy to see her looking so comfortable. Juicy even goes into the psychology of her Karen, calling back to one of her tias. We even see a picture of lil Juicy with said auntie! She’s really been on an upswing lately, and I couldn’t be happier.

CLÁUDIO: I found it strangely sweet how Nini says Darlene is the farthest from a Karen out of all of them. Could we be seeing an unexpected Miss Congeniality contender here? Hell, it turns out the dress Juicy wore to the challenge was borrowed from Darlene, because of course it was. How much extra shit did she pack?

Before getting to the runway presentation, I do want to comment on how Jane’s anxiety is foregrounded by the edit here, something that should have rung alarm bells for me when I first watched the episode. While it feels like the editors are trying not to reveal their hand too much, the structure of “Karens Gone Wild” does set the table for its shocker of an ending. Also, on the Drag Race YouTube expanded universe, much has been said lately about the ideal lighting conditions to shoot drag queens - thank you for educating the children, Trixie Mattel - and I think this episode was a great case study for the benefits and pitfalls of that. Because drag lighting is all about flattening the planes of the face, letting the paint create dimension, it inevitably washes out anyone who’s not similarly mugged. Which is to say, I felt very bad for Julianne Nicholson, who was done dirty by a combo of her makeup team and the fill-light extravaganza going on at the WOW studios. She deserved better, and being on a panel with Mama Ru, Michelle Visage and our beloved Ts Madison, all sporting variations of high drag, did her no favors. 

Anyway, category is… “From Wholesome to Folsom,” a look that starts all good and proper before revealing into something appropriate to walk down San Francisco’s famous fetish festival. Basically, it’s a kinky spin on the RuVeal runways we’ve grown accustomed to, and I am living for it.

Juicy Love Dion comes out as Alice in Wonderland, who, after a sniff of poppers, turns into a Cheshire Cat hussy. The cartoon proportions of her first outfit are charming, even if they’re swallowing her up a lil’ bit, but I’m not sure I can endorse the catgirl nonsense underneath. Where’s the grin, the purple, anything to bring cohesion to this Lewis Carroll clusterfuck? The chastity belt with whiskers coming out of her kitty makes for a fun pun, but everything looks crushed and half-assed. Hate the choker, incongruent with everything else in the design. Love the cat o’ nine tails as a fetishy joke.

NICK: Juicy looks incredibly sexy in that wig. The exaggerated Alice works fabulously, but I agree that the idea of the Cheshire Cat is more fun than the execution. Great whiskers, great whip, and she knows how to work it on the main stage, but the whole is disappointing.

Once again, I’m torn on what Darlene Mitchell is presenting us this week. I like the ‘50s housewife getup, especially how the color palette of her dress matches her piss play presentation with a much softer yellow. The golden shower rhinestoned across her chest is kinky as hell, and her impractically pointy yellow nails are a great visual and a smart character detail - this lady is not doing any penetration today. Still, we’ve seen Darlene in a wifebeater and daisy dukes on this stage before. I can’t help wishing she’d done more than the collar. Stain the crotch, reveal a wet wig. Or am I hungry for more because she went for kinky sexuality while everyone else went for dominatrix fits? Maybe too basic, but she gets the point across.

CLÁUDIO: My one big issue is how quickly she sheds her housewife drag. Because there’s something perverse about how the wholesomeness of her presentation continues into the piss play, the stain cartoon-ish in design, the top squeaky clean, everything matching like a Barbie Doll with the rhinestoned Daisy Dukes. It’s what I imagine we’d get if Disneyland decided to put on an afternoon play about kinky sex. Somehow, the cheery, almost infantile quality of the piss queen fantasy makes it feel more transgressive than an overt provocation would. Also love the touch of yellow highlight on her lips.

Myki has a whole lot of meanings imbued into this botanical mistress costume. On the one hand, she’s a rose, soft and lovely up top, but with thorns down below. Yet, she’s also someone who pricks her finger on one of those thorns and goes wild from the pleasure that comes along with the pain. But she’s also, quite literally, a giant rosebud - Google is free, I’m not explaining this to readers who don’t get it. While the juxtaposition of all these readings could come off as messy, Miss Meeks’ lewk is clean and well put together, crowned by that masterpiece of a wig. Honestly, she killed it.

NICK: If her runway pushed Myki over the edge for the challenge win this week, good for her. That’s an insane wig to wear for any occasion, let alone for a diva who’s mostly used her real hair as the base for her wigs, and my god, it looks fantastic on her. She always looks fabulous when appropriating Jane’s ginger culture. The red X’s on Myki’s nipples, the rose whip, the way the green of her bodice resembles tactical gear, it’s all unbelievably sexy and smart. Talk about a prick me girl!

To Jane Don’t credit, I enjoyed her performance on the runway to sell this look. She’s a smokeshow in her red, jewel-encrusted lingerie, she’s padded for the gods, and I enjoy the Mrs. Lovett wig of it all. “Young dowager widow” is not a phrase that makes sense, though, and the white pajama dress isn’t personalized enough to make her wholesome look more than a RuVeal smock. Again, very sexy, but it doesn’t scream “Jane!!” aside from the ruby colors of it all. I went from thinking this look should’ve saved her from the bottom to . . . . not thinking that.

CLÁUDIO: This is the worst thing she’s ever worn on this runway. It’s not awful, just half-assed and rather boring. The nightdress isn’t quite as egregious as Trinity’s Reveal cape from All Stars, but it’s too close for comfort. Why couldn’t she come up with some insane late Victorian or Edwardian thing? Imagine this style, but with Mia Wasikowska’s giant puff sleeves from Crimson Peak or a bit of Emilie Louise Flöge bohemia. Anything to give it character, a discernible point of view. In the end, this entire thing just looks generic, even with expensive details like the beading over the corset. I also hate it whenever girls walk down the runway with flameless candles. I do give her props for reusing the necklace they hated so much from last week. It do take nerve.

I am, once again, delighted by Nini’s approach to the runway prompts Drag Race throws her way. Of course, this mechanical engineer twink would come up with a paean to Lady Liberty’s chemical recoloring over centuries, as copper turns verdant with oxidation. I love everything about this, from the way her lingerie and padding are more gender-fuckery than conventional feminine sensuality to the knife-pleated frills. The wittiest part might be the copper wax drippings on her chest and arms, a kinky accent that pairs with the sculpted torch, which comes off in the transition to reveal a prop candle with a mock flame. 

NICK: It’s a fucking wild answer to the runway prompt, and I’m very delighted by it. Nini’s shiny copper robe and full face mask are already kinda hot in that implacable masked boudoir way, ready for a night of perversion at an Eyes Wide Shut party. The lingerie is fantastic, and I love your point about how it makes Nini look more gender-ambiguous - she even fulfills this in her wholesome look. Nini remains a statuesque beauty even at her thottiest. You already mentioned my favorite detail with her waxplay, so I’ll shout out my second-favorite, which is using eyelash spikes the same color as Lady Liberty’s oxidized greens.

From here, the judging commences, and it’s a doozy. Once again, the judges basically like everyone’s runways, so they can’t really be used as a tiebreaking factor. Juicy gets some well-deserved praise, though I can’t help wondering if Ru seems less than ecstatic for Miss Dion’s surprise success this week. She and everyone else (including me!) expected more floundering, but she really killed it. Darlene is dinged for not actually playing a Karen, but this is completely outweighed by how much fun Ru had working with her. Myki gets top marks across the board, which she’s visibly surprised by, but vows to believe in herself more going forward. 

After all this lovin’, Jane looks increasingly disoriented as the judges throw her the first genuinely negative critiques of the night. Missing jokes Ru set up, seeming more engaged with her constructed persona than the scene itself, all things we’ve stated here, yet it’s still shocking to see season 18’s resident funny lady be told she fumbled a comedy challenge. As Ru puts it, she basically set the bar so high for herself and simply didn’t meet her usual standard, which isn’t incorrect, but also feels like the closest Ru can get to saying she’s now over what Jane’s been cooking all season. Such a comment cuts past judging this individual performance, which had problems worth discussing. It’s also shocking for the audience to see Jane get read for not satisfyingly meeting the challenge prompt when her three challenge wins would normally insulate her from any real danger this late in the game. How easy it would be to minimize Darlene’s chemistry with Ru and actually come down on her for not even passing as a Karen. Drag Race can be very temperamental about protecting frontrunners, but I’m not sure they’ve put their clear frontrunner in legitimate danger like this in years. Nini is less surprised by her fate, but it’s not any easier to hear. At least the judges loved her Lady Liberty.

CLÁUDIO: I honestly feel the producers had Juicy lined up for a bottom placement, but the challenge performance made it impossible. Myki and the baby felt like this week’s obvious top in a way that fucks with the season’s narrative. As you said, even as they praise Juicy, the enthusiasm isn’t there. The contrary happens with Darlene, whose critiques feel fair, but come tempered by such a surge of enthusiasm that it never feels like Ru is considering her for the bottom. I might quibble with the way they articulate things - I certainly disagree with the universal praise for the runways - but the final results feel just. Myki wins, Juicy places high, Darlene is safe, while Nini and Jane battle it out at the bottom. 

Yet, it’s important to note that this doesn’t tell the whole story, nor does it explain why people are so upset at the results. You’ve hinted at this, but contextualizing Jane’s predicament against nearly two decades of Drag Race herstory reveals a nagging impression that production refused to afford her the same grace, rigged as it might have been, that it's regularly extended to other competitors. I maintain that Nymphia’s runway saved her on the Snatch Game episode you mentioned at the start of the RuCap, but Onya had no such justification for being saved on the Makeover episode. Going back further, we find stuff like Gigi Goode and Kim Chi constantly saved from the bottom in the back half of their seasons despite recurring flounderings. Sure, they didn’t win, but they were frontrunners.

Oh, what about Jinkx, who clearly lost the final lip sync but still won All Stars 7? And then there’s someone like Kandy Muse, who was basically eliminated but, at the last second, asked back into the competition just because Ru loved her so much. Like every reality TV competition, Drag Race isn’t a fair assessment of talent nor an Olympian event predicated on strict rules. Instead, it’s a variety show governed by the whims of producers, story editors, and, above all others, RuPaul Charles. The inconsistency is what annoys, especially when the show’s presentation refuses to acknowledge it - basically, the same issue with every Makeover challenge ever.

Regardless, Jane Don’t and Nini Coco are given Lady Gaga’s “Garden of Eden” as their lip sync track and the results are pretty obvious. Jane doesn’t do bad, per se, but she’s doing a character-based bit of sultriness that, while fun, feels at odds with the dance-forward beat. Nini, on the other hand, seems to have a whole ass choreographic battle plan ready, managing to overshadow Jane, even when the season’s red-headed stepchild pulls out an unexpected trick. The Seattle queen does a cartwheel? Then, the engineer in heels performs one at the exact same time, but adds a gymnast-like back tuck to steal the spotlight. Jane goes for an Alaska-lite move of dramatically smudging her makeup? Well, Nini jumps into the splits beside her. It’s one hell of a battle, helped by a cut that allows us to see most of the song, Canada Drag Race style, and leaves little doubt about the final verdict.

So, it’s farewell to fair Jane. I’ll miss her immensely and, to be frank, whoever ends up winning the season will be like Trixie on All Stars after Ben self-eliminated. They’ll always have the ghost of an asterisk next to their victory. It’s not fair, it’s not nice, but it is what it is. And, to be honest, this might be great for Jane’s career. Girls perceived as robbed queens get the fans on their side. Always.

NICK: Farewell Jane, whom I wouldn’t have been upset to see saved from the bottom two, but lost the lip sync fair and square. I haven’t seen a queen look this shell-shocked at her elimination in years. Should I be surprised there are no cutaways or interjections from the other queens in the final edit? Or is the shock more amplified by focusing on Jane’s stunned silence while her sisters cry at the back of the stage? Either way, while recapping this episode has helped this outcome make more sense to me, it’s still stunning that they actually did it.

Re: the remaining queens. If any of these divas wind up having the post-win career Trixie’s had, that’d be a blessing no matter how they took the crown. Myki seems like a great heir apparent to Trixie’s legacy in her narrative as well as her comedy persona: sly, professional, well thought-out, while still loose and reactive with scene partners. Nini’s proven to be the late-game assassin many predicted Juicy or Mia would become, and I’m thoroughly entertained by how fully she can connect to a song’s energy while serving choreo and body. 

Also, explain why people are redirecting their anger about Jane’s elimination towards Juicy. It’s spiteful and pathetic, nevermind tinged with the same indiscriminate racism all the nonwhite queens have to deal with. She did well in the challenge!! Sorry your fave flopped! At this point, I might be rooting hardest for Juicy, who’s really shown new sides of herself the past two weeks, and whose established skills as a performer are already so stunning she can only get more interesting as she becomes more experienced. Granted, all of these queens are eclectic and interesting in their own right, though I think Juicy’s peaks as a lip syncer are higher than anyone else’s peaks at the things they do best. I hope she keeps it up next week, for what appears to be a group improv challenge. I have no idea why it’s not a RuMix, but even so, I just hope it’s fun.

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