After the pomp and circumstance of the ball challenge in the 200th episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, tonight’s episode felt minor. Even with an exciting runway category, there was no mini-challenge, no RuPaul walkthrough, and few emotional moments on the runway or in the werkroom. At the same time, it feels like the season may be gearing up for a more dramatic conclusion as tension builds between Mistress, Loosey, and an unbothered Sasha. Loosey’s competitive nature takes center stage again after Sasha earns her second challenge win and Mistress is more than willing to push Loosey’s buttons about it.
The challenge
The episode kicks into gear quickly when RuPaul enters to announce the maxi challenge. The queens must get “up close and personal” in a news magazine show 50/50, echoing past challenges like QNN News from season three and Good Morning Bitches from season nine, not to mention Queens of Talk from season six. The twist of this seemingly straightforward challenge is that the interview subjects—Charo, Franke Grande, and Love Connie—are all known for their particularly unpredictable and larger-than-life personalities. The guests provide an unruly variable that tests the queens’ patience and improv acumen.
Inexplicably, RuPaul assigns the groups and does not team Sasha, Loosey, and Mistress, which could have been explosive. In the end, the assignments are moot because this is for all intents and purposes an individual challenge. The queens break up into their assigned groups to further split it all up into three separate interview segments: the walk and talk, the activity, and the sit-down interview. They discuss the assigned celebrities while studying prepared dossiers about each subject.
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Salina, Luxx, and Mistress are the first to go and interview drag personality Love Connie, who has made a few appearances on Drag Race in the past. Salina starts with the sit-down interview. Prompted by vague questions, Connie provides verbose and rambling answers that Salina struggles to contain. It creates an uncomfortable atmosphere not conducive to a thoughtful celebrity interview. Luxx fares much better in the activity interview, which involves Connie recklessly driving a golf cart around the studio lot. As opposed to Salina’s strained style, Luxx gets the most out of her subject by going with Connie’s flow. Unfortunately, Mistress’s kitchen interview hits the skids. Normally engaging, she is lifeless and stale on set. Furthermore, while typically quick-witted in the werkroom, Mistress seems to be one step behind all of Connie’s jokes.
The next kitchen interview between Sasha and Charo goes much better. Sasha’s presence suggests a reverence for the veteran performer as well as a playfulness that suits Charo’s chuci chuchi dynamic. Like Luxx, Sasha finds the right rhythm between interviewing her subject and allowing her subject to lead the way. Sadly, Marcia’s sit-down interview with Charo is all starts and stops. Unable to match Charo’s speed, Marica comes off as confused and disconnected from her subject. While there is potential for that to be amusing, it really just reads as awkward and uneven.
Loosey, however, proves to be in her element during her sit-down interview with Frankie Grande. She is in total control of the pace and structure of the Q&A, making her guest feel at ease. Anetra, likewise, conducts an amusing walk-and-talk interview with Grande around the studio lot. However, the final act of the interview takes a downturn when Malaysia enters the kitchen. She immediately gives off an energy of defeat. It feels like Malaysia would like to be anywhere but in that kitchen interviewing Grande. As Grande starts hamming it up for the camera, Malaysia completely cedes control and the end results feel like an interview of Malaysia rather than one of Grande. Even before the queens make it to the stage, it is clear from watching the interviews as well as the queens’ own commentary in the werkroom who will be in the top and the bottom.
The runway
On elimination day, it’s obvious that half the queens are relying on their runway presentation as salvation from elimination. After numerous “Night of a 1000…” runway categories covering everyone from judges like RuPaul and Michelle to pop icons like Madonna (twice), Jennifer Lopez, and Dolly Parton, Drag Race finally pays tribute to Beyoncé. These types of runways can be a mixed bag. Since they are recreations of a star’s past looks, the categories rarely allow the queens to infuse their own personalities into the proceedings. Rather, it is about embodying the look and aura of the star. The other drawback is that the queens are often trying to recreate extremely intricate and expensive looks without the equivalent resources of an A-list megastar.
Considering all these hurdles, the queens of season 15 deliver solid Beyoncé looks. The queens took one of two sources for inspiration: performance looks from award shows and concert tours or red-carpet dresses. Of the first group, Luxx and Sasha were the best. Luxx’s Bob Mackie flame dress was an excellent reproduction and earned extra points as both a homage to Beyoncé and RuPaul, who also donned the look. Likewise, Sasha looks like an exact copy of Beyoncé in a silver performance outfit. Anetra, Malaysia, and Loosey also gave impressive looks that just fell short of perfection. While Anetra’s look was an accurate recreation of a Beyoncé tour outfit, it just lacked the luxury of Beyoncé’s fabrications. Malaysia’s performance-based look was well done, but her decision to alter the hairstyle was slightly distracting. Finally, Loosey chose a very memorable Beyoncé look that she fully encrusted in stones. But the wig choice and her makeup made the whole thing feel oddly off.
Of the red carpet looks, Mistress is the most surprising. She set herself apart from the other queens by paying homage to Beyoncé’s Destiny’s Child era, humorously adding puppets to represent Kelly and Michelle. Marcia continues to underwhelm on the runway with a standard red carpet look that only mimics Beyoncé’s color story. Salina, who often struggles on the runway, gives her best look of the season in a perfect recreation of Beyoncé’s golden Grammy gown. It seems like she pulled a Kerri Colby, by securing the exact dress. While Salina often overthinks her looks, using RuPaul chia pets as Grammy substitutes is a cheeky, campy move.
The judging
Anetra and Marcia make their way backstage after earning a safe pass from RuPaul. Before the critiques start, it’s pretty clear where everyone is at. Luxx earns approval by effortlessly adjusting to Connie’s many curveballs and is praised for her look. She gets bonus points for selecting a Bob Mackie recreation of a look once worn by RuPaul as well as Beyoncé. Sasha, likewise, receives nearly the same comments, with the judges marveling at the accuracy of her Beyoncé ensemble. The judges then celebrate Loosey, the final top, for her command of the interview and for increasing the drag factor of an iconic Beyoncé look. On the bottom are Mistress, Salina, and Malaysia. While the judges commend Mistress for combining glamor and camp, they remark that her interview presence lacked “warmth.” Salina, who arguably has the best look on the stage, gets one of the harshest performance critiques when the judges say she failed to “listen” during her interview. Like many of the other queens, Malaysia’s look earns praise, but they note that she was bulldozed by Grande during their interview. In perhaps the kiss of death, an emotional Malaysia admits that she sometimes wants to be safe rather than sorry. It’s a relatable sentiment, but RuPaul has little patience for queens not willing to put themselves out there this far into the competition.
After an unseen deliberation between the judges, RuPaul announces Sasha as the winner. There is a quick cut to Loosey to reinforce a growing rivalry between the two now that Sasha has secured her third main challenge win. Sasha appears to be cemented as the one to beat this season. Luxx and Loosey are safe. In Untucked, Mistress is convinced that she will be lip-syncing against Malaysia. However, the judges see it differently when Mistress is spared. It seems as if the producers are interested in seeing Salina struggle. It also feels like if anyone’s runway from this week should save them from a lip sync it is Salina’s near-identical recreation. After confessing a defeatist attitude, Malaysia seals her fate in the bottom two.
The lip sync
While no one is ever pleased to lip sync for their life, Salina and Malaysia are particularly down going into the performance. It’s almost a shame that Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” is finally a lip-sync song. Despite downtrodden dispositions, both queens throw themselves into it. Salina does a near-verbatim performance from the iconic music video, while Malaysia improvises a little more. There is a certain section in which Malaysia gives a more emotional interpretation of the song that matches her current mood, which, in comparison, makes Salina’s performance seem slightly frantic. It’s a difficult lip sync to call, but in the end, Salina wins with her faithful homage to Beyoncé. Although she has found herself in the bottom three times, it is clear that, perhaps more than any other contestant, she really wants to be in this competition.
Stray observations
- Salina’s runway should have absolutely saved her from the bottom two.
- Are mini-challenge wins really equivalent to maxi-challenge wins?
- Is Ts Madison a special guest judge or a rotating main judge like Carson and Ross? Didn’t they announce it as the latter before the season began? There seems to be no consistency.
- Favorite line: “I’m 100-percent 50/50 that we are going to nail 50/50.”
- I wonder if there was a judging criticism about the Grande group. The edit made a point of them attempting to avoid repetition or overlap, but also showed all three of them asking Grande about his recent marriage.
- It feels like they should have found a fourth celebrity in order to make the teams even with two queens each.
- The episode was light on werkroom discussions, but I wonder how the BeyHive reacts to Sasha’s Sasha Fierce theory. The juxtaposition between Salina hanging on Sasah’s every word and Mistress holding back from screaming “Drag Delusion” was hilarious.
