A couple of times during this seemingly unending season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, friends have asked me a question I’d honestly not considered before: Do the queens know how many episodes they’ll be filming when the season begins? In the past this hasn’t really mattered, because the seasons were for a very long time a standard 14 episodes. Sure, production might give them a hint that a double shantay may come or something like that, but that’s still variable enough that knowing the episode count wouldn’t help.
But this season presents the conundrum of time. Both Lady Camden and Daya Betty note in confessionals early in this week’s episode that they’re getting close to the finale; Daya even points out that despite the size of the cast left, the end of the season is nigh regardless. That’s a pretty clear sign that the queens do know how many episodes they’ll be filming, which punctures the effectiveness of this episode’s big twist.
After the Roast of Ross Mathews challenge, which is a solid if unspectacular affair, Daya, DeJa Skye and Jorgeous are all placed in the bottom three. Like with the three-way lip syncs in Season 13’s Porkchop premiere (Tina Burner, Kahmora Hall and Elliott With Two Ts to “Lady Marmalade”) and this season’s LaLaPaRuZa (Jorgeous, Angeria Paris VanMichaels and Lady Camden to “Radio”), only one queen can win. Unlike those two lip syncs, this is a true elimination scenario—which means we are guaranteed to see two queens go home this week.
It’s hard to be that gagged by this double elimination when you remember that it is ultimately a consequence of scheduling: had there not been repeated weeks of non-eliminations, we would not be facing a double elimination right now. And because it seems like the queens are aware of how many episodes are left, it probably doesn’t come as too much of a shock to them, either. Had the queens in the bottom three performed so poorly that this felt like a punishment, that would be one thing, but we’ve seen far worse roasts in our many years of Drag Race. No, Drag Race is just finally giving us what we’ve been asking for for weeks: send some queens home.
Credit: Courtesy VH1
After a very fun painting mini-challenge featuring Anastasia Beverly Hills’ own Norvina, the queens must prepare for the Roast of Ross Mathews. Like every roast challenge, they will be expected to read each other and all of the judges—including guest judge Dulcé Sloan—but should focus their acts on the man of the hour. We’ve recently seen how not having enough material for the guest of honour can screw you in a roast: Icesis Couture lost out on the win in the Roast of Brooke Lynn Hytes for going over time before she could turn her attention to the hostess.
Luckily, no one runs into that problem here; the jokes about Ross may be repetitive (lost weight, gay, bottom), but they’re plentiful. Instead, the queens struggle with various other issues, like Daya having too few jokes and Jorgeous’ punchlines not landing properly. Almost no one is outright bad (well, with one exception), but only one queen knocks it clearly out of the park.
That queen is Bosco, who comes roaring back from near-elimination and salvation via gold-plated chocolate. I actually am a little worried for Bosco during performance order selection, as she winds up biting the bullet and going first. She claims she’s trying to avoid conflict this week after last week’s fight with Lady Camden shook her up. But I’d argue that, as someone who just narrowly avoided going home, she needs to stand up for what she wants more than ever.
Luckily, it’s a moot point: Bosco kills in this challenge, and is the only queen to get wholly positive critiques. Her set mines some of the freshest material from familiar ground—a joke about Ru’s age turns into one about how him being “vers” means he’s both hunter and gatherer—and her choice to toss away her cards when she’s done with them adds a real air of cool to the performance. She’s completely in command, and everyone who follows struggles to live up to her performance. It’s a clear victory for the Seattle queen, and gives her a season-best of three wins heading into the final episode of the main season.
Credit: Courtesy VH1
Angeria, Camden and Willow all do well, but are knocked by the judges for each missing something crucial. For Angeria, it’s punchlines: she delivers every joke well, but they’re just not that strong. (Although I hollered at Angie following up calling Dulcé “Diet Lizzo” with “Baby, how you feeling? Okay as hell?”) Camden has a terrific set, but she commits to a bit about echoing in Ross’ asshole—a sentence I never thought I’d write—that never pays off. Willow is actually my pick for the win upon first watch, but on second viewing, her jokes just don’t land as well as Bosco’s.
The runway category is “Tutu Much,” and would you believe me if I told you half these girls don’t come out in tutus? They come out in tulle, which was a category in Season 12! But not tutus. Only Camden in an incredibly striking ballerina look, Daya in a tutu and gigantic pair of heels, and Bosco as a queen murdered by a tutu-shaped buzzsaw, commit fully to the category. Willow earns major praise for her runway, but I’ll admit that I’m annoyed she never gets called out for barely (if at all) fitting the prompt. (This is the third or fourth time she’s gotten a pass in this regard.)
No runway—nor performance, for that matter—is worse, however, than DeJa’s. She does look beautiful from the neck up, but her dress is a too-simple, ill-fitting puff of blue tulle. Combined with her absolute bomb of a set during the roast, it’s pretty clear that flyers of the DeJa Skyes will be experiencing turbulence this week. She is an easy pick for the lip sync, and in Untucked she believes it will be against her close pal Jorgeous.
Credit: Courtesy VH1
But as mentioned previously, Ru actually throws all three queens into the bottom three and makes them all lip sync to Olivia Rodrigo’s “good 4 u.” It’s an odd fit for both DeJa and Jorgeous’ performance style, and much more in Daya’s lane. That said, I do think Daya is getting some passes in her lip syncs for emoting when her actual performance is a lot of pointing and walking back and forth. I do think she’s a fair winner this week simply because DeJa and Jorgeous turn out their worst lip sync performances of the season at exactly the wrong time. But I wouldn’t credit Daya much for the win—she survived it by the skin of her teeth.
And so we’re left with a final five: Angeria, Bosco, Camden, Daya and Willow. Assuming it’s a Lip Sync for the Crown finale, only four can survive. Determining who will go comes down to a music video challenge to RuPaul’s “Catwalk” next week. It’s hard to believe we’ve arrived at the final in-season episode of Drag Race, with just a reunion and finale to follow. But our months-long journey is coming to an end soon.
As we head into the final three episodes of the season, Season 14 is landing in a solid place in our collective ranking, though it isn’t ending as well as it could have. I’d probably call this the best original recipe franchise season of Drag Race since Season 9, but that was just a few years ago. More to the point, that very restrictive definition ignores all kinds of seasons that have been better since: the first two UK seasons, All Stars 6, España’s first season, Canada’s Drag Race’s second season and so on. (Honestly, on a different day, I might even place Season 12 above this one.)
I feel like I’m beating a familiar drum, but if there’s one lesson that VH1 can take from this instalment, it’s that these long seasons don’t work as-is. If there’s a format change of some kind that can avoid the bizarre pacing of this season, great! Give us all the Drag Race you can. But what should’ve been an easy pick for one of the best seasons in years is now overstaying its welcome—and one double sashay won’t shake that feeling.
Untucking our final thoughts
✨Dulcé Sloan is direct as both coach and guest judge this week. I really appreciate the approach she takes with the girls: no bullshit or gassing them up, just pure, honest criticism. And while it seemingly hurts DeJa (as seen in Untucked) that Dulcé and Michelle are disappointed in her, I respect Dulcé’s critique. She was brought in to give advice and make the girls’ sets better. If DeJa is just going to ignore her notes, then what’s the point of giving them? A really good showing from Dulcé, and I hope the show has her back soon.
✨Jorgeous notes it in Untucked, but for a Lip Sync Assassin, she sure didn’t send many people home: Angeria, Bosco, Camden and Jasmine Kennedie all survived their lip syncs with her; only Orion Story actually went home after the “My Head and My Heart” lip sync. Conversely, DeJa may have been called an LSA by Ru himself, but she only won one lip sync—and she didn’t send anyone home, since Daya came right back. And now she’s been eliminated by Daya 11 episodes later!
✨The mini-challenge is a very cute idea: give the queens a version of the Gus Cutty mural of Dolly Parton and RuPaul that’s in Asheville, North Carolina, and have them paint it in teams. Team Dolly (Bosco, Camden, Daya and Willow) wins out, and while I agree theirs is better, I also think they get the easier assignment of the two. Unless Team Ru (Angeria, DeJa and Jorgeous) made the host look spectacular, he was always going to more harshly judge his own mural.
✨A question for all of you: Which is your favourite three-way lip sync in Drag Race herstory? They tend to be chaotic affairs in which only one queen stands out—or, in the case of several of the pre-finale lip syncs in Seasons 4 and 6, no one does. The “Radio” one from a couple episodes ago may be my favorite, personally. That or the “Bang Bang” finale lip sync in Season 10. Would love to hear y’all’s thoughts in the comments!
✨It feels weird to actually be (somewhat) close to the finale, but now that we are, we have two questions to consider: Who should make the top four, and who should win? Much as I’ve grown to like her as a personality, I do still think Daya is the correct choice to send home next week. She’s sent home all the Lip Sync Assassins, and has made it really far for someone eliminated back in Episode 2. But I can’t imagine a finale without Angie, Bosco, Camden or Willow. And in terms of who should win: Camden has my vote, but I think it will be Willow. She’s got the fan support, Ru’s adoration and the narrative in the edit to back her up.
✨Just a note for the spoiler-weary: the finale is filming on April 6 in Las Vegas, and there will be a live audience. Based on previous live finales with audiences in Seasons 9 through 11, details will leak online of who is both in the finale and who, if it’s a Lip Sync for the Crown, makes it to the final battle. Considering the finale itself will not air until April 22, you may want to avoid the more spoilery corners of Reddit, Instagram, YouTube, etc.
The next episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race will air Friday, April 8, at 8 p.m. EST on VH1 in the U.S. and on Crave in Canada. Check back every Monday and Tuesday after new episodes for our recaps and power rankings, and subscribe to our drag newsletter Wig! for exclusive Drag Race content delivered straight to your inbox every Tuesday afternoon.
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