If Season 1 of Canada’s Drag Race was all about its top-tier cast, and Season 2 was the season of camp, then Season 3 is the one focusing on the competition.

Whereas in previous seasons, you could see the frontrunning queens a mile away—Priyanka, Rita Baga, Icesis Couture, Pythia—this season has been a much more evenly matched affair. Early frontrunners like Lady Boom Boom and Bombae went home midseason, while early bottom-dwellers grew and thrived as the competition went on. And so we enter the penultimate episode of the season with five queens, all with at least one maxi-challenge win (Gisèle Lullaby has two), and most with at least one Lip Sync for Your Life under their belt (Vivian Vanderpuss has none). The race is tighter than we’ve ever seen on Canada’s Drag Race.

The result has been a real nail-biter of a season that, yes, has perhaps lacked some of the charm of the first two go-arounds. But as someone who feels the flagship Drag Race series has gotten too far away from being a real competition over time, this season has been refreshing for me. You can tell literally everyone left is hungry for a win, and that comes out in two major ways: some shade (like what we see between Miss Fiercalicious and Jada Shada Hudson in Mini-Untucked this week), and really damn good performances. What more could a Drag Race fan want?

Vivian Vanderpuss and Kimmy Couture face off in a Lip Sync for Your Life—but which one stays?

For the third time this season, we’re heading into a design challenge—this time a full ball. The Masquerade Ball challenges the final five to produce three looks across divergent categories. First you’ve got Masc4Mascara, which is a genderfuck look category. Then you’ve got Incog-she-to, which is a kind of “drag in disguise,” reveal-focused look. And finally, the queens must create their own final garments—standard for any ball—themed after a particular mask, assigned to them by previous challenge winner Vivian. All the masks are nice, and Vivian tries her best to match them up with the best fit, so there are no shenanigans here.

The episode is light on anything other than garment construction (including a walkthrough with Brad Goreski), so the two moments that fall outside of that feel all the more notable and special. First, the queens receive video messages from home, and they run the gamut from blood family members to partners to chosen family. Particularly sweet is Kimmy Couture’s message from her mom, who is eagerly supportive of her daughter. It touches Kimmy, and even gets Brad teary-eyed as well.

Later, when the queens are getting ready at the mirror, we get a particularly harrowing and heartbreaking admission from Kimmy: she’s been raped, and, as she puts it, she “cannot count” how many times it’s happened. It first happened when she was 18, and she describes the ways in which as a trans woman, she is often disrespected and mistreated by men. She admits she doesn’t like opening up about this, as it makes her feel “weak,” but the other queens shower her with love and kindness in response. It’s one of the toughest mirror moments ever, but the outpouring of support makes for a beautiful scene.

Vivian Vanderpuss sashays away after her first lip sync, falling just short of the final four

It’s time for the Masquerade Ball, and the results are pretty strong across the board! In the Masc4Mascara category, Fierce earns my top marks, delivering a mint-green tribute to Mathu Andersen. It’s a great inspiration, and she executes it near flawlessly. I also really enjoy Kimmy’s take—she’s wearing pants!—and am obsessed with Jada’s “Pimp Daddy” look, as she describes it. Gisèle and Vivian fare less well; their looks are fine, and I appreciate Gisèle’s take on Jean Paul Gaultier, but there’s a lot going on with each.

Next, in Incog-she-to, the reveals range from the uninspired (Jada’s switch from a drag queen to, as Brooke Lynn Hytes put it, a “more reflective drag queen”), to the incomprehensible (Kimmy’s blank profile idea is cute, but the club kid look behind it makes no sense), to the genuinely quite excellent (Fierce’s Josephine Baker look!). Both Gisèle and Vivian run into issues getting their reveals off smoothly, but theirs are both probably their best looks of the lot.

As with every ball, however, it’s the final, self-created look that seemingly carries the most weight in the judging. Gisèle’s look is pretty impressive at the top, with sleeves that look like they took a lot longer than the allotted time to put together. However, her skirt’s hem is unfinished, and the judges knock her for spending more time helping the other queens than finishing her own work. Vivian’s look is read for being too simple for a Drag Race design challenge, though it is pretty. Kimmy’s is the worst of the lot, looking cheaply made and paling in comparison to the more complicated garments next to her.

That really only leaves Fierce and Jada in contention for the win, and because her reveal look is underwhelming, Jada is coming into the third with ground to recover. She does well, turning out an elegant, glamorous gown rendered in black and gold to match her mask. It’s not unexpected, however, so despite her polished presentation (including an absolutely unimpeachable mug), she falls short of the win. That leaves Fierce to take the victory, and it is a well-deserved one. Her purple gown has just the right amount of details to match her mask—the floral! the chain!—while staying clean and elegant. She also styles herself exactly right, and she gives us a whole new side of Fierce. She earns her second maxi-challenge win, and she’s gotta feel good with this momentum heading into the finale.

The final five queens present their self-made garments for the final category of the Masquerade Ball

Because, yes, as Brooke Lynn announces, this is the final elimination for the finale! Unfortunately for Kimmy and Vivian, one of them will not be there. This is Vivian’s first Lip Sync for Your Life, which she notes makes her something of a secret weapon heading into a head-to-head with Kimmy. However, she falls into a pretty deadly trap for her chances in the competition. Brooke Lynn criticizes her runway presentation this week, saying her tendency to skip along and not modulate her walk based on the garment is dampening the effect of her looks. It’s a similar critique to what Utica Queen got in Season 13.

So what does Vivian do in the lip sync to Rêve’s “CTRL + ALT + DEL”? She skips along, of course. Because that’s her style, and unfortunately, it’s an utter mismatch for the song. This is a dance-heavy pop song, and of course, Kimmy is an expert at that style. She smashes the lip sync, and Vivian doesn’t really stand a chance. Kimmy stays, and Vivian sadly sashays away.

With that, we are one week away from our grand finale! Who will take over the title of Queen of the North from Icesis Couture? Could her daughter keep the crown in the family? Or will one of Fierce, Gisèle or Jada take it instead? It’s a remarkably close battle, and I can’t wait to see the finale that will decide it all.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨ Designer Lesley Hampton is the guest judge, and I give kudos to Canada’s Drag Race once again for matching the guest judge to the challenge. She offers some really solid critiques, including, and especially, that Kimmy’s look reads as an unconventional materials challenge design instead of one where they had plentiful materials available.

✨ Speaking of unconventional materials challenges, Brooke Lynn makes text something that I think has been more and more prevalent in design tasks on Drag Race: “This isn’t Project Runway, this is Drag Race.” The goal in challenges like these isn’t to produce the best garment, it’s to produce the best drag look. And while sometimes those things intersect (I’m thinking about A’Whora’s lockdown superhero look), most of the time a simple, clean design isn’t going to be enough to win the day.

✨ Absolutely love that Brooke Lynn surprises the queens with the news that this will be the last elimination for the finale. This is how it should always be in my mind: you get a great reaction out of the cast, and it doesn’t make the final episode before the finale feel predictable. Great choice by production here.

✨ Poor Brad gets stuck with the duty of wheeling out the masks himself. “This season’s Pit Crew!” he jokes as he gestures to himself.

✨ Brooke Lynn once again looks amazing on the runway this week, giving us Marilyn Monroe. She waited until Irma Gerd was eliminated to pull this one out!

✨ FIERCE: “I’ll make you one!”

BROOKE LYNN: “No, you won’t.”

GISÈLE: “I’ll make you one.”

BROOKE LYNN: “You’ll make me one.”

✨ I am really divided on who I think is winning this whole game. I think the edit has been most with Jada, though it’s a less intensive winner’s edit than we’ve seen in other recent seasons. I also think Gisèle’s track record, plus the opportunity to make herstory with the first Québécois winner, could prove a compelling enough reason to crown her. But Fierce is the one with the most momentum entering the finale! The only champion I’d be surprised by at this point is Kimmy, but she still has a lot to offer. This is genuinely a wide-open race, and I can’t wait to see who comes out on top.

The season finale of Canada’s Drag Race will be available to stream Thursday, September 8, at 9 p.m. EDT on WOW Presents Plus in the U.S. and on Crave in Canada. Tune in Wednesday at 3 p.m. EDT here at Xtra for a live Ask Me Anything with Drag Race experts Kevin O’Keeffe and Russ Martin. You can subscribe to our drag newsletter, Wig!, for exclusive Drag Race content delivered straight to your inbox every Tuesday afternoon.