Welcome to RuPaul’s Drag Race Power Rankings! Every Tuesday, we’re debriefing the week’s new episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 to determine which queens are riding high, and which need she-mergency care. Luck is on some queens’ side—but decidedly not on others’—during this week’s LaLaPaRuZa challenge. Who benefitted from the draw, and who played a quietly very smart defensive game?
10. Jax (last week: 10)—ELIMINATED
Never before has someone so good at lip syncing been eliminated for nothing more than lip syncing well. In the case of Jasmine Kennedie, at least she had bombed Snatch Game the week before, so there was some justification for her elimination. And Jasmine’s final lip sync against Bosco wasn’t her best. But Jax really couldn’t have done more than she did this week. She gave a strong lip sync to Taylor Dayne’s “Tell It to My Heart,” but failed to command Ru’s attention the way Mistress Isabelle Brooks did. She was dynamic in her three-way lip sync, but was going up against incredibly stiff competition in Anetra and Luxx Noir London.
In the final round, when Anetra should’ve theoretically taken the easy way out and eliminated Spice, she instead chose to go up against Jax. Once Jax wasn’t saved in the end, it was effectively all over. She kept up with Anetra in the final lip sync, but, considering the panel’s lack of investment in Jax up to this point, this was unfortunately the most likely result. Still, one has to assume she’s locked up a future Lip Sync Assassin slot.
9. Spice (last week: 9)
Anetra effectively gave Spice immunity this week. I have absolutely no doubt that Spice would’ve been clobbered in that final lip sync. Here’s how rough this episode was for Spice: in her first battle, against Loosey LaDuca, she couldn’t beat someone that was far from the top of her game. (As Marcia Marcia Marcia noted, their Joan Jett battle was a lot closer than it should have been.) And in her second battle, she chose a Camila Cabello song, betting that Malaysia Babydoll Foxx wouldn’t know the lyrics—only for Spice to realize, oops, neither did she! No, Spice is here only because of Anetra’s choice. And unless she can really surprise in the ball challenge, I have to assume she’s still next out the door.
8. Anetra (last week: 3)
I’ll give her this: if you’re going to have to lip sync three times in one episode, you best tear it up the way Anetra did. Not only was she a dynamic performer across all of her three lip syncs, including participating in the season-best battle to Fifth Harmony’s “I’m in Love with a Monster” against Sasha Colby, but she also pulled the outrageously nervy move of choosing to face off against Jax instead of Spice in the final battle. It was a hell of a risk, but it paid off big. But Anetra, my girl, they’re still barely featuring you in confessionals. Please, no unnecessary risks again! It’s bad for my heart!
7. Malaysia Babydoll Foxx (last week: 2)
Malaysia’s survival was entirely based on the bad gameplay of another trumping her own. Choosing trained dancer Marcia Marcia Marcia as her first-round opponent instead of Spice was foolish, and she was promptly schooled for her trouble. Then, in the second round, she did choose Spice, but barely survived one of the show’s all-time worst lip syncs. It was hilarious to watch the two fumble their way through the words, but honestly, I’m not sure how Ru made a distinction between the two. They both flopped badly, and both ultimately wound up safe despite failing to give a single good lip sync performance. I worry for either of them whenever they have to actually lip sync for their lives.
6. Loosey LaDuca (last week: 6)
The cast’s open antagonism of Loosey—Salina EsTitties was fully rooting for her to crack this week!—plus her claims about deserving to be in the top last week and mediocre lip sync to “Do You Wanna Touch Me” are adding up to a real stinker of an edit for the Snatch Game winner. I guess I’m struggling with why a queen like Loosey, who is clearly quite familiar with Drag Race, would feed into a Jan edit trap like this. Every queen should know that bemoaning your safe placement in Untucked is a recipe for disaster at this point in Drag Race herstory. Anyway, she’s lucky that Spice was worse in their battle, because Loosey could’ve easily been in real trouble this week if the luck of the draw had gone differently.
5. Luxx Noir London (last week: 7)
Luxx turned out one lip sync that failed to reach the emotional heights of the song, and one that got the tone exactly right. She got a little too cute with Salina in the first round, trying to bait her into a friendly song choice, but promptly got beaten by a more prepared performer. For the second time around, to the last remaining track, “The Right Stuff” by Vanessa Williams, she was much better suited to the song. She firmly expelled any latent memories of Venus D’Lite and Shangela’s battle royal, and delivered the definitive Drag Race lip sync to that song. Good for her that she’s walking out of the episode with at least one big win, because she was clearly not happy about that first-round loss.
4. Mistress Isabelle Brooks (last week: 1)
The fact that the show allowed so much open questioning of Ru’s decision regarding Mistress and Jax’s lip sync is fascinating to me. Ultimately, I think the show takes her side, both in Ru making the decision and letting her have the final say in the werk room. But in an episode that often felt edited within an inch of its life, the fact that they took the time to show three separate queens casting doubt on the choice—a choice that would be the first domino in Jax’s ultimate eviction—indicates that Mistress may not be getting the golden edit it seemed she was. Still, I ultimately agree with the judging: Mistress did something on “Tell It to My Heart” that felt distinctly different from what Alyssa Edwards and Detox did on the song way back in All Stars 2. Serving face and emotion kept her performance fresh. It was a clear win for her in my book.
3. Salina EsTitties (last week: 8)
For all the talk of strategy in these challenges, with Mistress this season and Willow Pill last season triumphantly claiming in confessionals that they picked the queens who would pick the songs they wanted, it was Salina who pulled off the most savvy move of either LaLaPaRuZa. She sussed out that Luxx likely wanted her to pick a dance-heavy song, but she faked her out and chose Céline Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now.” This is a Salina standard, while Luxx admitted it wouldn’t be her first choice. And Salina pretty easily dominated the performance. Good for Salina for knowing to zag when her opponent assumed she’d zig. Playing defensively in these LaLaPaRuZas is just as important as playing offensively.
2. Marcia Marcia Marcia (last week: 4)
I gotta say: I walked out of this episode feeling really excited for Marcia. A queen who has been something of a punching bag for the show the last several weeks, Marcia got picked for the first lip sync with Malaysia, as the pageant queen assumed she’d be an easy beat. Marcia promptly picked the song she knew best, turned the party and swept her opponent. It was a thrilling moment of victory for a queen who hasn’t gotten her chance to really, definitively, win much this season. Do I think it’ll lead to a change in how Ru and the panel judge Marcia? Not really. But hey, a win is a win—and it feels like a real Moment for the New York City queen.
1. Sasha Colby (last week: 5)
Winning one lip sync to secure her safety? Done. Beating out one of the best lip syncers in the cast, whom everyone else was afraid to go up against? Check. Delivering a battle so incredible that it easily would’ve been a double shantay in any other format? You bet. Sasha didn’t need much time to absolutely decimate this episode, but she slayed nonetheless. Another tremendous week for Mother Sasha, and another top spot on this power ranking.
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