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. For the first time this year, we’re starting to believe in an alternate ending to this season—although you’d still be unwise to bet against Sasha Colby.
6. Salina EsTitties (last week: 3)—ELIMINATED
I know she bristled at the mentions of her track record, but truly, Salina needed another undeniable performance to keep her in despite her report card. Fair or not, Drag Race really does start making decisions in the endgame based on how queens have done all season long. It’s rare to find a Jujubee, Ellie Diamond or Jonbers Blonde in the finale, making it there despite not winning a single challenge. And while Salina did well this week, so did everyone else. So, paired with her name being mentioned twice on the main stage during our latest round of Who Should Go Home Tonight and Why?, it was a clear choice on Ru’s part to send her home.
I will say, I’m gonna miss Salina next week. The dynamic in this group has gotten intense, and Salina was one of the last sources of pure joy. I think the season will be worse without her excited confessionals (“Free Willy!” really is an all-timer) and kindness to the other queens. I have a feeling Miss Congeniality is going to go to Sugar and Spice in an unprecedented twist—it’s been predicted all over the internet for several weeks now—but my vote would personally go to Salina.
5. Loosey LaDuca (last week: 2)
While I do think the Loosey pile-on has gotten too severe in recent weeks, I also feel like she routinely gets in her own way. Take her conversation with Salina this week as an example. Loosey had every right to feel frustrated by her tiff with Mistress Isabelle Brooks and Luxx Noir London. Salina (correctly!) pointed out that it’s Loosey’s defensiveness that makes her an easy target for the two other queens. If the conversation had ended there, with Salina hearing Loosey out and offering good advice on how to interact with them moving forward, it’d have been a great moment of potential growth. Instead, before it ends, Loosey snuck in that she actually led Luxx to a win last week in the comedy challenge. She just can’t help herself.
In terms of her performance this week: Loosey did really well! She would’ve won a lot of other Rusicals. Unfortunately, she turned in an A-/B+ performance in a season with almost straight As across the board, and wore a “Creature from the Black Lagoon”-inspired runway that felt unresolved on the bottom half. And after Luxx’s monologue, it was hard for the judges to shake the idea that Loosey needs to … “Let Loose.”
4. Mistress Isabelle Brooks (last week: 4)
The fact that Mistress didn’t win this week, when she had a standout performance and runway, is an indication to me that the show is not investing in her as a potential victor. True, we’ve had one-challenge-win crowned queens before in Yvie Oddly and Willow Pill. But those two, particularly Willow, were getting fawning praise even when they weren’t winning. I get the sense that Ru finds Mistress very impressive, and the story editors clearly consider her their main character. But there’s neither the kind of gushing appreciation from our host, nor time given to Mistress to make her case for the win, that have come to define how we can identify modern winners. And more to the point, we are seeing both of those things from other competitors.
Still, none of this takes away from how Mistress did this week—she was excellent! She had one of the biggest roles, and tore into it with vigour. She made a great villain, and as Orville Peck noted, her head-to-toe transformation when she came out for the gloves runway made her overall package this week all the more impressive. No, Mistress could’ve easily won this week on performance alone—and this isn’t the first time she’s missed out on what could’ve been a win.
3. Luxx Noir London (last week: 1)
As a friend of mine noted after the episode, Luxx’s monologue on the main stage was practically her proof of concept that she’d be amazing on All Stars. Imagine her getting to pick a lipstick! The absolute performance we would get as she revealed which queen she chose to get the chop would rival Shangela faking out Trixie Mattel in All Stars 3. It’s this kind of understanding of how to not just play Drag Race, but play the Drag Race metagame (a game within a game?), that sets Luxx apart this season. Be it dressing in a RuPaul tribute look or making her—admittedly divisive—Drag Race references, Luxx is a student of this show, and she’s making her mark.
What’s great is that Luxx is also killing the competition while she does this. Her performance this week was perfectly pitched for the character, and she did well with a role that wasn’t her first choice. On the runway, while her use of Mistress’s Kelly Rowland puppet wig is killing me, I don’t want to lose focus on the look itself. “Goth kid with casts” is such a particular, strange choice, and it shows Luxx’s mind is working on another level. I’m increasingly impressed by her—as is Ru.
However, like Mistress, I don’t think we’re seeing Luxx make her own case for the win. Recent victors like Kylie Sonique Love in All Stars 6 and Ra’Jah O’Hara in Canada vs The World used their confessionals to argue why they should win the show; they both ultimately went on to beat queens with better track records. At this stage, we don’t have a clear sense of why Luxx should win beyond her performance in the competition—and while some would argue that’s enough, in this new era of Drag Race, it’s likely not enough for the show. She’s got a couple weeks left, but with this current trajectory, I think Luxx is a much more likely All Stars champion than she is to be Season 15’s crowned queen.
2. Sasha Colby (last week: 5)
Picking the Carl role was pretty genius on Sasha’s part. Not only did it give us a drag king-esque moment from her—an increasingly common phenomenon on the show after Kylie’s Steven Tyler and Victoria Scone’s “Victor Scone”—but she also got the big reveal into her drag persona at the apex of the Rusical. By effectively reversing her “transformation,” and embracing playing male, Sasha gave herself some extra juice in an across-the-board great Rusical. Were there a top two Lip Sync for the Win this week, I think it would’ve been her against Anetra.
During Who Should Go Home Tonight and Why?, Sasha handled things perfectly from my viewpoint. Mistress’s swipe at “the Sasha Colby meet-and-greet” was the kind of bait that a less self-assured queen might have taken. Instead, Sasha also named her biggest competition as who should go home—and named Luxx and Loosey, not Mistress. She made her point in her own way, and in the process framed herself not as an invincible frontrunner, but as a queen with some competition hot on her heels. That could go a long way to diminish the impression that Sasha would make for an uninteresting winner.
Regarding that question: I do still think Sasha is taking this home. But I’ll admit, for the first time this season, I’m starting to see a way she doesn’t.
1. Anetra (last week: 6)
Stanetras rise! Anetra takes home her first win since the premiere, and it’s for a decidedly different performance. Though it wasn’t her only choice, I think playing the mother in the Rusical was exactly the right play for Anetra: it allowed her to show off more of her emotional side, and demonstrate that she has range as a performer beyond what we’ve seen in her lip syncs. Combined with her story in the werk room, Anetra’s performance clearly really touched Ru and the panel, and she took home a victory against incredibly tough competition.
Most crucially, Anetra got told the halcyon phrase by Ru this week: “You were born to do drag.” Time will tell if Anetra is more of a Krystal Versace or a Jorgeous, but the fact that she’s just the third to hear this from Ru is herstoric enough. She’s got Ru’s love, as well as his admiration and respect (I can’t stop thinking about how impressed Ru sounded when he told her she has “so much confidence” on the runway last week). She’s got her argument for the win: drag saved her life, and she credits RuPaul’s Drag Race, and specifically DragCon, with a huge part of that. She has challenge wins and two iconic lip syncs under her belt. And she’s likely going to win the fan vote at season’s end if she makes it to the finale.
All of a sudden, Anetra’s looking like she’s got the best case to win it all. Will that be enough to trump the early weeks of the season, when her edit was all but invisible? I’m not sure. But for the first time this season, I wouldn’t bet against an Anetra victory.
Why you can trust Xtra
