‘Canada’s Drag Race’ Season 5, Episode 4 recap: ‘Should we speed it up a little bit?’

Another week of Canada’s Drag Race, another Drag Race maxi-challenge archetype turned on its head. While last week’s teams twist on the popular Lip Sync Slay-Offs challenge proved to be too much tinkering with a good thing, I’m more intrigued by this week’s surprise mini-ball challenge. Fast fashion is the name of the game—unlike RuPaul, these judges do want to see some fucking H&M—which means that while this is a design challenge, couture drag is not the goal.

Instead, the queens are expressly tasked with making saleable drag garments, something that could be described as ready-to-wear for a queen. It’s an unusual challenge type for Drag Race, more akin to something you’d see on a Lifetime season of Project Runway. Unlike in most of those PR challenges, though, there’s no sponsor built in here who would conceivably take the winning garment and sell it, meaning this challenge offers creative constraint just for the sake of creative constraint.

I don’t mind that, personally; I think it’s fun to see queens have to work towards a different goal than the usual “eleganza” prompt. (It’s why I’ll never forgive the flagship series for removing the realness category from the ball challenges.) But fan response sight unseen as I write this, I imagine there will be some grumbling about a challenge that inherently asks queens to not create the most impressive garment possible—and actually penalizes a couple of queens for not fitting the ready-to-wear brief.

What’s most interesting about this episode, though, is that it’s a secret mini-ball challenge. Not only do the queens need to present their fast fashion self-made looks, but they also need to present “slo-mo couture”—outfits brought from home that have some element that makes them dynamic in slow movement. It’s not explicitly stated that the judges are looking for a range here, though the queen who presents the most drastically opposite looks is the one who ultimately wins. Overall, it’s an interesting episode, and gives us something we wouldn’t see in other Drag Race design challenges. But the specific judging criteria and the surprise second category make for an unusual viewing experience, to say the least.

Let’s start with the surprise Slo-Mo Couture runway category. Most of the queens interpret this prompt to mean “fabric hanging off myself that I can twirl around,” including two of our eventual top three. The less successful of those two, in my book, is Helena Poison. She serves “an apparition” in lilac, but the fabric looks a bit bedsheet-y to my eyes. Her hair and makeup, however, are stunning. More effective is Minhi Wang, who embraces her muscular body and doesn’t pad for the first time in the competition. She’s going for a masculine-and-feminine blend concept here, and it really works for me. It’s sexy and fun, even if she does rely on the same hanging-fabric idea.

Beyond those two, Sanjina Dabish Queen looks the best she ever has in a Bollywood-inspired garment, Xana goes with a Mothra showgirl look that really works for me and Jaylene Tyme’s Turtle Island couture is an absolute stunner. No one makes me laugh harder all episode, though, than Uma in an extraordinarily silly ostrich look. Not ostrich feathers: a literal ostrich puppet. She makes her own legs into the ostrich’s, and uses the slo-mo effect to make herself look like she’s on a ride run amok. It’s really funny, perfectly camp and if this category were the only one, I could see her actually landing in the top this week.

Less successful in this category are Makayla Couture and The Virgo Queen, two of our frontrunners. Virgo’s emerald look is fine, just a bit simple, although I do love her Krystal Versace-inspired hair. Makayla is the bigger miss, and that’s a theme that continues throughout this episode. You can tell a design challenge really stresses her out, which is surprising to me coming from the daughter of two-time design challenge winner Icesis Couture. I went back to look at Makayla’s Call Me Mother track record, and she was indeed in the bottom on their design challenge … but she was in the bottom of five different challenges that season, so I’m not sure how indicative that is.

Anyway, Makayla’s “mermaid’s first steps on earth” look is interesting, but Brad Goreski nails it when he says it looks like she attached frippery to it to make it fit the slo-mo prompt. This kind of thing happens more than you’d think on Drag Race and it mostly goes ignored. Remember Willow Pill’s fungus look for a “Holy Couture” runway category? But credit to CDR: they tend to be more critical of this kind of thing, even for frontrunners.

In the Fast Fashion category, Makayla continues to struggle. She even admits she’s walking as fast as she can on the runway so the judges don’t see the poor construction of her look. It’s too short, the cutting of the skirt is bizarre and while the judges give her credit for being on trend, I think even that is too generous. Not Makayla’s best week. It’s not Sanjina’s, either; despite her impressive first look, her lack of sewing experience really comes back to bite her for the second category. Her rooftop party look is really just a few strips of fabric. I’ll give her credit for the styling and how well she sells it on the runway, but hers is the clear second-worst of the week alongside Makayla’s.

Uma lands in the bottom three with them with a “festival granny” concept. I actually think the pants are kind of cool, but the top is unforgivable. It’s rendered in an orange mesh, with extra fabric that could only generously be called a cowl neck, with a plain beige bra underneath. She at least really tries to go for fast fashion—you could see something like this being sold at ASOS—but it’s not well-constructed.

Three queens are declared safe: Virgo, who should feel grateful that there were three worse looks and that she styled the hell out of her garment, and Perla and Xana, who both have the exact same issue. Their self-made garments, in my eyes, are the two best looks of the week. Xana’s spiky coat is actually kind of incredible. It is also not fast fashion, and it is not ready-to-wear in the slightest. A bottom placement wouldn’t have been fair for her—nor for Perla, who gets a little closer with a black bodysuit but pushes it over the edge with red velvet draping detailing—but I’m surprised the judges don’t take a second before sending them to safety to explain why they’re being called safe.

That’s what ultimately makes me a bit of a no-vote on this challenge brief, interesting though it may be. Inherently, the goal of a design challenge should be to make the most impressive garment you can. Xana and Perla both do that. But they miss the mark on the category, and instead of explaining that, the judges just move them backstage. There needed to be some kind of explanation here, and a greater emphasis in the challenge assignment part of the episode that more extravagant garments would explicitly not be accepted for this category.

Xana and Perla’s dismissal to safety leaves us with Minhi, Helena and Jaylene at the top of the pack. I have quibbles with all three of their looks: Helena’s dripping green base garment is decidedly ready-to-wear, and she styles it well, but the actual drip detailing elevates it beyond fast fashion. If this garment is acceptable for the judging criteria, Perla’s should’ve been as well. (Xana, bless her, was never getting into the top with that coat for this challenge brief.) Meanwhile, Jaylene’s look is a bit too dated; the judges try to wave away that concern by noting that she uses a more modern fabric for her skirt, but it feels a little wrong that she’s in the top for a challenge in which the queens were explicitly told to make their outfits “au courant.”

That leaves Minhi, who is our challenge winner this week. I adore Minhi, so I’m supportive of this win! And I do think she ultimately does the best job of handling what’s a surprisingly complicated challenge brief. The bodysuit she makes is decidedly drag fast fashion, but is still impressive—if a queen came out in this for a lip sync challenge, she’d be appropriately dressed but still stand out. The construction and fit is pretty remarkable, too—though I take issue with the draped black fabric she adds. It’s just too random-looking.

What seemingly really pushes her over the edge to the win, though, is that the look serves as such a stark contrast to her first garment. Again, range wasn’t specifically in the challenge description, but the judges are clearly impressed by it nonetheless. Minhi takes her first win, gets the Golden Beaver and has quite a decision on her hands.

Each of the three in the bottom makes a strong case for the Beaver. Sanjina’s plea is based on what she’s been through to be there, and though she says she’s “not a beggar,” she’s ready to fight for her spot in the competition. Uma emphasizes the importance of her comedic drag, something that CDR doesn’t highlight as much as other franchises, which gets some snide comments in confessionals from Xana and Virgo that I don’t think are entirely fair. But Makayla goes for the jugular with this pitch, even intercepting Jaylene explaining why she would save Sanjina to further plead her case. But the peak moment is not a request, but a challenge to Minhi: “My name is Makayla Couture, and you will keep me.”

It’s nervy as hell, but it pays off: citing the nature of the competition, Minhi saves Makayla. This leaves Sanjina and Uma to battle it out to Rêve’s “Contemporary Love” (CDR’s third Rêve song after “CTRL + ALT + DEL” and “Tongue”). Sanjina struggles throughout the song to just keep her outfit from falling down, while Uma gets into the groove and delivers another surprisingly strong lip sync. She takes the win, and Sanjina sashays away. It’s a sad end for a queen who brought a lot of spark to the season, but with Makayla earning the Beaver, I don’t think there was any other possible result.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨ This week’s guest judge is model Lauren Chan, and everybody shut up right this second because that’s Lauren from The Traitors Canada! I just about screamed when she popped up in last week’s preview, certain that it couldn’t be her. But no, the woman I watched all season long on the second, absolutely fantastic season of The Traitors Canada is none other than this same woman. It is such a gag to see her—I had no clue when watching her on Traitors that she’s a famous model! She’s terrific as a judge, game and fun but with specific and smart notes. I’d welcome her back any time, though she should bring her fellow Traitors queens Neda Kalantar and Tranna Wintour along with her.

✨ If you ever needed an argument as to why fan obsession with “track record” is so silly, look no further than the fact that Virgo argues Jaylene had the best track record of the bottom three last week—with one high placement, one safe placement and one bottom three placement. Meanwhile, Perla had an actual maxi-challenge win. And it wasn’t just Virgo, either—Xana takes a poll, and the majority of the queens say they would’ve saved Jaylene. At the end of the day, like on Whose Line Is It Anyway?, the points really don’t matter; they haven’t since Sasha Velour won Season 9, honestly. But it’s nice when the show reminds us.

✨ Uma and Makayla tell Sanjina they were surprised she beat Perla in last week’s lip sync. While Makayla clarifies that they only see the back of their heads, when Sanjina questions how they made that distinction then, Makayla says: “Because the back of her head did better!” Is the back of Perla’s head a Lip Sync Assassin?

✨ Brad is resplendent in Brat green in the werk room this week. While I do remain steadfast in my belief that Brooke Lynn Hytes should take over all hosting duties, it’s at least appropriate that Brad is here for a design challenge. His walkthrough with the queens is quite good, too: he’s gotten almost Tim Gunn-esque in his feedback.

✨ We get a mini-challenge this week, a boudoir photo shoot sponsored by Knix. Sanjina wins, which is lovely and correct, and she earns $2,500 for her efforts. “That’s going to my titty fund!” she exclaims in her confessional.

✨ Minhi recognizes a Pit Crew member from modeling alongside him in Season 1. Always fun to run into old coworkers!

✨ Uma thinks Xana is working next to her under a mistaken belief that she can copy off her work. Xana clarifies in her confessional she’s there to see the trainwreck. Considering the results … point to Xana.

✨ Makayla struggles this week with the expectations of being a Couture, questioning how her family would approach this challenge. Brooke gets a great joke about it off during critiques: “I can tell you exactly what your family would’ve done for this challenge: your mother would’ve made an entire collection, and your sister would’ve made a bra and panty.”

✨ I really like the mirror moment segment of this week’s episode, in which the queens talk about body image in drag. Minhi talks about how she gets criticisms for her muscular shoulders in drag, while Helena opens up about losing a lot of weight in lockdown and coming back to drag to a lot of effusive compliments about her body. She bristles at them, because she loved her body when she was fat, and still embraces that word. In our Ozempic-fueled times, when celebrities seem to be throwing body positivity into the trash, it’s nice to hear what Helena has to say. I’m really liking her more and more as the season goes on.

✨ Clock some brewing drama between Makayla and Xana. In a confessional during Mini-Untucked, after Xana annoys her, Makayla snaps back: “You know, a lot of people would like you if you just stopped talking sometimes.” Spicy!

✨ “We’re all broke, unless you’re Priyanka.” Pound for pound, Virgo is my favourite queen in the confessionals. She gives me one great laugh every week at minimum.

✨ MAKAYLA: “I’m in the top!”

XANA: “Oh!”

MAKAYLA: “I’m not.”

XANA: “Yeah, no, I didn’t believe it either. Did you wanna try that again?”

The next episode of Canada’s Drag Race will be available to stream on Thursday, Dec. 19, at 9 p.m. EST on WOW Presents Plus in the U.S. and on Crave in Canada. You can subscribe to our drag newsletter, Wig!, for exclusive Drag Race content delivered straight to your inbox every month.