‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Season 18, Episode 6 recap: Mother knows best

Athena Dion, you master strategist. On last week’s episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, the first installment of this season’s Rate-a-Queen Talent Show, the mother of the House of Dion told us she had a plan. Armed with two members of her drag family in her cast—sister Mia Starr and (grand)daughter Juicy Love Dion—she had the initial makings of a power alliance that could control the numbers when it came time to voting in Rate-a-Queen. Pulling Kenya Pleaser into that deal, plus having a side agreement with Darlene Mitchell and Jane Don’t, gave her a lot of potential votes in the challenge. And considering Juicy and Mia won last week, it appeared that everything was falling into place.

Did this overt strategizing ruffle some feathers? Sure. Jane says in confessional this week that “the Dions are looking out for the Dions, first and foremost” while lamenting that she has no such support system in the cast. And later, when Athena is complaining about the Week 1 queens strategizing (truly rich coming from Athena) and says she voted last week with an earnest heart, Discord Addams repeats back “with an EARNEST HEART?” with the appropriate amount of incredulity. But who cares about the haters? Athena’s plan pays off perfectly, and she wins this episode. I can’t be mad at her … though I can question how valuable a win earned at least partially via strategic moves is on a show like Drag Race, where Ru can decide on a whim one week that you’re out no matter your track record.

I’m getting ahead of myself, though. We start this episode with Ciara Myst in survival mode, circling up with her fellow Week 1 queens to strategize on who would be easiest for her to beat in the Lip Sync for Your Life. “What’s with all this conspiracy going on?” Athena says while witnessing it. “This ain’t fair!” (Again, this is absolutely hilarious coming from her.) Ciara ultimately lands on targeting Discord, thinking she can beat her in a lip sync and guessing that Discord has no real allies in the Week 1 crew. Gag and surprise, though: Vita VonTesse Starr is very close to Discord, which we first got a hint of when Discord ranked Vita higher than you’d expect in last week’s Rate-a-Queen. Both Vita and Juicy rat Ciara out to Discord, with both promising to rate her high to counteract Ciara’s machinations.

Nini Coco, meanwhile, is pulling for Ciara. Though the GLAM! girl group did not vote together—Athena could laugh at their poor alliance management—Nini and Ciara remain close. Nini says she wants to judge mostly fairly, but if there’s a way to “nudge” Discord into the bottom, she’ll do it. This sets the stage for a messy Rate-a-Queen vote, with the six members of the Week 1 group at odds in their goals. Jane, meanwhile, is paranoid about the strategizing, worried that the other queens won’t get the Bette Midler reference in her cabaret number, and generally sour about all aspects of the Rate-a-Queen experience. Michelle Visage has to tell her not to catastrophise—this after several scenes of Jane catastrophising.

Speaking of: Michelle makes an impromptu trip to the werk room this week! She checks in with both groups, mostly just recapping with the Week 1 divas and hoisting proper praise on Mia and Juicy. With the Week 2 group, though, Michelle singles out Kenya to critique her for not knowing her words in the “Lights, Camera, Action” lip sync. This really throws Kenya for a loop, and you can see her usually quite sunny spirit immediately dim, and stay dim for the rest of their conversation with Michelle.

“America, drag is motherfucking hard,” Kenya says, starting a monologue I want stitched on a pillow. “Number one, you got a wig on. Your balls is between there. Doing splits and hair whips and boom kacks! To remember the words at the same time, and doing this, that, that. Make sure you’re engaging with the audience, engaging with the judges of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Bitch, that is a lot! Sometimes, the words will escape me.”

This whole sequence sets up that, yes, Kenya does indeed once again forget her lyrics in the talent show, and it’s commented upon in whispers by both Ru and Michelle. I really feel for Kenya here, both as a stan of hers and just as someone who wants the queens to succeed. Michelle’s advice feels almost designed to throw Kenya off her game, and her lip sync and colour guard performance does indeed feel distracted. Luckily, her allies stick by her in the Rate-a-Queen voting, but Kenya really should’ve been in the bottom slot this week. (Although I do love her trigger warning for Asia O’Hara for her butterfly look in the Shake Shake Shake runway category.)

Myki Meeks does a Bride of Frankenstein zombie burlesque number, and it’s quite fun and funny! It’s the most comedic take on burlesque that we’ve seen since BenDeLaCreme’s All Stars 3 talent show, and it shows the kind of cleverness that Myki brings to her club acts. In seeing performances like her Lea Michele mashup and her Publix subs number set to a Delta Work voiceover, you can see just how creative she is—and we haven’t quite seen that translate to Drag Race before now. I feel like, after this number and her super cool zip-tie runway, I get Myki more, and I’m excited to see her do well (plus, get high marks from the judges in deliberations).

But hold that thought for a moment.

Athena’s ultimately-winning Greek variety number is completely fine. She has just enough fun little bits—playing part of her costume like a string instrument, smashing a plate at the end—to keep it interesting, but this would be a safe talent show in nearly any other season. She does excel on the runway, though, in a slightly strange look made up of many eyes that is both campy and quite beautiful. She’s outdone in the talent show by Jane, whose tribute to Big Business is hilarious, catchy and perfectly her. It’s another strong week for Jane, earning top marks from both the judges and the queens judging her.

Then we come to Discord, and I’m at a bit of a loss on this one. She does a punk song called “Another Drag Song,” and it lampoons the expected lyrics in every drag song. It’s quite fun! However, she lip syncs it, and while she claims in a confessional that she’s playing instruments, there’s no real discernible difference in the track whether she’s playing one or not. It’s not really clear what the talent here is besides lip syncing and writing the song. This feels like such a natural moment for Discord to sing and perform live, which almost has me questioning if she was allowed to do so. Gottmik also did a similar act in All Stars 9, and I thought it was strange when she lip synced as well. However, Discord’s bloody CEO look is my favourite of the category. It’s a strong, clear statement, which stands out even more considering how confusing some of her other looks have been.

Onto judges’ deliberations, which are once again private so as to not influence Rate-a-Queen voting. Michelle backs up my feeling that Myki had “a pretty strong night,” while the judges really rag on Kenya. She’s in every judge’s bottom two, while Athena is in two of theirs and Discord is in one. Meanwhile, Ross Mathews actually puts Athena in his top two with Jane, while the other judges put Myki in there with Jane.

Still holding that thought about Myki? Good, because now we need to talk about the absolutely fucking whack-a-doodle Rate-a-Queen results. Somehow, Jane and Athena are the top two, while Myki is the bottom one of the week. How in the hell did this happen?

Unfortunately, we get a lot less information this week than last, which makes it harder to piece together exactly how we reached this episode’s result. Based on what we do see, Discord not being in the bottom slot feels near-impossible, while Athena’s top placement is easier to understand. The only queen whose ranking we can reasonably guess exactly right is Mia’s, as we know she put Kenya first, Myki third and Discord last. I would be floored if Athena were anywhere but second on her list, leaving Jane in fourth position. That should theoretically have made Jane’s situation hairy, but since she still lands in the top two, I’d bet good money that Darlene, Vita and Nini all put her first.

Speaking of Nini, her ranking is the one I’d love to know the most about, but we only know that she put Athena in second position. What that does tell us is that she did not honour the GLAM! alliance, as could’ve been predicted earlier in the episode. Again, I’m doing very sketchy guesswork on very little information, but I think Myki needed to be in either her fourth or fifth position for the math to keep Discord out of the bottom slot—meaning it’s possible that Myki ranked Nini first, only for Nini to turn around and rank Myki last. We’ll know for sure once the ratings are released, but if that actually happened, get ready for a gaggy reveal next week.

Anyway, Myki is clearly devastated to be voted last, and I can’t blame her. Athena in the top might be a bit puzzling, but I can understand it. I cannot understand Myki being voted lower than Discord and Kenya. And I say this as someone who has been underwhelmed by Myki all season! My hope is that she takes this as a fire under her ass moving forward, not as discouragement when she finally comes through with a great performance.

Athena wins the top two lip sync to Amyl and the Sniffers’ “Jerkin” against Jane, and Jane is gagged to lose a pop song to Athena. But judging based on the lip sync alone, Athena wins it fair and square—although neither is that great. The same could be said of Myki and Ciara’s battle to “Toxic” by Britney Spears. Neither delivers a performance nearly on the level of the late, great Jiggly Caliente in the Season 4 premiere to the same song (love that Ru takes a moment to think about Jiggly, by the way) but Myki is clearly better. She shantays to safety, and Ciara, despite all her attempts to find a way to stay, sashays away. In this episode, only one strategist could reign supreme, and that was Athena.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨ During her check-ins with the queens, Michelle praises Nini’s praying mantis performance, and notes how tight last week’s Rate-a-Queen judging must’ve been. “I think the Florida vote might’ve swung it just a little bit,” Nini jokes, to Juicy and Mia’s laughter. (Athena overhearing it, meanwhile, pulls a Sasha Velour “don’t joke about that.”) A lot of this episode is dedicated to Nini realizing what a massive blunder she made going Week 1, later saying during Rate-a-Queen that she would’ve swept the week. Oops! Lesson learned.

✨ Discord asks Michelle if her walk was any better last week, saying she’s “trying really hard” to get it right. She brings up, not quite so bluntly, the hypocrisy of Ru loving her walk and the judges hating it, and Michelle’s laugh speaks volumes—as if to say she knows it’s confusing and contradictory, but she’s gotta make it work.

✨ In other Discord news, her plan to throw Ciara off her trail is to talk loudly about how much she loves Britney Spears and “how she’s always been my pop diva.” (It kills me that Discord laughs at herself as she admits this plan in confessional. Am I becoming a Discord fan?)

✨ Amy Taylor of Amyl and the Sniffers is our guest judge. She’s fun! The drum machine joke got me. That said, I’m bummed for both her and Zara Larsson last week that they were guest judges on a week with no judging. Kinda limits the gig!

✨ “Ru Rule #39: The world is your stage. And every stage has a trapdoor. Remember that.” All righty then.

✨ Need a therapist to work with Athena and figure out why not being picked for the Q-pop girl groups is proving such a thorn in her side that she’s brought it up many days later in both Rate-a-Queen episodes.

✨ Jane says she feels “pretty confident” being able to win a lip sync to a punk song, considering Athena is “dressed like Donald Duck.” Don’t underestimate Donald’s ability to get punk, Jane!

✨ JANE: “We’ll save a seat for Jujubee!”

MICHELLE: “Always! Always!”

✨ “I just have an announcement: I really wish that the people voting today would not squabble my opportunity.” Kenya and I are equally obsessed with “squabble,” and I love that for us.

The next episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race will air Friday, February 13, at 8 p.m. EST on MTV in the U.S. and on Crave in Canada. Check back every Monday 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 month.