‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Season 18, Episode 15 recap: All Ru, all the time

This LaLaPaRuZa episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 18 puts me in two unenviable positions. For one, thanks to the all-RuPaul, all-the-time nature of the song selection, I have to defend RuPaul’s musical catalog. Look, I don’t love that we’re on what feels like the 187th lip sync to “Sissy That Walk,” either. But Ru’s got bops! “Catwalk”! “Adrenaline”! “Jealous of My Boogie”! “A.S.M.R Lover”! And while the selection of songs for this particular episode isn’t the best, there are still some real classics in this. Unsurprisingly, they inspire some great performances.

But the other unenviable position is tougher: I must both rave about this episode and argue that it is an indictment of the season as a whole. As an individual installment, it is an absolute blast. There are great lip sync battles, delightful interactions between the queens and a general sense of joy that the end of the season has mostly lacked. Shockingly, when you bring back the queens with the biggest personalities, the werk room springs back to life!

Therein lies the rub, though: this once again emphasizes the importance of boot order, and how this season’s pattern of eliminations really damned it as we got toward the endgame. The top three are barely present in this episode! And while, yes, they’re the ones watching from backstage, we’ve seen the finalists be enjoyable presences in past LaLaPaRuZa episodes. Sure, the show may just not have emphasized them in the edit … but why would they do that? They want their potential winners to be present and enjoyed! The sense projected in this episode is that, amid a bunch of bigger personalities, the top three can’t stand out—which is not a quality you’re hoping for from the only remaining contenders for the crown.

I have a bigger autopsy of Season 18’s problems coming in this month’s edition of Wig! (subscribe if you haven’t already!), so I’ll leave my thoughts on the problems with the season there for now. The good news is, for whatever issues plague the overall state of this show, this episode is a welcome distraction. A new twist on the LaLaPaRuZa format offers just enough intrigue, and the queens by and large deliver the kinds of performances you hope to see in a smackdown like this.

There’s some werk room setup as the queens get ready, including Mia Starr breaking down who the biggest threats in the room are: Juicy Love Dion, Kenya Pleaser and Mandy Mango. (She still believes Mandy won her last lip sync!) She doesn’t include herself, but obviously Mia is a major competitor as well. She, Juicy and Athena Dion also have the extra pressure of trying to keep the She Done Already Done Had Herses title in South Florida, as Morphine Love Dion and Suzie Toot are the previous champions. Juicy also admits in a confessional that, considering Morphine is her drag mother, she feels the weight of expectations even more so.

Soon enough, however, we’re on the main stage, and Ru is breaking down the new rules for the LaLaPaRuZa. The show has implemented a bye system: the longer a queen lasted in the competition, the more rounds she gets to skip. Kenya, Discord Addams and Jane Don’t all get to skip the first round, while Juicy gets to skip the first two—meaning Juicy only has to win two lip syncs to win it all. The others—Mia, Athena, Mandy, Vita VonTesse Starr, Ciara Myst and DD Fuego—all must perform in each round. That means if any of them hopes to win the $50,000 cash prize, they have to win four lip syncs.

I really like this new structure, both in concept and execution. It does feel fair that queens who performed better during the season get rewarded for their hard work. Additionally, it diminishes the likelihood of seeing the same queens over and over—unless they’re doing particularly great. The chance of a mid-level performer slipping through to later rounds because of weak opponents is much lower.

Let’s blaze through the first rounds to get to the more climactic battles later on: Ciara, dressed as Monstro Elisasue from The Substance, is picked first and chooses Athena as her opponent. Her plan is that she expects Athena to choose “Born Naked” as their song—and indeed she does. Neither is great in the lip sync, but Ciara has a reveal into Sue to complete her Substance story, and that seems to be enough for Ru. Mia opts to pick her beloved Mandy to go up against, and Mandy puts up quite a fight! The “Just What They Want” matchup is closer than I’d have ever expected, but Mandy’s underwhelming dips tip the scales in Mia’s favour.

Finally, DD and Vita are made to face off, and Vita is chosen to pick the song. She goes with “Main Event,” wanting a song she can relate and emote to. DD certainly gives a high-energy performance, but it’s a bit all over the place. Vita’s emotional interpretation is a better fit for the track—and not only that, but Vita knows her words to the lip sync! Ru calls it a win for Vita, and DD joins the growing gallery in the Untucked lounge to watch the Round 2 battles play out.

Poor Vita is immediately picked by the hopper to perform again, and perhaps too stunned to make good decisions, she chooses to face off against Mia. As a reminder, Kenya, Jane and Discord join the group of eligible opponents this round, and Vita chooses Mia. Okay then! As if to add insult to self-inflicted injury, Mia picks “Call Me Mother” as the song, a track she has choreographed to in the past and knows very well. It’s a wordy rap song, and Vita’s newfound command of lyrics does not translate to this song. She’s still quite good, though! Honestly, almost everyone is very good in this episode! Mia, however, is great, and when she points at her lips during one of the densest rap portions, and nails every word, it’s all over for Vita.

Kenya is chosen next, and she opts to battle Ciara. The alt queen goes with “Pretty Gang,” a Ru song that’s new to me, but I really like! The battle is fun, but you can tell Ciara is really trying to capture all the words, while Kenya is performing. Again, Ciara performs above expectations, but Kenya is dynamite. It’s her best lip sync of the season, in my opinion, and she advances to the semifinals for her efforts.

The last matchup is two who haven’t yet had to perform, Discord and Jane. And when Jane is chosen to pick the song, she knows what she must do. As a tribute to “one of the greatest walkers in the history of RuPaul’s Drag Race,” she chooses “Sissy That Walk,” sending the whole set into hysterics. It’s such a funny pick, and more to the point, it’s a savvy play on Jane’s part. She can parody the Discord Walk in the lip sync, snatching Discord’s signature bit away from her. Discord is having fun, but her command of the words is … dubious, to say the least. Jane takes a deserving win, and she’s not surprised. “Yeah, no duh. If I had lost a lip sync to Discord, I would’ve had to hang the wig up,” she says in confessional.

So far, so fun! But things are about to kick up a notch, as the winning quarterfinal queens are joined by Juicy for the semis. At this point, the only songs left are “Cha Cha Bitch” and “Peanut Butter,” and neither would seem to be in Jane’s wheelhouse. But she is particularly afraid of going up against either Kenya or Mia to “Peanut Butter,” and she knows either will pick that track. So she instead picks Juicy, and almost immediately it is obvious what a disastrous choice this is. “Jane, you are a silly little goose!” Juicy says in confessional, and picks “Cha Cha Bitch.”

There’s been some mumbling in the fandom that Juicy’s lip syncs are too similar, that she relies on the same tricks over and over again. Not only is this plainly incorrect if you take half a second to look at her performances—you’re telling me the queen who gave us “Total Eclipse of the Heart” has been relying on the same tricks?—but Juicy decides to make a point anyway by pulling out a trick we’ve never seen on the Drag Race stage in this performance. In perfect sync with the music, she does a handstand, revealing out of one dress and into another look. It is, no hyperbole, spectacular. Later, when Juicy does another handstand, this time into a split, Jane can only shrug in defeat, even miming tips to give her. It’s a TKO, and an easy pass to the finals for Juicy.

Earlier in the season, Kenya beat Mia to “Head Over Heels” by The Go-Gos, a song that didn’t play to Mia’s strengths. This is not the case for “Peanut Butter,” but Kenya is also in friendly territory on this track. It’s a real banger of a battle, and while Mia ultimately wins, I think it’s one of the closer matches of the episode. But with her victory, South Florida’s claim on the title is secure for a third straight year. The only question is: who exactly will be holding it? Athena, for her part, is happy to be a neutral party: “I’m excited, ’cause I think I can get money out of either of them!”

The final battle is set to “Cover Girl,” which is a fun flashback to the first-ever Lip Sync for the Crown in the Season 1 finale. Back then, BeBe Zahara Benet emerged victorious over Nina Flowers; I would argue that this battle, between drag aunt and niece, is comparably titanic. My notes for this performance read as follows: “lmao holy shit.” And honestly, not sure I could put it better in longer form! These two are electric performers! They’re great separately, and unbelievable together. The synced walking moment? I lived, I died, I was reborn. Both Juicy and Mia’s mid-season “Pretty Ugly” battle and this lip sync have been technically extraordinary. After it’s over, I’m left happy with whoever wins it all.

But in the end, the tradition of one of the last eliminees of the season taking the title continues, as Juicy wins out and earns the $50,000 cash prize. It is a hard-fought, well-earned one, and in this moment, I kinda wish we were watching the winner of the season crowned. I know Juicy has her fair share of folks who don’t believe she should’ve made the finale, and that she overstayed her welcome. But after watching two incredible drag artists battle it out, and one win in such commanding, deserving fashion, I can’t help but feel like whatever happens next week is destined to pale in comparison.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨ We only talked about 10 queens in this recap, but considering this season has a top three, we should’ve been talking about 11. At the top of the episode, as the queens reunite, Briar Blush says that while she’s recovering from her bout of sepsis, on doctor’s advice, she won’t be participating in the LaLaPaRuZa. It’s a bummer, but I’m glad Briar sticks around to offer commentary in the episode. (My personal favourite comes when Vita chooses to go up against Mia: “Does she have a death wish? Mama, Discord is right there!”)

✨ Do you guys prefer when the LaLaPaRuZa is shot right after, or somewhat shortly after, the season ends, à la this one and Season 16’s? Or do you prefer a bigger gap, as the show left for Season 17? I personally prefer the Season 17 format here, as it allows for updates based on what’s been happening in the real world. Suzie Toot had time to break out of her Suzie box and come back ready to battle in a whole new style, while we got updates on Kori King and Lydia B Kollins’ relationship. The reunion and finale should feel like their own “playoffs” of sorts, in my opinion, as opposed to regular in-season play. The time jump helps bolster that feeling. But I’m interested in others’ takes.

✨ Jane and Ciara hash out whether Ciara was intentionally planning sabotage with her suitcase in the swapped-materials design challenge. Ciara denies it—unconvincingly, in Jane’s eyes—but then notes that Jane still won the challenge. Jane says that the result is immaterial to the fact that Ciara was acting as “the Wile E. Coyote of drag,” which gets a good laugh out of me. The situation remains unresolved, but likely won’t come up again. Unless they put them both on the same All Stars bracket one day, I guess.

✨ Michelle Visage and Jamal Sims are the only judges on the panel this week, but as we know from past LaLaPaRuZas, they’re likely to be joined on the dais by the ball-rolling Pit Crew member. (A fact that inspired this very funny tweet.) And indeed they are: Asaf Goren, who’s been on a variety of other shows (including So You Think You Can Dance and The Challenge), sits up there for performances.

✨ Ru explains why this is an “All-RuPaul-a-PaRuZa”: “It’s because we can license all the songs for just a little bit of money,” he says on the main stage. “Oh, oh, there’s no money? I owe them four dollars!”

✨ Thank god there’s a live audience for this LaLaPaRuZa. Season 17’s felt so quiet without one.

✨ The final three have been getting knocked around a lot online for being perceived as “mid” or “underwhelming,” so I don’t want to pile on—but man, the looks they walk out in are just not at the level they need to be. Remember the looks Sapphira Cristál, Nymphia Wind and Plane Jane came out in for the LaLaPaRuZa in Season 16? I get that you’re just watching other queens perform, but this is one of the last chances to really stun Ru and the audience! It’s disappointing to see.

✨ Jane walking into the werk room after her defeat while saying, “Hey it’s me, Juicy Love Dion,” had me absolutely cackling.

✨ Man, Ru is really giving out Stop! That! Train! tickets left and right, huh?

✨ I know I said last week that things were signed, sealed and delivered for Myki Meeks to take the crown … but I have been surprised by the momentum Darlene Mitchell has built in the lead-up to the finale. I’m not sure if I can work up the nerve to change my winner pick from a queen with four wins and a track record that has been compared to Sasha Colby’s and Onya Nurve’s … but I don’t think this race is as wrapped up as I thought it was. (Except for Nini Coco, who is a distant last in the fan vote. Sorry, Nini.)

✨ Mia bringing real money to throw as tips for her lip sync with Mandy … that’s mother.

The finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race will air Friday, April 17, 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.