‘Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs The World’ Episode 5 recap: Acting up and out

You know, when I heaped praise on Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs The World for varying up the challenges from UK vs The World, I had assumed “as long as there are no acting challenges” was implied. Alas, here we are, at the final five of this shortened season, and we’re seeing these über-talented performers put through the overacting wringer in “Spy Queens.” A reminder that “different” does not always mean “good”!

I kid—mostly. The truth is that acting challenges are part and parcel of the Drag Race experience, and they likely always will be. And while “Spy Queens” is short on actually funny material, it’s no worse than your average acting challenge (though it does feel quite long). The problem here lies more with timing. Icesis Couture’s quit in the last episode has already stalled the season’s momentum a bit, with Canada’s Drag Race’s first non-elimination episode ever really only occurring because of a scheduling hitch.

Now, we’ve not only got an acting challenge as the final competitive task before the finale, but there’s also a very obvious fifth-placer among the lot. Vanity Milan spends the cold open of this episode learning that both Silky Nutmeg Ganache and her Drag Race UK Season 3 sister, Victoria Scone, were prepared to send her home last week. She pledges that this lights a fire under her ass, and that she’s going to return to the Vanity who won way back in the season premiere. But it would essentially take winning the challenge to subvert the expected outcome—we’ve seen this before, with Blair St. Clair in All Stars 5 most notably. Anything less would result in her elimination, unless her competition chooses to be cutthroat.

But that has not been the case this season, which has featured the queens dutifully sending out the worst-performing performer week after week. And there’s no reason to believe that will change this week, especially after Vanity is the clear worst in the challenge. Victoria and Rita Baga, our challenge winners this week, tease the possibility that they might suddenly go for the strategic play. Yet you have to imagine that they have the memory of UK vs The World fan backlash in their minds. Who wants to be harassed like Pangina Heals was when she sent Jimbo home—or like Blu Hydrangea was when she did the very same to Pangina?

No, suffice to say that Canada vs The World has been a very different show than its UK predecessor—and truthfully, neither gets the tone exactly right. UK vs The World was an oftentimes vicious display of cutthroat gaming, in which the drag took a bit of a back seat. Canada vs The World has conversely felt like a light, loving, fun series showcasing great drag, but the strategic potential of the format has gone effectively entirely untapped.

One might hope that a future vs The World could figure out the balance—but as of this week’s announcement of a new Global All Stars series, it seems unlikely that the vs The World franchise will continue. I’ll have more to say about this new series and the increasing international reach of Drag Race in a year-end piece about the franchise, but I am somewhat bummed that Paramount is taking control of the international All Stars concept before vs The World could figure itself out. I would’ve loved to see more takes on the format (I’m still personally crying out for an España vs The World), even if I agree that neither effort so far has hit the mark.

All right, I guess I can only delay talking about Spy Queens for so long. As defending lip sync winner, Victoria gets to cast roles. “Acting challenge casting drama” is only slightly more tolerable at this point than “comedy challenge performance order drama,” but it does present a slightly thorny situation for the British queen as both Vanity and Ra’Jah O’Hara don’t get what they want. Ra’Jah wants to be “the Reading Fundamentalist,” a role Victoria takes for herself, and winds up as “the Body-Ody-Ody” instead. Vanity, meanwhile, wants the same “Lip Sync Assassin” role that Silky ultimately gets, and is instead relegated to the “Look Queen” role. (Rita happily takes the “Mother of the House” role for herself, over the protests of no one.)

In practice, these roles are all pretty similar, so it’s a bit much ado about nothing. The challenge comes down to who’s most committed to the overacting, and who can rattle off their lines the most confidently. Rita’s the funniest of the lot, owing to her quirky sense of humour and her character being the most distinct. This is a much more defensible win than hers in the Canada’s Drag Race Season 1 acting challenge, to say the least.

But the queen who comes across as the most masterful actress, and also has the most inventive (and stage-breaking!) take on the Y2Gay “2000s club kid” runway category, is Victoria Scone. She scores her third top placement in as many weeks, and is heading into the finale with the best track record of those remaining. I’ll be frank: I didn’t expect Victoria to dominate this season in the way she has. I figured she would do well, but I assumed her storyline would be more about getting a real shot after being pulled out of the competition in UK Season 3.

How wrong I was! Once she got the warning from the judges after Snatch Game to step it up, she’s pushed the pedal to the metal ever since. I am somewhat dubious about her chances in a Lip Sync for the Crown tournament, but if she gets the right song and draw—as she did against Silky to “Your Daddy Don’t Know”—she absolutely could be a threat to win the title. That would make for two U.K. victors in a row, and would likely mean that the British franchise will hold a monopoly on vs The World victories.

But I’m still inclined to think Silky has this. Yes, her bottom placement is a little dubious this week, which could indicate the show isn’t invested in her success. After all, who’s to say Rita or Victoria wouldn’t send her home? However, I’m inclined to think, considering both Silky and Victoria were ready to send Vanity home last week, production isn’t scared about an accidental Silky boot. And even in her momentary trip to the bottom, the edit is staying very much still with the Season 11 and All Stars 6 veteran. The more I think about it, the more a story in which, years after Brooke Lynn Hytes knocked Silky out in the Season 11 finale, she’s the one who crowns Silky feels like where this season is going.

I guess the crown could still go to Rita, especially considering Icesis’s claims in the wake of her quitting that production was invested in the title staying in Canada. However, I think her path to a victory in a lip sync tournament would be limited: she’d need to beat either Victoria or Silky in the first round, and go up against Ra’Jah in the final. Because the final lip sync in a LSFTC tournament tends to be judged mostly on the season as a whole—see Jinkx Monsoon’s win in All Stars 7—she could win out by having the better track record between her and Ra’Jah. But I think that’s remarkably unlikely at this point.

Which brings us to the queen I really thought was going to win it all when this season began: Ra’Jah O’Hara. Honestly, I’m not sure what to make of her run on Canada vs The World. She’s been as delightful as she was in All Stars 6, and her challenge performances have been solid. But she hit some remarkable misfortune along the way, with her disappointing standup performance coming at a time when three queens out-performed her, and her ball looks disappointing relative to expectations while others (particularly Silky) outshone their own previous work. She’s just okay in the acting challenge this week, but the judges spare her a bottom slot by only announcing two queens up for elimination.

I still think Ra’Jah could dominate in a lip sync tournament, but I struggle to see a way in which she wins the final round if judging is indeed based on the season. Victoria has the strongest track record, Silky has a stronger report card and more narrative focus, and Rita has the Canadian edge. What a bummer considering the high hopes I had for Ra’Jah coming into this season. I’d really love to see her beat the odds and take home the crown, but I’m bracing for a different result.

We’ve successfully avoided talking much about Spy Queens in this recap, which is ultimately for the best. It’s a pit stop before the finale, nothing more. More interesting is the Y2Gay runway, which is inconsistent across the board, but in unique ways, and the lip sync to Estelle and Kardinal Offishall’s “Freak.” Victoria and Rita are messy in it, but in a very fun way. It’s also perhaps the longest lip sync of the season, with plenty of time for all of the two campy queens’ antics. Ultimately, Rita wins the lip sync, and, honouring her deal with Silky, sends Vanity home. 

See you all next week for the final recap of the season—and the final recap of Drag Race in 2022! Whichever queen takes home the title of Queen of the Motherpucking World, they’ll have done so after a fun, enjoyable season. And for all my wishes for more of the vs The World format, that’s as nice a way to end the year of Drag Race as I can imagine.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨ Up and Down: Not much more to say here that I didn’t already cover in the recap. Track-record-wise, Victoria is leading the pack, followed by Silky and Rita, and Ra’Jah trails with just one top placement (and no lip sync win). Truly a wild result relative to my expectations at the start of the season, but it goes to show you can never quite predict what Drag Race will throw at you!

✨ Let’s talk about wins on vs The World. The editing of the previous episode recaps is making it very clear that, like with UK vs The World and its badge distributions, the show is only treating lip sync wins as challenge wins. And I think that’s kind of a strange policy! In All Stars 2, the first season with the Lip Sync for Your Legacy format, Alaska clearly counted all of her wins (even without a corresponding lip sync) as victories, saying she won four in the penultimate episode of the season. Not only that, but every top placement was considered a win on All Stars 7 earlier this year. Why vs The World is doing this is unclear, since it allows for only five “wins” throughout the season. Although I guess it only matters for so much longer, with Global All Stars on the way. Congrats to our final challenge champ on what will likely be the last vs The World win!

✨ Silky chooses not to reveal she picked Vanity to go last week on the couch, instead telling her solo at the mirror. I get why she does this, citing her own mental health and fears for how Vanity would feel, but it is a little funny, years after Bebe Zahara Benet chose not to reveal her lipstick, that we finally get someone else refusing (even momentarily).

✨ Stylist Joe Zee is our guest judge this week. He’s fine! He doesn’t have a ton of unique insights to offer. I’d have preferred he judge the ball, but the guest judge placements were a little wonky all season long (with the exception of Gary Janetti on the comedy challenge).

✨ Ra’Jah tries to do Victoria’s dolphin noise from Spy Queens, but winds up imitating her Season 11 sister Mercedes Iman Diamond instead. “Shout out to Mercedes Iman!” she gleefully adds.

✨ Each of the characters in Spy Queens gets an entrance and tagline. Silky’s, a “death drop” joke, is the best, while Vanity’s master of disguise character references Revealiana. Bet you never saw that coming, baby!

✨ It’s camp that Traci Melchor is cast as the villain in the movie. Honestly, she’s my favourite part of it!

✨ Silky’s goal is to be on Grey’s Anatomy. Get Krista Vernoff on the phone to get Silky on!

✨ Interesting to hear Silky admit what should be obvious: Rita and Victoria should eliminate her, to have the best chance in the finale. That makes me even more confident in a Silky victory: they had their chance to take her out, but didn’t take it. Now watch her win out in the tournament.

The finale of Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs The World will be available to stream Friday, Dec. 23, 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 Tuesday afternoon.