We’ve only just begun, and yet here we are at the end of Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs The World. What a whirlwind this has been! It’s not been as, erm, hectic as RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs the World was, but the speed of the season has left us at the finale with a lot of storytelling left to do. (And with almost half of our cast still intact; it really is odd that a season with nine queens has a top-four finale.) Luckily, there’s not much to do in this finale in terms of the competition, which means one thing: lots of talking!
While yes, the finale is a bit heavy on scenes of queens discussing their experience or why they deserve to win, I actually think this is crucial for the framing of the season as a whole. Walking into this finale, we know a few things: Victoria Scone has dominated the season after being pulled from UK Season 3 early, while Ra’Jah O’Hara and Silky Nutmeg Ganache are close-knit sisters who have been through their entire Drag Race careers together. We know these as facts, and we’ve heard a bit about how these have affected the queens during the season, but we haven’t heard much about how they make for a case to win it all.
In this episode, all of these things come to the forefront, along with some surprising backstory about Rita Baga’s experience on Canada’s Drag Race Season 1. By the time we get to the Lip Sync Smackdown for the Crown, you have at least some reason to want each of these queens to win—or, at least, to believe that they’d be deserving of the crown and $100,000. That’s some remarkably efficient storytelling, although it obviously would’ve been better had it not all hinged on this finale alone. And by virtue of not having history with another one of the finalists, Victoria and Rita get slightly shorter shrift.
But in the end, Canada vs The World pulls off something pretty remarkable: it refashions itself as a capstone on Ra’Jah and Silky’s Drag Race story. They are our top two of the season—we’ll explain how in a bit—and this finale ultimately hinges it all on the culmination of a four-year sisterhood. Do I think Canada vs The World was about this story all along? Not really. But do I think, considering how short the season’s been, it’s a solid way to tie everything together? I do, and I think it makes for an unexpectedly strong final episode.
Credit: Courtesy World of Wonder
The finale comes down to three “parts” of sorts: a photo shoot (directed by All Stars 4 champion and Brooke Lynn Hytes’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race mentor sister Monét X Change!), a Coronation Extravaganza Eleganza runway category and the final three lip syncs of the season in the familiar tournament style. The first part is enjoyable, insofar as all four of our top queens are tremendously likable, and Monét is a terrific interviewer. These queens are practised at the finale game—only Victoria is on her first final episode—so you think they might sound a bit too practised in their stories. But no, everyone speaks from the heart, both here and later when talking to the judges on the main stage.
Already in these conversations, you can tell Ra’Jah and Silky have the stories needed to win the season. Theirs are modern epics of Drag Race, taking place across several seasons in parallel. In some ways, despite moving on the same track, their narratives are opposites: Silky started out strong in Season 11, making it to the endgame, while Ra’Jah was an early out. Meanwhile, on All Stars 6, Ra’Jah was a real threat to win the whole thing, while Silky went out third—although her ultimate comeback in the Lip Sync Rudemption Battle episode still gave her a moment of real triumph. However, their fan reception arcs have been unfortunately similar: widely negatively received in Season 11, with a much more positive response in All Stars 6.
Conversely, Rita and Victoria just don’t have enough juice in the tank to make their victory here feel climactic. Rita got to reveal more of herself this season, and as she’ll share later, she had a real crisis of confidence upon seeing how she was received by the fans in Canada’s Drag Race Season 1. Meanwhile, Victoria never got to even show what she had in her season, and already struggles to feel included as a cis woman doing drag. Both made the case for why they should be finalists, but theirs can’t help but feel like smaller, more personal stories next to the twin titans of Ra’Jah and Silky.
In the werk room, as the queens prepare for their final runway of the season—and no doubt for some of them, their Drag Race career—the queens discuss first impressions of each other. Once again, when it comes to Rita and Victoria, they’re cute, funny stories about this season. For Ra’Jah and Silky, it’s about first meeting four years ago, as depicted in archival footage, when Ra’Jah got her earring stuck in Silky’s hair. “And we’ve been attached ever since that moment,” Ra’Jah says, with Silky echoing her. I mean, come on! You rarely get stories like this on reality TV, much less Drag Race. It’s obvious all episode long where this is going, but it’s just hard to argue there could be a more fitting result.
Credit: Courtesy World of Wonder
On the runway, we first get to see the eliminated queens, all of whom look terrific. Kendall Gender is wearing a cosmic pink look that recalls Jan’s All Stars 6 promo, while Stephanie Prince is dripping in pearls. Anita Wigl’it is resplendent in seafoam green, while Vanity Milan is stunning in blue. The most breathtaking of all, though, is Icesis Couture, who is decked out in all black and wearing a face-piece that almost makes her visage look shattered. There’s a lot of love for Icesis to go around this episode, from the judges and the other queens in Mini-Untucked—and, of course, from me. So glad she got the chance to return for the finale (although it only makes me more confused as to why UK Season 4 basically erased Baby from their endgame).
Among the final four, Silky is resplendent in yellow, wearing high hair that could not possibly be closer to god. Ra’Jah is in purple, naturally, complete with matching wig; Rita drips in silver jewels in a look that I imagine was incredibly expensive (and looks it!). The tops on the runway has to go to Victoria, however, who comes out dressed as a literal crown. It is a jaw-dropping look, and instantly vaults her to the upper heights of my personal favorite runways list. The judges joke that she’s trying to tell them something, and while Victoria ultimately doesn’t win the season, she certainly makes the argument that she should get a crown of her own one day. (UK All Stars, perhaps?)
On the runway, the judges show all the queens their looks from their photo shoot—all great, but Ra’Jah’s is particularly perfect. She notes that she walked out of Season 11 by saying, “To the moon,” and now here she is, in a photo shoot depicting her blasting off into space. Her growth since then has been astronomical, and despite her track record not matching her All Stars 6 performance, I believe her when she argues that this is actually her time to shine. “I stand before you today a purple queen,” she says. “Ready for the green!”
Other great moments in the final chats include Silky admitting she walked into the finale of Season 11 knowing she wouldn’t win, but knowing now that it’s her time, Rita opening up about her gender journey and her relationship with calling herself an “alien,” and Victoria—oh my god, Victoria—proposing to her girlfriend! This is a goddamn delight, especially for the judges’ and other queens’ reactions (“Say yes! Say yes!” Ra’Jah says to the camera), and I can’t wait for Dani, Victoria’s girlfriend, to see it. It’s Drag Race’s first proposal, and it feels so lovely and genuine.
Credit: Courtesy World of Wonder
Okay, everyone: it’s time. In a fun twist on the Lip Sync for the Crown selection format, each queen picks a numbered box. Two of them each have the same song; the queens who pick the same song will face off. This leads to the Americans splitting up, with Ra’Jah facing off against Victoria to Nelly Furtado and Missy Elliott’s “Do It” (an absolute BOP) and former alliance-mates Silky and Rita battling it out to a Love Inc. song that was new to me, but I’m already obsessed: “Broken Bones.” These battles basically go as you’d expect: Ra’Jah and Victoria both miss some words, but Ra’Jah’s just a far better-suited dancer for “Do It.” Rita actually gives Silky a real run for her money with her emotional take on the song, but it gets to be a bit one-note, while Silky plays with the levels more (and dances better).
This leads to our final match, and it’s one literally years in the making. Despite competing in 15 episodes against one another across three seasons, Ra’Jah and Silky have never lip synced against one another. Even trying to find some common ground to compare them is difficult: Ra’Jah and Silky both beat Scarlet Envy in a lip sync, for instance, but neither was able to outright beat Brooke Lynn (with Ra’Jah’s tie on “Miss You Much” coming closest). The two come out ready to do battle, in reveal-focused looks that they can nonetheless move around in easily. The final song is Céline Dion’s cover of “River Deep, Mountain High,” and goddamn, what a show. These two give everything they have, and the second I start to think one is winning it, the other comes roaring back. It is one of my favourite final lip syncs ever—maybe my absolute favourite? The queens know just how hard they kill it, too, as Ra’Jah tells a crying Silky, “We did it bitch, I’m so proud of us.”
After a titanic final battle, Brooke Lynn congratulates both her former Season 11 sisters. Only one may win, but they’re both superstars. But the Queen of the Mother-Pucking World is indeed Ra’Jah O’Hara! She may not have had the strongest season, walking into the finale with the fewest wins of the group. But her overall body of work and story were incredibly compelling, and she slayed the hell out of her final lip sync. Though I was pulling for a Kylie Sonique Love win in All Stars 6, it was brutal that it came at the expense of Ra’Jah winning a crown. Thank goodness that Canada vs The World has now given her the chance to earn one of her own!
Ultimately this was a fun little season, but the amount of storytelling Drag Race can do in six episodes just isn’t enough. That’s why I think this season, and this finale, got very lucky that Silky and Ra’Jah’s years-long friendship could be the major narrative driver. It’s easy to understand just how momentous this final two is if you’ve watched Season 11 and All Stars 6, in a way it wouldn’t be if there were another pair of finalists. (Another point for the Drag Race multiverse.) It helps that they’re the best lip syncers in the cast, too.
So I’m happy with this as Drag Race 2022’s final chapter, but it’s easy to imagine a world in which it wasn’t such a satisfying final note. Whatever Global All Stars turns out to be, it can stand to take a lot of lessons from these two installments of vs The World. But the biggest one I hope it learns is that you need more time and more episodes to build; a season should be able to stand on its own as a satisfying story.
I can’t imagine this’ll be the last we see of Ra’Jah or Silky. Though it’s unlikely that they’ll do another full season—though you should never doubt a potential All Stars All Winners 2 run—there are ways for them to stay involved. Neither has appeared as a Lip Sync Assassin on All Stars, and they’d both make for great mentors on the upcoming third season of Secret Celebrity Drag Race. But for now, their Drag Race journeys come to a close, as what is effectively the last act of the VH1 era of Drag Race. How fitting that, as Season 15 prepares to premiere on MTV, we end on the crowning of one of the previous era’s greatest characters. Long may she reign!
Untucking our final thoughts
✨ I know I came into this saying Ra’Jah was unlikely to win, but this finale and her lip syncs (particularly the last) made the case that you can never really count a queen out. No matter the result, I think it’s fair to say it was a close decision between these two. Much as I might think I have the Drag Race formula figured out, at the end of the day, it’s when I’m surprised that I love the show most.
✨ Rita notes she made the decision to send Vanity home last week in part because she wanted to honour her deal with Silky. Victoria also chose Vanity’s lipstick, which means the same decision was made by both queens every single week. The queens seem to appreciate this; I am, admittedly, a bit bored. As I said last week, I do think this season was a bit too soft at times, but the love between the queens probably makes this the right fit tonally.
✨ Monét is a delight all episode, from coaching the photo shoots to guest-judging on the main stage. I cackle when she tells Ra’Jah that the lipstick she’s posing on is about to buck like a mechanical bull.
✨ “This show taught me how to cry on fuckin’ TV.” Silky, giving thanks to Drag Race for one more skill.
✨ Rita’s exit is perhaps one of the classiest I’ve ever seen on the show. Silky is overwhelmed after winning their battle, and Rita gives her a vote of confidence by raising one finger, reminding Silky of her signature pre-lip-sync ritual. (It’s no surprise to me that she comes out holding one finger up ahead of the final battle.) Then, upon exiting, she reminds us of her Edith Piaf Snatch Game: “This will be my final act.” Cannot wait to see her hosting Drag Race Belgique.
✨ Thank you all for reading our coverage not just of Canada vs The World, but of nearly 60 episodes of Drag Race this year! Looking back, I can’t say I particularly loved any single season—in stark contrast with 2021, in which I loved All Stars 6 and Canada’s Drag Race Season 2 deeply—but none was a total flop, either. I’m really hyped for the birth of Drag Race’s MTV era, though; these Season 15 girls look ready to make a big splash. (Who are my early faves? Gotta go with two of my L.A. queens: Salina EsTitties and Sasha Colby.) We’ll be back with recaps in the new year. Until then, let’s bask in the reign of our new, and perhaps only, Queen of the Mother-Pucking World!
The premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race’s 15th season will air Friday, Jan. 6, 2023, at 8 p.m. EST on MTV 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.
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