Welcome to Canada’s Drag Race Power Rankings! Every Saturday, we’ve debriefed the week’s new episode of Canada’s Drag Race Season 3 to determine which queens were riding high, and which needed she-mergency care. Now that we’ve crowned our champion, let’s take a final look at our top four queens.
3rd/4th: Kimmy Couture (last week: 4)
No one in this cast could rock choreography like Kimmy, and certainly no one could rock a short, sexy look like she could. She gave us both in this finale, and she looked damn good all the while! I honestly thought she had more of a chance of making the final lip sync than Miss Fiercalicious did, but perhaps the judges were worried that she’d simply outshine whoever was next to her in the LSFTC. (To which I say: that’s okay! Keep the crown in the Couture family!)
Kimmy was in many ways the heart of this season, letting her guard down to show us sides of herself that she wasn’t always comfortable showing. She was vulnerable about her past, proud of her present, and gave us a glimpse into her incredibly bright future. She didn’t need a Drag Race crown to ensure a terrific career—she’s going to earn that through her charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent. I can’t wait to see what’s next for Kimberly Couture.
3rd/4th: Miss Fiercalicious (last week: 1)
As I mentioned in my recap, I’m really underwhelmed by how the show ended Fierce’s arc. Like Bimini before her, if you’re going to give a queen a tremendous edit heading into the finale, why not ultimately give her the win? I would actually argue this was more egregious, since the top two lip sync format guaranteed Fierce had absolutely no shot at the win. Why did we spend so much time on an arc that ultimately went nowhere?
Beyond my frustrations with the edit, however, I’m still tremendously proud of what Fierce accomplished in this season. She was the star of the show for so much of it, and pulled off a redemption arc without sacrificing what made her uniquely Fierce. (If anything, I do think it was her still-occasional bitchy comments that should’ve been a giveaway that she wasn’t going to win.) With two challenge wins and just one lip sync under her belt, she had the same track record as Gisèle Lullaby; much as I’m a Jada Shada Hudson stan, I’m surprised it wasn’t Fierce vs. Gisèle in the finale. Alas, we’ll certainly see Fierce on another season—and when she gets on that, I give her high odds to take it all.
RUNNER-UP: Jada Shada Hudson (last week: 2)
Whatever perfect prediction luck I had for Drag Race winners in 2021 clearly left me back then, because between Jada and Lady Camden, I am not doing great this year. (I am cherishing my calling Blu Hydrangea’s win, while I think calling Jinkx Monsoon’s was a bit of a gimme.) I thought the amount of backstory focus Jada was getting, coupled with the edit showing off how she was learning to embrace her own beauty, meant hers was our clear winner’s story of the season. That was, clearly, a mistake! But I’ll give myself a pass that the edits this season were a bit all over the place—Drag Race UK-esque, I’d say.
Jada should look back on her Drag Race run with such pride, but I actually hope she appreciates more the ways in which she does not need the show to be the powerful queen she is. I thought her monologue about Michelle Ross comparing her favourably to Drag Race queens was quite compelling, and elucidated a part of drag culture we don’t see a lot: the ways in which non-Drag Race queens must compete for the spotlight with their TV-bound sisters. Clearly, being on Canada’s Drag Race has brought Jada some validation, and I’m happy she got that. But she doesn’t need that—she’s a superstar all on her own.
WINNER: Gisèle Lullaby (last week: 3)
This is truly a top four in which I would’ve understood anyone’s victory, so I’m thrilled for Gisèle. She may not have been my personal choice—in fact, she might’ve been my least ideal among these four—but I can’t possibly argue she didn’t deserve the victory. From her Marie Curie in Snatch Game to her jaw-dropping runways all season long, Gisèle brought a resumé into the finale that more than argued her case. And of course, as the first Québécois queen to win Drag Race, she now occupies a major spot in herstory.
If there’s one moment of Gisèle’s I’m going to remember most from this season, it probably won’t be any of her actual competition moments—it’ll be her standing up for Vivian Vanderpuss way back in Episode 3. Fierce was probably set to dominate the cast as the villain for the rest of the season at that point, but Gisèle did something Drag Race queens in the modern day rarely do: she put her foot down, fought back not for storyline, but for what she believed in, and walked out a victor. There was something refreshingly non-performative about Gisèle this season, and it’s a huge part of why I’m so happy for her victory. Congratulations to the new Queen of the North!
Why you can trust Xtra
