Welcome to Canada’s Drag Race Power Rankings! Every week, we’ll debrief the week’s new episode of Canada’s Drag Race Season 5 to determine which queens are riding high, and which need she-mergency care. What if I told you that both of this season’s frontrunners had to lip sync for their lives this week? And what if I told you that both survived?
7. Uma Gahd (last week: 4)—ELIMINATED
This wasn’t the way Uma would’ve wanted her run to end, I’m sure, but I’m glad she went out fighting. She was clearly pissed, and there’s an argument to be made that she got screwed by the Wooden Beaver twist. (I disagree, though: I think Makayla Couture’s runway would’ve kept her safe, and The Virgo Queen would’ve beaten Uma in the lip sync.) But I think Uma perhaps misunderstood what Brooke Lynn Hytes and the judges were talking about regarding passion.
In the werk room, Uma was consistently opinionated, vocal and willing to get into arguments. During challenges and critiques, she often came across more timid. I’m not saying arguing with the judges every week would’ve kept her around, but I do think there’s a world where, say, they weren’t quite as invested in Xana because another queen was giving them the fire they wanted to see. Alas, this season wasn’t Uma’s to win, but I’d be interested in seeing her return someday. My guess is she’d be even fiercer and feistier on a second go-around.
6. The Virgo Queen (last week: 2)
The question “What can’t Virgo do?” was swiftly answered this week, as she absolutely bombed Snatch Game. To her credit, she knew it, and didn’t try to make excuses. But I understood Brooke’s frustration: she was really giving Virgo every chance to banter with her, and Virgo was just unwilling and/or unable to do so. She brought it to the runway and to the lip sync, so she at least ended the episode on a high note. But I really worry about Virgo if we get another comedy challenge. A roast as the penultimate episode is possible, and between Snatch Game and her piss-poor reading challenge performance, I would put odds on Virgo to fail again. Plenty of queens have hit the bottom two twice and still won Canada’s Drag Race—Priyanka and Icesis Couture, the two original winners, say hello—but one would ideally hope to not have to fight for your life in the competition so close to the finale.
5. Makayla Couture (last week: 1)
I’ll cut Makayla more slack than the judges and her fellow contestants did. She did have a clear idea of Oprah Winfrey, even wearing the outfit the talk show mogul wore in her mega-viral Meghan and Harry interview. The problem was that she didn’t know how to communicate that idea effectively in banter, only in pre-planned jokes. (Though I did like the look-under-your-seats bit.) She redeemed herself on the runway, and I do think she was probably safe in a traditional bottom two scenario. But through both the twist and the results of Snatch Game, the judges clearly wanted to make a dramatic point, and so we got a bottom three.
I would rank Makayla a decent-but-distant second in the lip sync after Virgo. That mirrors an interesting trend this season: Makayla is receiving the lion’s share of time and focus in the edit, but she’s consistently getting out-performed by her fellow frontrunner. We saw Venus win last go-around over Aurora Matrix despite a technically inferior track record—might we see another come-from-behind victory this season?
4. Helena Poison (last week: 6)
A design challenge coming next week after an inspiring believe-in-yourself moment in Mini-Untucked? Pencil Helena in for a win, I’d say. She’s the most talented seamstress left in the top six—Minhi Wang may have won the last design challenge, but that was with some pretty specific criteria—and the edit has invested enough in Helena that I think she’s getting a win before she’s eliminated. You could tell how ready she was not to be saved this week, and that Perla giving her the Wooden Beaver meant a ton to her. I really hope I’m right and that she embraces this new fire under her ass. I really like Helena, and I think she’s got a case to be in the finale. But it probably will take her getting a win to get there over two of Minhi, Perla and Xana.
3. Minhi Wang (last week: 5)
I don’t entirely disagree with Minhi’s feeling that she should’ve won this week. If anything, I think the “ultra-straight man turns out to actually be gay” trope might’ve felt too similar to Melinda Verga’s winning Manny Pacquiao from last season. But by and large, Minhi did land more of her jokes. Guest judge Steph Tolev was right: the journal of dicks was a really good visual gag that offered more avenues for jokes than just being a crutch prop (in contrast to Uma’s sponges). On the runway, Minhi’s look was okay—kind of a modified and less impressive version of Sasha Velour’s step-down look in the Season 10 finale—but of course, runways weren’t considered when choosing this week’s maxi-challenge winner. So while it was a close call between her and Xana, I can understand why the judges went the way they did.
2. Perla (last week: 3)
Two things really impressed me about Perla this week: her Mary-Kate Olsen was remarkably funny, if not particularly Mary-Kate (and kind of a dated impersonation choice anyway, no?), and she handled the Wooden Beaver negotiation expertly. Let’s talk about the second of those, because I think it will go largely underrated. Yes, Xana made a strategic move disguised as simply paying Perla back a favour. But Perla is the one who gave Xana that window by making her pitch not about Snatch Game, but explicitly about saving her before. Perhaps Xana would’ve made the same move without Perla’s pitch, but I admire that Perla knew the right campaign to make at that moment. She made the move to save Xana a while ago that seemed to have no immediately discernible payoff, but she played her card exactly when she needed to. I still have doubts that Perla can get to the finale simply based on how her edit and the judging of her performances have been. But few will be happier than me if she makes it there.
1. Xana (last week: 7)
Sometimes, the universe hands you a gift that you simply must take. In this case, it was the most dramatic queen in the cast turning in one of the only decent, committed performances in Snatch Game, at the exact moment a revolutionary new twist was about to be added to the game. Not to take anything away from Xana’s win, her Bettie Page really was one of the only highlights in this challenge (the voice!), but you’d be naive to believe that Xana’s penchant for drama wasn’t in the producers’ minds when they gave her the power of the Wooden Beaver. Minhi wasn’t gonna draw as much drama out of this twist as Xana did, that’s for sure.
We did get to see a more complex side of Xana once again in this episode, as she opened up about her drug-addicted mom and her guilt over feeling like an enabler. It was nice to see the other queens rally around her during that mirror moment, and I liked that Xana was able to admit that some of her more hard-ass tendencies come from a dark place, but that she really does appreciate the sisterhood of this group. Now that she has a win under her belt, could Xana make the finale? It’s possible, but I’m not sure one good Snatch Game performance in an otherwise underwhelming track record will get her there. (Melinda got cut in fifth place, after all.) But for this moment, Xana fully stole the spotlight and became the star of the episode. Proud of her!
Why you can trust Xtra
