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. Designing for Brooke Lynn Hytes gives the queens an unprecedented task—and one queen rises to the challenge.
6. Xana (last week: 1)—ELIMINATED
An unfortunate exit for Xana, who goes out without any kind of resolution in her fight with Makayla Couture. But this elimination was basically inevitable: she designed the worst look for Brooke and happened to be in the bottom two with a frontrunner. Even if there was a temptation to keep her around to further the plot with Makayla, there was no reasonable way to keep her in. Moreover, I’d actually argue there wasn’t any juice left in that storyline: had she stayed and apologized, Xana would’ve either had to so completely change her tune that she would not be Xana, or she’d have to revert back to villainy and piss the cast off again.
Xana and Makayla can patch things up when the eliminated girls return in the finale, and I have a feeling they will. But I’d actually like to warn future Drag Race contestants to heed Xana’s as a cautionary tale. You can’t simply be antagonistic ad nauseam to your fellow queens, then clam up the second you’re challenged. You’ll piss off the fans who hate villains, then you’ll piss off the fans who love villains because you couldn’t stand behind your dish. While I appreciate that Xana got chances to show off her softer side this season, her blatant strategy to play the villain to the hilt ultimately backfired.
5. The Virgo Queen (last week: 6)
Here is where I once again remind us all that falling into the bottom twice on Canada’s Drag Race is not a death knell. Priyanka and Icesis Couture, the very first winners, had to fight their way to the finale in a pair of lip syncs each. Virgo still has two maxi-challenge wins, which keeps her at the front of the pack—although I think she’s been knocked out of pole position by another queen. (We’ll get to her in a second.)
More problematic when considering Virgo’s winner chances is just how relatively invisible she’s been in the edit. Say what you will about Venus—a queen I personally adore but whose win was treated as one of Drag Race’s greatest crimes by fans—but she was a major character throughout Season 4. Virgo’s presence in the story is reminding me more of Aurora Matrix’s: she’s good in challenges and has some memorable moments, but I don’t think we’re seeing an argument for her win in the edit. She’s still probably my pick to win, but I feel worse about that prediction now than I have all season.
4. Perla (last week: 2)
I don’t think Perla was genuinely one wardrobe malfunction away from the win—I think Minhi Wang and Helena Poison were comfortably ahead of her—but she’s still gotta be kicking herself over that reveal of Brooke’s panty. While Perla has done well in this competition, her trajectory on this season has been a lot wonkier than her work reflects, and a last-minute top placement could’ve helped it look a lot better. As it stands, I think it’s between her and Helena for the last slot in the final four.
In Perla’s corner is that she does have a maxi-challenge win, which isn’t nothing. Never before has a queen made it to the finale on CDR without a win. Helena could still Scarlett BoBo it next week and knock Perla out, but I don’t know how Helena’s going to do in a talk show task. Conversely, I actually could see Perla’s natural sense of humour serving her well there. If Perla can win that challenge, she’ll be sitting very pretty in that finale.
3. Makayla Couture (last week: 5)
Makayla had been sitting on her bubbling-up anger toward Xana for weeks, and she finally let it all out. I can’t blame her, and while I understand Minhi wanting to make sure she didn’t say anything she’d regret, I also think we as a culture-consuming people police word choices too much these days. Does Makayla really think Xana is “disgusting”? Probably not, but in that moment, she was disgusted with Xana—and fairly so! Makayla calling her that does not automatically put Makayla in the wrong for her whole point. Moreover, Xana and Makayla have lived many months since this episode was shot, and we have no idea whether Makayla has since taken that back, or clarified, or apologized or whatever. I trust these two as professionals to hash out their own shit, and I’m not going to blame Makayla for word choices in the heat of a very angry moment.
Okay, onto her challenge performance: I think Makayla made a major mistake owning up to her wardrobe malfunction being an actual mistake. Who cares if it wasn’t the intended malfunction! Own it, make it a moment and never come clean about the error. Those judges were eager to give Makayla a win for her Brooke look, and I fear she squandered the chance. Still, Makayla remains this season’s main character in many ways, and if we’re talking about whose edit most closely resembles Venus’, I think we’re looking at a real threat to take it all in Makayla.
2. Helena Poison (last week: 4)
This felt like the last stop for Helena, who really needed a win here. I’m honestly not sure why she didn’t get it, beyond the judges just not being particularly invested in her. Canada’s Drag Race tends to really spread out wins, and Brooke’s praise of her outfit was effusive enough to split things her way this time. The fact that she didn’t win this week makes me believe she is likely our fifth-placer this season.
… or is she? I clocked an interesting critique from Traci Melchor during deliberations, in which she complimented Helena for getting more comfortable with comedy. The thing is: I don’t think that’s true? Literally a week ago, Helena failed to crack so much as a joke during Snatch Game. (She did win the reading mini-challenge, but everyone else failed so mightily that I can only give her so much credit.) So I was already wondering why the show would include Traci saying that—and then we saw in the preview that next week’s is a talk show challenge. Could Helena get praise for her humour in the challenge and pull off a win? I’m skeptical, which is why I still would bet on Perla out-performing her in it, but something to keep an eye on.
1. Minhi Wang (last week: 3)
Our frontrunner, ladies and gentlemen. I didn’t expect this at the start of the season, but Minhi has put up a pretty amazing track record. Two wins and two high placements? A Snatch Game that she easily could’ve won? Never even placing in the bottom three? Sure, she’s gotten lucky with some placements (the Lip Sync Slay-Off results in particular really saved her), but those feel like distant memories compared to her momentum at the end of the season. I’m a huge Minhi fan, but I was concerned she had a ceiling in this competition. Now? I’d say she’s in second or third position to win the whole thing.
I imagine there will be a temptation to say that Minhi’s two wins both being for design challenges could hinder her, but you know who else had just two design challenge wins? Icesis Couture. Not bad company to keep, to say the least.
Why you can trust Xtra
