‘Canada’s Drag Race’ Season 2, Episode 6 recap: Sinning all the way

Cliques have an interesting history in the RuPaul’s Drag Race franchise. Two members of Season 3’s Heathers faced off in the finale for the win, with Raja beating out Manila Luzon. All three members of Rolaskatox (Season 5 and All Stars 2) got to the top four twice, but it took two tries to get Alaska a crown. And the Bitter Old Lady Brigade was an infamous challenge for Ginger Minj in Season 7, as her and Kennedy Davenport’s negativity toward Pearl and Violet Chachki in the final Untucked episode is frequently cited as the reason Ginger didn’t win. But no matter what happened, each clique inspired plenty of discussion and debate.

The Brat Pack, made up of Gia Metric, Kendall Gender and Synthia Kiss, promised to be a similar kind of clique when introduced in the Canada’s Drag Race Season 2 premiere. Their exuberance upon seeing each other was infectious to some but annoying to others. One queen, Stephanie Prince, even dismissed them as “narcissistic,” while Eve 6000 would attempt in a later mini-Untucked to shame Kendall for only hanging out with her Brat Pack sisters.

Theoretically, this would all be interesting… but we haven’t actually seen much of it. In fact, outside of a couple of team selection choices, the Brat Pack has mostly integrated with the rest of the group. And at least from what we’ve seen, they all seem to be lovely, kind people. So while I have some empathy for Kendall and Synthia when they wind up lip-syncing against each other in this episode, it’s difficult to get emotionally invested in the outcome. Two friends and nice people will have to fight for their lives in the competition. How many times have we seen that happen across Drag Race’s many seasons? Dozens, for sure. Hundreds, maybe?

All of which to say, this “Sinners’ Ball” episode of Drag Race is enjoyable, but it misses the boat when it comes to storytelling. We don’t even hear how the queens might feel about performing against each other until it’s just about time for the lip sync to begin. And when one does defeat the other, there’s no real argument as to whether it was the right call. Thus the Brat Pack storyline effectively ends—not with a bang, but with a whimper.

The maxi-challenge, as introduced by the (thankfully) returning Amanda Brugel, is the Sinners’ Ball. That’s right: we’re getting a ball challenge in the middle of the season! In my opinion (as well as that of some Xtra readers), this is the perfect place for it. Later in the season leaves too little room for clear judgments, while too early makes for a mess of too many looks. Having it during the top seven allows the queens to demonstrate a range of looks, and allows us to keep up with what they’re serving.

The categories for this ball are “Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll” (in other words, rocker chicks), “Ugly as Sin” and a created-on-the-spot look to match one of the Seven Deadly Sins. The latter has been requested over and over by fans, so it’s fun to see it implemented in a ball themed around sin.

We’ve got quite a few seamstresses in this group, which results in high-quality garments across the board. Four queens score high: Icesis Couture, our winner, as well as Gia, Pythia and—surprisingly, considering how much she’s been shown struggling in workroom segments this season—Kimora Amour. Kimora gets the Envy box of materials for the third category, and Icesis notes that she just doesn’t seem very inspired. Kimora thinks about going in an Amazonian direction, but ultimately goes with a serpentine outfit that the judges all adore.

Nothing—and I mean nothing from anyone this week—gets the reaction that Kimora’s Ugly as Sin look does. From the start, you can see that this is going to be something unique, as the camera fades to black after Synthia’s runway walk. Kimora then comes out in character as an enslaved person, walking slowly down the runway with her hands bound. Her point, she shares in confessional, is that slavery is the ugliest sin. The judges are left speechless as Kimora delivers a rousing, political performance, complete with breaking herself from the shackles and running to freedom. It’s striking, memorable work, best explained in Kimora’s own words:

“There are a lot of portrayals when it comes to slavery. And it is visceral, and it hurts. We are a set of people who honestly do not know where we come from. We literally have no home. It’s why I take such pride in being Guayanese, because it gives me something to hold onto. And that emotion came forward on the stage tonight. The pain, and the suffering, is ugly as hell. And I don’t think the world often sees that and understands how much it still hurts our community.”

Drag Race has a spotty history with political art. The piece that comes to mind is Mariah Paris Balenciaga’s spoken word from the All Stars 5 premiere, which was waved through to safety with only a comment from guest judge Ricky Martin about its powerful message. The same happened with Symone’s “Say Their Names” runway look in Season 13, which also came and went without much discussion on the show itself (but inspired a great amount of dialogue off of it). When it comes to saying something about the world we live in, Drag Race is most often happy to default to a broad (if true) message that drag and queerness are political. At its worst, it just holds up a “Register to Vote” sign at episode’s end and goes no further.

So it’s genuinely stunning to see Kimora’s presentation not only depicted respectfully, but given proper, complete kudos by the show. It’s not enough to get Kimora the win this week, but it’s not about the win—it’s about using the platform that she has to make a statement about slavery and its depictions. It’s really special, and I’m more glad than ever that Kimora has been a part of this season.

It’s Icesis who does get the win this week after turning out three entirely different looks: a Jem and the Holograms reference for her rocker chick garment (including a pink leather jacket I would love for myself), a crocheted toilet paper cover for her Ugly as Sin runway and serving “hellraiser, but make it lesbian” in leather and chains for her Wrath-inspired look. It’s a well-deserved win—Icesis’ second of the season—and it puts her in a remarkably good place moving forward.

Gia and Pythia also score high, while Adriana barely avoids the bottom two. She gets Lust, and while I admire her chesty take on the prompt, she seems to miss the point by thinking the problem with her outfit is the amount of skin. In truth, the design is just too simple, and really stands out against some of the more sophisticated entries.

But alas for the Brat Pack, two of their members must face off in the bottom. (Gia looks absolutely devastated during the lip sync at seeing her friends battle to stay in the race.) I can’t disagree with either decision: Kendall’s Ugly as Sin look is confusing, complete with a cat puking on her, while Synthia’s Ugly as Sin look is actually incredibly cute. As judge Brad Goreski notes, it’s the cutest thing she’s worn all season: “Really bad timing!”

The two lip sync to DJ Sammy’s “Heaven,” which is a bop and a half, and gets a performance deserving of its delirious dancefloor vibes. Kendall really goes for it, even falling out of her costume and revealing her breastplate’s nipple at one point. Synthia, by contrast, just doesn’t keep up, especially when compared to her other lip sync performances. Again, this is an easy call, as an emotional Kendall shantays.

I’ll miss Synthia, and I’ll also miss the story we didn’t really get from her. As she says upon her departure, Drag Race reinvigorated her love of drag, and as we know from her “Meet the Queens” interview, she’d taken a hiatus from it before coming on the show. What could Synthia’s arc have been this season had we heard more about that journey? It didn’t feel like the show really invested in Synthia beyond her involvement in the Brat Pack and her Snatch Game win.

Alas, we’ll always have Rachel Zoe. And for me, I’ll always have her “Bye Flop” verse, which remains criminally underrated. #Justice4MissKiss.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨Kimora gets the first word of the episode with her confessional about lip sync assassin Synthia: “Hurricane Synthia strikes again! Done! Knockout! KO!” Sad for Synth that the hurricane petered out.

✨Amanda Brugel is blonde this week! She looks as gorgeous as ever.

✨A couple of fun Drag Race references in this episode: after the RuMail message, the queens reference “it’s fashion” while trying to decipher it. And later, upon seeing Icesis’ final look, Brooke Lynn Hytes calls her “Lawrence Chain-ey,” in full Ru voice.

✨I love a fun, dumb mini-challenge, and having the queens dress in “artiste” drag and paint their saboteur is as fun and dumb as it gets. Icesis gets by far the biggest laugh when she improvs through her jacket falling off (“There goes my jacket. Sabotage and delusion”), and thus easily gets the win. A clean sweep for Icesis!

✨We get a lovely, really honest conversation among the girls in the workroom about pronouns and ever-expanding ideas of gender and sexual identity. Kimora professes some ignorance when it comes to letters of the queer-inclusive acronym beyond “LGBT.” Both she and Icesis share that in their households growing up, to call someone “they” was insulting. It’s a really great conversation because it allows the queens to learn from each other. More of this in our public discourse, please!

✨I don’t know if I can say I even kind of like Brooke Lynn’s look this week, but I’ll continue to admire her for taking big swings on the runway. We always have something to talk about with her looks!

✨Brad Goreski really comes into his own as a judge this week, vehemently disagreeing with Brooke Lynn about the quality of Icesis’ rocker chick look and not letting the argument go. It’s nice to see him not just recite funny quips and instead really dig in to the criticism. Were the show to bring back Stacey McKenzie as BLH’s permanent Michelle Visage-esque right hand and have Brad and Amanda rotate as the third judge, I think they’d have the formula figured out.

✨Synthia calls out the history of losing on your third lip sync on Drag Race, which was a well-established rule in the earlier seasons of the show. However, it’s worth noting that that’s become less true over time: more and more queens have survived three and even four lip syncs, and in fact most who don’t make it usually lose on their second. Synthia losing on her third feels a bit like a history lesson gone wrong; those who learned their history were nonetheless doomed to repeat it.

The next episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK will be available to stream Thursday, Nov. 25, at 9 p.m. EST on WOW Presents Plus in the U.S. and on Crave in Canada.