‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Season 17, Episode 14 recap: Vegas or bust

Back in Season 12, the typical Rumix episode at the end of any modern RuPaul’s Drag Race season was replaced by a new task. There was still a verse-writing element to it, but the song they were writing for was a remix of “Losing is the New Winning,” a big showstopper at the end of RuPaul’s Drag Race Live. The challenge was designed to promote the new Las Vegas revue, although the timing of it was unfortunate as the show was dark thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s like a giant flashing sign throughout the episode reminding us what’s not happening in our world,” I said of all the RuPaul’s Drag Race Live tie-ins in that episode’s recap. I wondered while watching if the show would ever return—it did take nearly a year before it came back—and if that challenge would just forever feel like a big advertisement for something that never quite worked. What I didn’t say at the time, but felt, was that even if the show were ongoing, I didn’t like that the final in-season challenge was reduced to a marketing ploy for Ru and World of Wonder’s latest venture.

Flash-forward five years, and RuPaul’s Drag Race Live is a hit. It provides another genuine pathway for queens to find success off the show, as evidenced by a star-studded cast that currently includes Morphine Love Dion, Kylie Sonique Love, Ginger Minj, Plane Jane and more. Hell, Kahanna Montrese was basically invited for All Stars 8 solely on the strength of her performances in Drag Race Live. For the final in-season challenge of Season 17, the queens are tasked with “auditioning” to join the cast of the Vegas show, and it feels much more appropriate now than it did then. This is a potential path for these queens post-show, one that the production of Drag Race would very much love to include more superstars in, and it feels like a fair final hurdle for this cast.

That said, I still don’t love the challenge, either in concept or execution. The execution is easier to talk about, and we’ll go through it piece by piece. But my issues with the concept are a bit more nebulous. Here’s the thing: I value the Vegas show the same way I do things like the Werq the World Tour and WOW Presents Plus shows. As Drag Race grows, I think the show finding paths for queens’ “professional development,” so to speak, is critical. But not every queen is meant to do the Vegas show. Not every queen’s drag fits into the same box. Yes, other challenges aren’t a great fit for everyone: think of Arrietty and any challenge this season that wasn’t a design task. But I do think for the final challenge, there should be a “way to win” for basically any queen. It’s why the Rumix was genius: whether you’re doing a full-out rap like Shea Couleé or a spoken word like Sasha Velour, there’s a way to make the challenge your own.

This challenge doesn’t provide those kinds of opportunities. So it’s unsurprising that a queen who shows no real interest in Vegas is the one who gets sent home.

This challenge, rather than being about one big performance or presentation, is a collection of smaller tasks. There’s a promotional photo shoot, both solo and with the Pit Crew. There’s a promotional video that each queen must conceptualize and shoot. There’s an interview with one of the veterans of RuPaul’s Drag Race Live, Latrice Royale. There’s a main stage performance of a new Drag Race Live song, “Gift Shop,” that notably does not include a chance to write verses. And there’s a final “Opulent Outerwear” runway category. It’s a lot! Frankly, it’s too much, and allows for the judges to pick and choose what they care about.

Warning signs start flashing for Suzie Toot right out the gate. She wants to do an Anything Goes-style look and character for her photos and video, effectively taking herself back to the core of Suzie Toot that we saw earlier in the season. Onya Nurve notes in a confessional that Anything Goes is decidedly not Las Vegas, and the other queens generally seem skeptical about her approach. Suzie, however, assumes this is just the other queens underestimating her once again, and doubles down. If this story sounds familiar to you, it should: it’s exactly what happened during Snatch Game. At the time, I said Suzie probably should’ve gotten negative critiques for her terrible Ellen Greene, and that the show was actually doing her a disservice by not pointing out her misstep at the time.

Here, we see that chicken come home to roost. Ru does not effectively hide his dismay at her look and performance in the promotional shoot. By the same token, Suzie also does not hide her disinterest in Vegas. When Ru asks if Vegas has been part of Suzie’s dream, she flatly denies it, and admits she’s never even been to the city. Here’s the thing: I admire Suzie’s honesty, but this episode is basically a job interview. You wouldn’t tell an interviewer that you know nothing about the job you’re interviewing for, or that you don’t care about it. You have to spin it positively! It’s about salesmanship, and Suzie herself is the product.

Jewels Sparkles, meanwhile, charms Ru like nobody’s business. She looks the part, she’s eager about this opportunity and she practically shimmers with excitement. Ru spends most of their photo shoot time cackling with delight, and you can tell Jewels is winning her audience of one over. The other queens do well to varying degrees—although Lexi Love is less comfortable in this challenge than I’d have predicted—but no one quite wins the host over like Jewels does.

The most interesting part of this episode for me is the interviews with Latrice. I like that these chats are no longer just trauma dumps with Ru, but actual challenge segments. It feels rooted in pageant tradition to have an interview portion, and I like how Latrice approaches it more than how Matt Rogers did last season. There’s something about the conversation being queen-to-queen that works effectively. Sam Star smashes her portion, with Latrice noting that though she’s young, she’s got old-school vibes. “That’s a star,” Latrice declares. Onya does less well, bringing down the mood a bit despite a delightful reveal that she’s a cook full-time. Latrice says that it’s important “to be a joy”—to be someone that others want to be around. While I think seeing Onya as a complete person, not just a joy, is valuable, I take Latrice’s point that, again, it’s not how you want to approach what is effectively a job interview.

Suzie probably does the best all episode in the interview, in no small part because she and Latrice are familiar from Fort Lauderdale. (“Home team!” Latrice yells, echoing herself recognizing Lashauwn Beyond in the Season 4 premiere.) Jewels also does well, spilling the tea about Arrietty stealing her jokes in the roast challenge at exactly the right time. While we’ve known about that since it happened, Latrice obviously didn’t, and most crucially, the judges didn’t know it. Kudos to Jewels for keeping that one in her back pocket, because it pays off big here. She freezes up on a question about her plan in five years, but she pivots out of it well by talking about how Drag Race was her goal before, and now she has to think about what comes next. No one’s interview is quite like Lexi’s, as she reveals even more of her backstory. She says she was “an angry boy” pre-transition, and that she’s survived some genuinely terrifying stuff, including a human trafficking incident. You can tell Latrice really connects with her story, and the judges echo that sentiment later in critiques.

The “Gift Shop” performance is so short and forgettable, it’s almost not worth writing about. Everyone is fine, but Suzie does stand out as being a bit out of place. She doesn’t match the song, she just does her 1920s-style performance. It amplifies the issue presented by her Anything Goes-style promotional package, which is decidedly un-Vegas. As Ross Mathews says, “it wasn’t even Reno.” Michelle Visage later really drags her for not presenting anything beyond pure Suzie Toot, which I think is a bit short-sighted. Ru gets closer when he notes that she has shown other looks in previous episodes, which is why this return to her usual is disappointing. Suzie explains that she hoped this would be a presentation of the most polished, perfected Suzie, but as she says, it doesn’t land with the panel.

After the Opulent Outerwear runway (highlights: Jewels’ uber-Vegas drag, Onya’s gorgeous coat), Lexi and Onya get some interesting last-minute critiques related to their vulnerability: Ru celebrates Lexi for being heart-first despite her difficult past, while he encourages Onya to loosen up a bit and have more fun. Sam gets credit for taking her critiques well, but they’re almost as bad as Suzie’s: she’s knocked for being “cocky” in the interview with Latrice, turning what was one of the strongest moments of the episode for her into a negative. Ultimately, Jewels gets the best feedback, and earns her second win to go along with it. She, Onya and Lexi are all moved forward to the finale, while Sam and Suzie must lip sync for the final spot.

The lip sync is to Diana Ross and the Supremes’ “Love Child,” and both are quite good here. Sam has a command that she lacked in her last lip sync, and while her outfit renders her less mobile than Suzie, I have to admit that my eyes are continually drawn to her. Suzie gives pure Suzie in her performance, but once again, she just seems a bit out of place. It’s remarkable how a run of episodes in which Suzie seemed in command of her own journey throughout comes to this, an episode where she stands out for not fitting in.

In the end, Sam shantays, and Suzie sashays away. It’s a bit of a shocker, considering Suzie never placed so much as in the bottom three in previous weeks. Moreover, she seems to be punished in this episode for not being interested in Vegas, which strikes me as a bad direction for this show generally. But when looking back at the season as a whole, there were five queens who stood out as likely finalists all along, and only four spots in the finale. One had to go—and Suzie had her worst week at the worst possible time.

We’re two weeks out for the finale, as we take a detour next week for the reunion LaLaPaRuZa, but who do you think is winning this? Around this time last season was the first time I felt the tide turning toward Nymphia Wind over Sapphira Cristál—could we see another last-minute change this go-around? Or is the answer as simple as ever, with a crown coming for Onya? I’ve got more thoughts in this week’s power ranking, but suffice it to say, I don’t think this race is over just yet.

Untucking our final thoughts

Though Ru threatens at the top of the episode that “at least one of you will be going home,” it never really feels like multiple queens are in danger. If anything, the show reverting to a top four after last season makes it all the funnier that Ru seemingly just really didn’t want Q in the finale.

Sam is “dick-stracted” by the boys in the photo shoot. They’ve been sequestered for filming for a long time at this point! I hope Sam found someone cute after he got back from California.

When asked about the biggest boot of the season, Jewels simply replies, “Joella.” She means the mattress look, but it’s funnier to imagine she’s just saying that about Joella’s entire run on the show. Miss her!

Tracee Ellis Ross is our guest judge this week, which has gotta be a fun gag for Diana Ross superfan RuPaul! Ru introduces her with a fun “always bet on black-ish” line, and Tracee generally does a great job. I cackled at her description of Onya’s interview look: “a North Carolina pastor’s wife combined with an Atlanta Housewife.”

Ross appears in this final in-season episode, which means he and Ts Madison tie for the most judging appearances this season: four each. Carson Kressley ends with three, and Law Roach with two—although they may be his two last, considering he’s now part of the Project Runway panel. I’m happy to see him on either show, even if it keeps my ultimate hope for him (on a revived Legendary!) at a distance.

Ross reveals he used to work at McDonald’s! “Register, drive-thru and grill, a triple threat,” he says.

That “invitation” to join the RuPaul’s Drag Race Live cast sounded quite ADR’d in, no? And I do wonder if it’s actually an invite, or if it’s a contractual obligation for Jewels. I guess we’ll find out if we see her in the cast soon!

ONYA: “Do y’all have any favourite moments here?”

SUZIE: “Seeing you in the bottom two.”

The LaLaPaRuZa reunion episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race will air Friday, April 11, at 8 p.m. EST on MTV in the U.S. and on Crave in Canada. Check back every Monday after new episodes for our recaps and power rankings, and subscribe to our drag newsletter Wig! for exclusive Drag Race content delivered straight to your inbox every month.