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After the rocky VH1 era of flagship RuPaul’s Drag Race, it’s been nice to see the show really settle into a groove on MTV. Sure, the shortened episodes of Season 15 were a problem (curse you forever, Real Friends of WeHo), and the young cast of Season 17 proved divisive. But both of those seasons, plus the top-tier Season 16, really delivered in the storytelling department.

Season 15 made all of its finalists viable winners, despite the presence of drag titan Sasha Colby. Season 16 handled the season-long development of Plane Jane, told a thrilling Florida rivalry story between Morphine Love Dion and Mhi’ya Iman LePaige, and gave us a final two with passionate fan bases and stories behind them (even though it took a minute for Nymphia Wind’s arc to fully cohere). Season 17, I would argue, actually featured the best storytelling of the MTV era so far, with a rivalry (Suzie Toot and Lexi Love!), a friends-to-enemies arc (Jewels Sparkles and Arrietty!), a romance (Kori King and Lydia B Kollins!) and a really great winning narrative for Onya Nurve. The fact that Season 17 made Untucked not just watchable, but must-see TV for the first time in years is a testament to how good the narrative work was.

Unfortunately, Season 18 has not kept up that hot streak. In fact, I would argue that the storytelling this season has been the worst since Season 11, and it has left us with a narratively underwhelming final three. (I should note, while there has been a good deal of criticism that the final three queens’ drag and/or performances have been “mid,” that’s not what I’m addressing today—I’m talking specifically about how the show has built them as characters in the story of the season.)

Darlene Mitchell and Myki Meeks were both all but absent from the narrative in the first part of the season, with Myki racking up a Xunami Muse-esque safe placement streak before landing in the Rate-a-Queen Talent Show bottom two thanks to her fellow queens’ strategic shenanigans. She immediately won the next week, and has landed in the top every week since, which should have come together into a satisfying come-from-behind arc. However, the show has fumbled that storytelling, leaving fans perplexed as to how she suddenly has a Sasha- or Onya-level track record. (We’ll get into why I think that is in a moment.)

Most puzzling to me is that a clip from the final four episode taping, in which Ru explicitly told Myki that she shouldn’t have been in the bottom for the talent show, was kept as an Untucked exclusive. Why, I ask, would you keep the clip that can definitively give your final three frontrunner a button on her story arc in a show that is, for many fans, bonus content?

Darlene, meanwhile, has enjoyed a major burst in attention in the last part of the season … but only after being invisible for most of it. Her first win didn’t come until Episode 11—if she wins it all, she will become the flagship series champion who waited the longest for her first challenge victory. That episode’s challenge, the roast, was huge for Darlene’s win equity, as it showed she could claim victory by doing things her own way, even if it’s not how you would traditionally approach a challenge. That was the crux of the case Ru and the judges made for Darlene’s win in the final talk show challenge, and if we were shown that story all season long, it would be a compelling one! Instead, we only got it in the last few weeks of the season.

I’m focusing on Darlene and Myki because they are our two viable winners left in the final three, but that’s because what happened with Nini Coco’s arc is even more baffling. After coming out strong as an early frontrunner, with two wins by Snatch Game and high praise for a couple of her other performances, she suddenly became the de facto “villain” of the season, with the other queens poking fun at her inability to read the room. This arc seemed to be going somewhere, but was completely dropped after the roast in favour of just having Nini lip sync for her life for the rest of the season. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say Nini has one of the strangest edits for a finalist ever, and despite her high-level drag, she’s drawing dead going into the finale.

So now we’re in the endgame with three underwhelming stories remaining. Whoever wins won’t necessarily have the worst winner’s edit ever—Sasha Velour basically didn’t get a winner’s edit at all because of how that season and finale were produced—but they’ll certainly be in the lowest tier. And I do think one major factor guarantees this most of all: the elimination of Jane Don’t.

I wrote in my recap of her elimination episode that Jane’s unceremonious exit in fifth place basically broke the spiritual contract the show has with its queens: do well in the competition, and you won’t be eliminated without an ironclad reason. Jane did, quite literally, the best anyone has ever done in a season of Drag Race, racking up more high placements than any other competitor. She was sent home on her first stumble, when queens have been kept around with far less impressive resumés. I truly believe her elimination has done lasting damage to the series as a whole.

But the season itself also suffered greatly for her elimination, especially considering it happened with only one episode left to pick up the pieces. The reason Myki has never felt like a frontrunner is because, until Jane was eliminated, she wasn’t one. She was doing well, but she was going up against one of the strongest competitors of all time. By the time Jane was gone and we had a chance to look at Myki, it was hardly enough time to register her as a threat to win it all. (It didn’t help that, in that last episode, she was granted a suspect fourth win, when fan consensus has been that Darlene deserved a solo win.)

I would say Jane’s dominance also kept Darlene from really breaking out too. If you go back and watch some of her earlier performances, you can see this kind of off-the-beaten-path approach Darlene was taking to the challenges. But the show didn’t take real time to explore that, because it was too busy foisting praise upon Jane! And sure, the show can walk and chew gum at the same time—they could’ve found time to highlight Darlene alongside Jane. But they didn’t, and I think that’s because the show was also dealing with several other stories along the way that ultimately went nowhere: the House of Dion’s rise and fall, Kenya Pleaser’s struggle to deliver what her charisma promised and, most impactfully, Discord Addams’s long, mediocre run.

Discord has become an unexpected fan favourite this season—kind of shocking to think about when you remember she was the one rumoured to be disqualified amid allegations of racism when the season was filming. But her quirky personality, outspoken political views online and, of course, the Discord Walk, have endeared her to many. I’ve no doubt that for the many who would consider Discord one of the only highlights of this season, the idea that she overstayed her welcome will be a puzzling one.

Yet that is what I’m arguing, though it’s not that she overstayed as much as the show kept her there without clear reason. I’ve written a lot about this season’s underwhelming boot order. Discord making it to the final six without so much as a high placement, while several maxi-challenge winners (Athena Dion, Mia Starr, Vita VonTesse Starr) were sent home instead, was perhaps the biggest problem with the elimination order.

For her part, Discord was happy to live in her own delusions of doing well. Indeed, there was something admirable about her attitude of just keeping her chin up and trying again. And to be fair, she did well in some challenges—I still think she was robbed in the Snatch Game. But as I wrote in my power ranking for the roast episode, her story just didn’t go anywhere. One of the last six queens in the competition got no real narrative about her except for having a silly walk that would intermittently get better. That’s not enough to make someone a compelling character, even if she herself is a likable, enjoyable person. (Though at least we got a cute button on her walk bit with her and Jane’s “Sissy That Walk” lip sync in the LaLaPaRuZa.)

You could say a lot of the same things about Kenya’s continued presence into the final seven, and I would have to agree with you. While I personally find Kenya to be a more enjoyable TV personality than Discord, that’s a matter of taste. What isn’t, however, is that Kenya was decidedly improving near the end of her time. Her Rusical performance was strong, and she landed in the top two for the suitcase design challenge. When Ru finally did eliminate her after the roast, it was with tough-love advice that she needed to spend time investing in her drag and persona. There is a difference between Ru keeping a queen around because he sees real star power in her and wants to try to bring it out, and Ru keeping a queen around because he likes to laugh at her walk.

So if Discord and Kenya stuck around too long, who should’ve made it further? Watching the LaLaPaRuZa solidified what I was already thinking in this regard: Mia Starr’s elimination was, other than Jane’s, the most detrimental to the season. (And even with that caveat, I’d say Mia going as early as she did had more downstream effects, while Jane’s was an end-of-season shocker.) Mia was a dream Drag Race character: big personality, interesting and dynamic relationships with other cast members, unafraid to start drama but also committed to resolving it, and a joy in both the werk room and her confessionals. The fact that she was a dynamite dancer and lip syncer was just the icing on the cake.

There’s no doubt she bombed the Snatch Game of Love Island as Bloody Mary, and I do think she lost her lip sync to Kenya fair and square. But again, this is where Ru can spend her non-elimination episodes each season. How much worse would Season 6’s reputation have been if Ru had let BenDeLaCreme go in eighth place, after she and Darienne Lake bombed their challenge and she lost her lip sync to Darienne? Sometimes, producing a TV show means pausing a competition to make sure you’re not losing the characters who make the program watchable.

As you can tell from these various points and tangents, the issues with Season 18 do not boil down to one root cause. There are several problems we haven’t even delved into, like the bizarre challenge design and order this season. (Why did we get two improv challenges in a row in the last two regular episodes?) I also think, while I have enjoyed the older group of girls this season compared to last, the casting team is still struggling to find the right mix of personalities and experiences. If last year’s group was volatile and young, this year’s group felt like an accomplished but mellow group of co-workers. Perhaps that’s why there was a seemingly outsize push for specific types of queens during the Season 19 casting call: that team knows they’re struggling.

Season 18’s disappointing run is due to a death by a thousand paper cuts. In some ways, that can be good—it shows that the product itself is not rotten, but that a lot of small things proved problematic. On the other hand, it can also be hard to address so many things in one season. If I have one hope for Season 19, it’s that the show sets the queens up for success. Multiple times this season, it’s felt like the show got in its own way, or in the queens’ way, of doing well. Drag Race is best when it’s doing just enough to guide the narrative, but otherwise stepping back and letting the cast work its magic.

I don’t think Season 18 is a sign that the franchise is in jeopardy—to the contrary, I think it’s a bump in the road of what is otherwise looking like an exciting 2026 for Drag Race. We’ve got Canada’s Drag Race’s first proper All Stars season coming, plus Drag Race México continuing the cultural crossover concept with Latina Royale. And hey, All Stars 11 is just around the corner! But I do think, for many fans not plugged into the greater Drag Race universe, the health of the main series is what draws the most attention. For that reason, I hope that Season 18 can be a cautionary tale; and that Season 19 can be one of real improvement.