Welcome to RuPaul’s Drag Race Power Rankings! Every Tuesday, we’ll debrief the week’s new episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 14 to determine which queens are riding high, and which need she-mergency care. DeJa Skye is our obvious #1 after her Snatch Game victory, but what of the others? Since everyone must fight for their life next week, let’s try to discern who might be in the most danger in a LaLaPaRuZa lip sync battle.
8. Willow Pill (last week: 3)
Never thought I’d be ranking Willow at the bottom of this list, to be honest. But relative to expectations, she was by far the biggest disappointment in Snatch Game—and I think there’s reason to worry about her in a lip sync tournament. Let’s start with her Drew Barrymore, which was certainly studied (the voice!), but to what end? Like Trixie Mattel on All Stars 3, Willow took a character she’s done in videos, and failed to adapt to the more improvisational style of Snatch Game. Most damning, I thought, was guest judge Dove Cameron’s note that it felt like Willow was looking to Ru for approval of her jokes. It really did feel like Willow was trying so hard to do well that she entirely missed the go-with-the-flow nature of Snatch Game.
I was annoyed by Willow’s fungal look for a Holy Couture runway, but I’m inclined to give everyone a pass this week. It sounds like the prompt they were given was something more like “worship,” leading to some bizarre category interpretations. What does have me concerned about Willow, though, is that we’ve never seen her lip sync on the show. Most of this cast can dance, and while Willow is good at choreography, a Lip Sync for Your Life doesn’t allow for much forward planning. It would be shocking to lose her next week—not to mention a massive blow to the season—but I think it’s possible.
7. Bosco (last week: 1)
That last confessional about being a great lip-syncer felt a bit like tempting fate, no? Again, a good half of this cast has shown they’re excellent in a lip sync, so being great but untested in this format is more theoretical than anything else. I have similar worries for Bosco that I do Willow, but I do think Bosco’s newly-inherited narrator-of-the-season status from Kerri Colby provides some incentive to keep her around.
Her Gwyneth Paltrow was bad, and it really didn’t have to be. Contrary to Michelle Visage’s (wildly off-the-mark) critique, Gwyneth is a big personality: imperious, detached from reality, unaware of what films she’s been in. You could easily play all that up, and even include some of the Goop stuff that Bosco clearly was most interested in. (My hot take is that Goop jokes are tired at this point, but that’s just me.) Bosco just didn’t have enough to really propel her impersonation. Most perplexing to me was her choice to give Gwyneth a voice more resembling Alaska’s. But hey, she wasn’t the worst this week.
6. Jasmine Kennedie (last week: 7)
Jasmine was the worst, and much as I love her, I am a little frustrated that once again there’s a twist that could keep her around. I mentioned this back when the chocolate bar twist was announced, but Drag Race’s modern insistence on not just eliminating queens when they perform poorly is ultimately hurting the show. It’s fun to have Jasmine around, yes, but she is not going to win RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 14. Every week we spend with her bombing a challenge but not going home is a week when we could instead be making the tough calls about who among a very tight top six or so is going to make it to the end.
Her Betsy DeVos was a real misfire, from concept to execution. Betsy would’ve been a funny, topical choice three years ago—around the time Scarlet Envy played her in “Trump: The Rusical”—but there’s still not enough to her character to build off of. And while Ru tried to spin that as a positive (you can do anything!), Jasmine couldn’t fill in the gaps effectively. I do think Jasmine will probably lip sync her way to safety next week, which is why I have her above Bosco and Willow. But outlasting either of them would be a clear statement that the twist-heavy nature of this season is not producing the best results.
5. Daya Betty (last week: 6)
The Daya villain edit just keeps trucking along, with a litany of new entries this week. Hating on Jasmine and Jorgeous’ double shantay despite being brought back from elimination herself at the start of the season! Rolling her eyes at Jasmine’s conversation with Ru! Reacting to the LaLaPaRuZa twist by asking if she was really as bad as Jasmine! Again, I have to wonder how much of this is self-aware villainy, because she is giving the editors so much material to work with. But, like with Bosco as narrator, Daya’s antagonist status makes her valuable to keep around for the show. So I think, barring some disaster, she’s probably going to make it through the twist.
Her Ozzy Osbourne was actually among the better impersonations this week—low as that bar may b —but I think Daya fucked it up with the copying-off-Gwyneth bit. As Bosco noted, copying off someone bombing is a bad idea, and not working it into your jokes is even stranger. (I don’t love Phi Phi O’Hara’s Teresa Caputo, but she at least made fraudulently answering questions correctly into her shtick.) But yeah, not the worst. A shame about stumbling on the runway, but she played it off well enough.
4. Jorgeous (last week: 8)
I … actually liked Jorgeous this week? I was pretty confused as to why the queens thought she and Jasmine would be the bottom two. Her Ilana Glazer wasn’t good, but she knew enough about her character to get through. As others picked big personae and flamed out around her, Jorgeous chose someone low-key enough that her failure wouldn’t stand out. And on the runway, her green papal look as a weed worshiper was the right balance of camp and glamour. On the whole, this is the most I’ve enjoyed Jorgeous all season.
She is, of course, going to demolish anyone she’s up against in the LaLaPaRuZa. Even if she’s less than excellent, Ru will do what he needs to to keep his favourite in the competition. But I think she’s going to absolutely pummel. Congrats on at least final seven, Jorgeous!
3. Angeria Paris VanMicheals (last week: 4)
We have a bit more understanding of Angeria’s lip-syncing skills thanks to her winning talent show performance, which makes me confident she’s going to survive next week. She’d have to get a pretty disastrous draw—like Jasmine, then Jorgeous, then Lady Camden—to be in real danger. Nothing about the edit suggests that we’re losing Angeria any time soon, so I’m inclined to think she’s fine.
Her Tammie Brown was an interesting idea, and she certainly had the physicality of Tammie down. What was missing was any of Tammie’s notable quotables. Where was “excuse your mouth”? Where was “well okay, Teletubby, teleport us to Mars”? She wedged a “walking children in nature” in one line, but it was so forced that it didn’t pay off as it should’ve. Still, Angie got laughs in a largely laugh-free challenge, so props to her for that.
2. Lady Camden (last week: 5)
After a couple of weeks of wondering if Camden might be on her way out of the competition, I’m actually feeling better than ever about her getting to the end. Her William Shakespeare was the best of the bad, with enough chuckle-worthy lines and interesting character choices to get her through. She was still bad, of course, but a lower degree of bad. Her runway, on the other hand, may have been my least favourite of the lot: not only is doing a Spice Girls look for a holy/worship runway all kinds of lazy, but it also wasn’t a great look on its own. A rare miss from her on the main stage.
What makes me so confident Camden will be fine, though, is that this twist gives Camden a chance to supercharge her edit again. Her “One Way or Another” lip sync was such a triumph but it felt like the conclusion of a story, not the continuation of one. If she can deliver a similar kind of performance, I think it’ll wake Ru and the judges up to what Camden can do, and she’ll bounce into the next week with more momentum. Maybe it’s just the Lady Standen in me, but I think this bodes very well for the British queen.
1. DeJa Skye (last week: 2)
Folks, we are flying the DeJa Skyes, and they are crystal clear! DeJa was the star of the show this week, acing Snatch Game as Lil Jon while everyone floundered around her. What made DeJa’s performance so great was how active she was: in every shot that included her, she was constantly moving. When Bosco pulled out Gwyneth’s “cum-bucha,” she extended her goblet to fill it up. She even led the whole group in a dance! DeJa got Snatch Game, and while it’s tempting to feel like this was a default victory, she deserves the praise for doing what her competitors could not. Certainly, this is the largest gap in quality between the winner and nearest competition we’ve ever seen on Snatch Game; that’s how well DeJa did.
Suggestion: Can we get a DeJa Cam in the workroom next week while she watches the LaLaPaRuZa lip syncs? It should be like the All Stars 6 lip sync redemption battle, with the top four providing colour commentary, but only DeJa this time. Queen of monologues. It’s what she deserves!
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