‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Season 14, Episode 10 recap: Looking Snatched

You know that clip of Kyle Richards on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills in which she’s reflecting on how bad things got after a premiere episode event? “We were all so happy that day,” she says, before ominously adding, “It’s actually hard to even imagine how terrible things would soon become.” That’s basically this episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race in a nutshell.

The queens start off on cloud nine after Jasmine Kennedie and Jorgeous’ double shantay, saying once again how this proves how excellent they are. There was a similar sentiment after the all-tops “Daytona Wind” episode: this is a group high above the average, and their performances have been so good that eliminating them has been impossible. (Never mind that a 16-episode order means non-eliminations have to happen.) This sentiment has been shared by those off-show as well, with Season 14 enjoying the best reception in years.

But as the old saying goes: the bigger they are, the harder they fall. And to paraphrase Valentina, the Season 14 queens fell. They fell hard. This season’s edition of Snatch Game is perhaps the worst in series herstory, with all but one queen bombing. And while there might be some temptation to blame it on the edit, the queens’ own reactions to their performances make clear that, with one exception, they truly were that bad. And while RuPaul and Michelle Visage’s interrogation on the main stage about what went wrong has a fun, convivial vibe, Ru ultimately makes clear that he’s disappointed—and he’s going to make the queens work hard to stay in the game.

This new twist, a LaLaPaRuZa lip sync tournament, is an interesting idea, and fits the show’s recent love of lip syncs. Since around All Stars 4—and, in earnest, Season 13—Ru and the production team have found all kinds of ways to add more lip syncs into a season of Drag Race. Whether it’s random top two lip syncs for the win or episodes with back-to-back lip syncs (AS4’s LaLaPaRuZa, Season 13’s Porkchop premiere, All Stars 6’s lip sync redemption battle), modern day Drag Race loves to get in as many battles as possible. So a twist like this feels right at home in our current Drag Race era.

It’s just really annoying that we get yet another non-elimination episode out of it.

In this, I am actually somewhat aligned with season villain Daya Betty, who rolls her eyes at Jasmine and Jorgeous’ double save. (That she does this with no irony or awareness that she already went home once is so very Daya.) Drag Race is still a competition, and the lack of eliminations in so many episodes this season is creating a lack of urgency. Why should someone feel like they need to fight for their life in this competition when there have been only six girls sent home in 10 episodes? No wonder the queens are feeling so confident at the top of the episode.

But that, of course, is the benefit of throwing almost everyone into the bottom for a sudden death lip sync tournament. This should ideally wake everyone up to the fact that, despite their strengths as a group, they are still in a fight for the crown. Not all eight can win in the end; only one can be America’s Next Drag Superstar. (Unless you’re Monét X Change and Trinity the Tuck.)

One potential new threat to win that title is DeJa Skye, our clear winner of Snatch Game this week. Frequent flyers of the DeJa Skyes have been waiting for this moment, especially after she barely lost out on the win last week. Her choice to play Lil Jon is the kind of bonkers decision that you know someone would only make if they were confident they could pull it off. And pull it off she does: armed with all kinds of absurd exclamations (“YE-yah!”) and props (her grill!), DeJa nails every joke sent her way. She is the only one of the group who really understands what needs to be done in order to win.

While her Joan of Arc look for a dubiously defined Holy Couture runway is not her best, there’s just no other option; DeJa’s Lil Jon becomes the first male character since Kennedy Davenport’s Little Richard to win Snatch Game on the flagship show (and the sixth if you include All Stars and international series). Will it be enough to propel her beyond frontrunners like Angeria Paris VanMicheals, Willow Pill and Bosco to the final four? I’m not sure! But as my friend Joe Reid just recently investigated for Primetimer, a win in Snatch Game is usually a very good sign that a queen will get to the end of the season.

I’ll go more in depth on each impersonation’s failures in this week’s power rankings, but on the whole, the group just seems to misunderstand Snatch Game as a challenge. As the (surprisingly excellent) guest judge, Dove Cameron, notes during deliberations, “It’s not an acting challenge, it’s a comedy challenge.” Some of these queens have really done their research on their characters—Willow as Drew Barrymore and Bosco as Gwyneth Paltrow, in particular—but they lack the quick thinking that you need to excel in this format.

It’s actually the queens who take smaller swings who make out the best. Lady Camden’s take on William Shakespeare isn’t particularly great, but the fact that Shakespeare has no established public persona gives her a lot of room to improvise. Who’s to say Shakespeare wasn’t queer and horny? Not having to live up to anything makes her challenge easier. The same goes for Jorgeous as Ilana Glazer, who is a simple enough character that Jorgeous doesn’t have to do too much. She, like everyone else not named DeJa, is not funny, but her weaknesses feel less egregious than, say, Willow whiffing a character she’s done in online videos before, or Angeria failing to make an über-quirky character (Tammie Brown!) feel distinctive.

On the runway, something entirely different goes awry. The category, as it’s defined for us, is Holy Couture. That would make you think of angelic, deified looks, no? Well, that’s clearly not the prompt the queens got, as almost all of them frame their looks as something they “worship”: fungi, the Spice Girls, the zodiac, etc. Only Angeria and Jorgeous’ looks follow the Holy Couture prompt and are well-made; Bosco’s stripperific nun reveal, while fun, is a bit expected from her at this point.

During critiques, Ru and Michelle jokingly investigate how Snatch Game goes so wrong, while Dove and Carson Kressley each dole out some good critiques of the queens. There are some fun lines from Michelle during her “investigation” (“Willow Pill, where were you the night of?”; “Tonight at 11 on the Pacoima News Live”) but I actually think the host and head judge don’t do enough to really establish just how bad this Snatch Game is. Remember Ru’s summation that the Mariah Carey group in Season 11’s Diva Worship challenge “stink, stank, stunk”? Or how incensed Ru got at Joe Black for daring to wear an H&M dress? I don’t need Ru to yell at the girls—I always cringe a bit when he does—but I would’ve appreciated a firm declaration before the final twist that this group really did foul up the show’s signature challenge.

Overall, though, I do appreciate this episode as a reality check of sorts. This is a very good, evenly matched set of queens, and they’ve made for a surprisingly great season. But they’re not invincible, and failing Snatch Game of all challenges is a reminder of that. Now, expectations are reset, and we can head into the endgame with a balance of enthusiasm (for what will go well) and curiosity (about what won’t).

In terms of the LaLaPaRuZa battle, though, I’m personally concerned for a few of our frontrunners. Camden, Jasmine and Jorgeous have all demonstrated themselves to be able lip-syncers, and we’ve at least seen Daya and Angeria perform. Bosco and Willow are total blank slates when it comes to their lip-syncing ability. Sure, Bosco tells us at the end of this episode that she’s great at lip-syncing—but Rosé once declared herself a Lip Sync Assassin before racking up a 0-3 lip sync record in Season 13. The proof is in the pudding, and we’ve not yet been served any pudding by two of the season’s strongest queens.

All of that to say: going into this twist, it feels like anything could happen. And that’s exciting! I just hope the loser of the tournament doesn’t immediately unveil a golden bar—which, of course, means that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨So here’s some math for you: in order to eliminate four more queens in the remaining competitive (i.e. not reunion or finale) episodes, one queen must go home every week. Sounds doable, right? Ah, but you forget that someone still has a golden bar floating around in their chocolate bar wrapper. If someone pulls that out in the next four episodes, then there must be a double sashay before the end of the season. And considering how much hype has gone into the twist, I have to assume it will come into play. So somehow, even with a full 16-episode order and Kornbread’s withdrawal, Drag Race has managed to have too many queens left. An impressive feat of stalling!

✨Do the queens really not get all the Snatch Game winner references in the RuMail message? Man, they truly were destined to screw this challenge up.

✨The bubble wrap design mini-challenge (sponsored by Bubly, naturally) is cute! Reminds me of the duct tape outfit mini-challenge from Season 3. Bosco wins with a dress that, as Camden notes, is very similar to Aquaria’s entrance look from Season 10. Hey, Ru likes what he likes!

✨Upon the queens failing to get an Exposé reference, Ru laments his age. “I need to fucking retire, ‘cause they don’t know shit about what I’m talking about.”

✨I appreciate that Bosco notes how celebrity impersonation was the predominant form of drag for quite some time. One of the main arguments from those who want Snatch Game axed is that celebrity impersonation is not something that every drag queen does. But to kill the challenge would be to erase not just an important part of Drag Race lore, but of drag history entirely. (Not to mention that calling Snatch Game a celebrity impersonation challenge is a misunderstanding of the skills Snatch Game actually tests, but I digress.)

✨According to Ru, Daya’s choice of celebrity, Ozzy Osbourne, loves Drag Race. But notably, there was a viral clip of him on Celebrity Watch Party actually falling asleep while watching the show. Oop!

✨Good on Ru for not fucking up the queens by suggesting they all do other characters. That’s one of his worst habits, and it seems like he makes a real effort not to do it this time. (Although considering this result, maybe there’s a method to his madness…)

✨Kind of deflating to end the episode without a lip sync, no? That makes this only the second competitive episode ever to not include a lip sync, after Season 9’s Lady Gaga-starring premiere. I shouldn’t complain, though—we’ll get more than our fair share of lip syncs next week.

The next episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race will air Friday, March 18, at 8 p.m. EST on VH1 in the U.S. and on Crave in Canada. Check back every Monday and Tuesday 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 Tuesday afternoon.