Maybe I’m just riding on the high drama that was last week’s RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Versus The World, but this episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race feels a bit sleepy.
We’ve talked before about how, in recent seasons, Drag Race has largely shifted away from being a dramatic reality competition and instead has placed focus on chosen queer family among the dolls. On the whole, I think this has been a fruitful change—the ultra-likable casts of recent seasons have benefitted by getting to show a lot of themselves, and the Emmys have poured in for Ru and the show. Last week’s episode got high marks from fans (and the Untucked that featured Jasmine Kennedie coming out as trans was even more popular), which indicates a no-elimination, all-praise week fis a good thing when the show is transparent about it.
But I’ll be honest with y’all: I do miss the days of a spikier, less friendly Drag Race. The shock eliminations happening on UK Versus The World may be preventing the most impressive performers from getting to the end but in the process, we’re getting a drag take on Survivor that’s a hell of a thing to watch. Now, trying to emulate this format on the biggest of Drag Race’s many iterations would likely lead to disaster (consider how much hate Pangina Heals received online for eliminating fan favourite Jimbo). Small infractions by the Season 14 queens stir up controversy online; imagine what a conflict like the Heathers versus Boogers war of Season 3 would inspire among the vitriolic fanbase.
Still, if Drag Race is going to hang its hat solely on performances and queen camaraderie, they need to be delivered at a high level every week. And while one trio knocks this week’s girl group challenge out of the park, two of the three teams are under their usual standard. The runway is disappointing, too, with the two best groups shuffled off to safety. And without a lot of the friendship-heavy workroom moments that have been a signature of this season so far, we’re left with lots of attention paid to the closest thing there is to conflict this season: Daya Betty’s tireless campaign for a win.
In theory, I should like what Daya is serving this season: she’s being edited as the villain of the crew, unrepentant in her desire to win and unafraid to call someone out if she has a problem with them. But I’m mostly just annoyed with her antics so far. Yes, she took aim at Jorgeous for winning in a “napkin” look in the design challenge, but she offered up a seemingly insincere apology the next day. She refuses to change teams in this week’s episode when too many people want to be part of “the Shang-Ru-Las” (every group is styled after a ’60s girl group, theirs being the Shangri-Las), and says over and over again that she’s not changing. And in both the episode and Untucked, she repeatedly questions Jasmine calling her “two-faced” in the Reading Challenge, upset by a read that, as Jasmine explains, she had a totally valid reason for making.
If Daya would stand in her villainy and own it, I’d be fully on her side. She has moments where it feels like she’s willing to lean into it, like when she banters with Jasmine about why she didn’t bring her complaints to her. (“You were busy trying to lip sync for your life, so I didn’t want to bother you!”) But we’re missing the signatures of a great Drag Race villain: the bitchy quotables! The schemes! The actual fights! Instead, we’re getting a fixation on winning a challenge and whining about not scoring in the top until she gets there. Watching a villain work on reality TV should be fun—with Daya, it’s just not there yet.
Regardless of her edit, this is Daya’s week. She teams up with Bosco and Willow Pill for their performance of “Bad Boy Baby,” and their song absolutely slaps. They use their self-written verses to turn the track into an ode to their stalker, and tell a full story that ends in his body being, as Willow puts it, “splattered on the asphalt.” The trio works together so well, with Willow revealing her heretofore unknown talents as a choreographer. Their performance is head-and-shoulders above the other two groups, and I halfway expect a three-way win, à la UK girl group challenges. All of them were a part of their team’s success; it makes sense that all of them would secure the victory.
But in a very strange turn of events, Bosco and Willow are both sent to safety, while Daya is named the winner of the challenge. No shade—Daya does well in the challenge. Her voice sounds great, and she gets the comedy of their song perfectly. It’s just surprising to see her win as the sole representative of her group. Even if you think she’s the best, she’s absolutely not so far ahead of the rest of her team that she should be chosen as the only top-performing queen. It can’t help but feel like, narratively, the show really wanted to give Daya a win, and they were willing to fudge the scores to make her look like the clear choice. Anyway, a win’s a win, and Daya’s endeavour to earn her victory has finally reached its conclusion.
Credit: Courtesy VH1
The other groups play their songs very straight, and a lot of them opt for lyrical simplicity that make their verses forgettable. Let’s start with “The Ru-Premes,” who had perhaps the toughest task, emulating Ru’s beloved Supremes. Angeria Paris VanMicheals takes the toughest assignment of all in her role as Diana Ross, but thankfully already has experience imitating Diana in her act. She’s the best Diana Ross impersonator we’ve seen since Bebe Zahara Benet—apologies to Ra’Jah O’Hara—and has a lovely voice to boot. She scores in the top, returning to her seemingly permanent residence in the high-scoring group. (Last week’s trip to safety was a quick one!)
Lady Camden and Kerri Colby, on the other hand, land in the bottom three for their performances. Camden’s placement is baffling to me: she’s a bit more reserved this time around, sure, but she’s hardly bad. And she also takes on the task of choreographing her group, taking time and making the effort to teach her teammates the simple steps. The judges critique her for being too shy, but ultimately it all seems like an unnecessary attempt at a wake-up call for last week’s maxi-challenge winner.
Kerri’s critiques range from the nonsensical (too church?) to the valid (her lyrics are very basic), and has to lip sync for her life for the second time. Personally, my problem with her work this week is in her runway for the Heart On category: there are too many sloppy details, like her pantyhose showing and her heart being on the wrong side of her body. Ultimately, her bottom-two placement feels more justified by her overall trajectory than anything specific this week. As everyone else has stepped up in a major way, Kerri has started to fade.
In the final group, the Ronettes-inspired “Ru-nettes,” DeJa Skye scores in the top. Why? Not sure! She’s okay in the act, and she uses her role as choreographer to basically make herself the lead of the group. But her verse and vocals are worse than anyone in the Shang-Ru-Las and Angie, so I’d place her fifth this week at best. Still, it’s a boost of confidence for her at a time when it felt like she was our next boot, so I appreciate that as a flier of the DeJa Skyes.
Credit: Courtesy VH1
Had Michelle Visage not come up with a creative way around Jorgeous’ terrible vocals (talk-singing), we likely would have seen the two dancing divas, Jorgeous and Jasmine, in the bottom this week. But Jorgeous is able to skate to safety, while Jasmine is put in the bottom two with Kerri. Calling Jasmine “tone-deaf” actually doesn’t cover it: her vocals in the workroom are droning and tuneless. Bosco mercilessly imitates her in a confessional, and she actually sounds better! She sounds slightly better in the final product, but this is a very off week for Jasmine all-told.
This, sadly, means that Jasmine must face off against the woman she credited last week for helping her find the strength to come out as trans. It’s absolutely brutal, and unfortunately, the lip sync isn’t even particularly strong. What could’ve been an emotional, powerful moment (think Jujubee’s “Dancing on My Own” lip sync from All Stars 1) is instead a tough final hour for one of these two queens. At lip sync’s end, we must say goodbye to our narrator of the season, Kerri Colby.
Kerri’s impact has been immense. While she wasn’t able to hang onto her presumed frontrunner status from her premiere, she’s been a comedic force of nature in confessionals, a key part of the Season 14 family dynamic and a joy to experience week in and week out. I can’t say I didn’t anticipate her elimination, but it’s no less gutting to see her go. Like Jasmine, I, too, quietly hoped that she might have the gold bar—but alas, it remains out there, waiting to be unveiled.
Next week, it is somehow not Snatch Game! We are instead getting a repeat of the (low-key excellent) Drag Con panels challenge from Season 10. It’s a shame to lose Kerri right before this: I’d listen to her talk about any subject for hours. But we’ll have to see who can step up and win in her stead!
Untucking our final thoughts
✨An all-time great edition of Reading Is Fundamental, in my opinion. There are good jokes that rely on a pause to knock them out of the park (Kerri’s “I’m so glad that on this journey, you have found… your silence” to Jasmine; Camden’s “Little Miss Jorgeous! The tiniest little waist… of time” to Jorgeous), and some that are just great from the word go (Daya’s “You’re like a really good pair of socks: soft, supportive and full of cum” to DeJa). The single best, though—and arguably what gets Bosco the mini-challenge win—is her longer joke about Ru’s will. “You have some very weird criteria in there: you want to be buried on the catwalk, and she wanted all of you to be her pallbearers,” Bosco said. “That way, you could let her down on the runway one last time.”
✨Alec Mapa is back! He most notably first appeared on the show in Season 2 as one of the original players of Snatch Game, and returned to coach the queens in All Stars 6. It’s fun to see him in judge mode, since he’s such a part of the Drag Race tapestry, not to mention queer media as a whole. If Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley ever want to move on, he’d be a good contender (alongside Ts Madison, Loni Love and next week’s guest judge, Nicole Byer) to take over the rotating spot.
✨Speaking of Carson: congrats to him on becoming America’s Favourite Houseguest in the Celebrity Big Brother Season 3 finale! He joins Ross, who earned the same distinction for Season 1. No such congratulations for runner-up and former Drag Race choreographer/judge Todrick Hall, who lost to his ride-or-die Miesha Tate in spectacular fashion, with almost every member of the jury dragging him while casting their vote for the winner. Todrick spent most of the season inside the house needlessly shit-talking his fellow players and outside the house being exposed for past transgressions. It was all such a disaster that Todrick cancelled his post-show press interviews. He did win $50,000 for coming in second, though! Maybe he can use some of that money to pay his video editors.
✨I say this having watched literally hundreds of hours of Drag Race in my life: never once has Ru sounded so unenthusiastic as he did while announcing, “We’ve got Sweet Tarts!”
✨Lovely to see so much appreciation for Ronnie Spector in this episode, and to see at the end that it was dedicated to her memory. Spector died in January, after this episode was filmed but before it aired, making this an accidental but fitting tribute.
✨We’ve seen ballad remixes work as lip sync songs on Drag Race before, but Hex Hector’s take on Toni Braxton’s “Un-Break My Heart” is a wild choice. Neither Jasmine nor Kerri was able to balance the dance-y elements with the emoting that fits the original song. It’s only thanks to Jasmine persevering through accidentally losing her shoe that I think ultimately gets her the win.
✨If you tried to explain to someone who does not watch this show why Kerri revealing her chocolate bar is indeed made of chocolate would make Jasmine burst into sobs, they would never be able to understand. Truly camp.
The next episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race will air Friday, March 4, 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.
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