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. No elimination means no major change at the bottom of the power ranking, but a former number one returns to her perch at the top.
8. Jorgeous (last week: 6)
Honestly, I flipped Jasmine Kennedie and Jorgeous repeatedly from the bottom slot, because I think they’re more or less in the same position. Jasmine has been in the bottom more but has demonstrated a greater range on the runway and a facility to adapt to challenges. (Out of the two, she is also the lip-syncer I’d rather watch, though that’s just my personal preference.) Jorgeous has a win and Ru’s favour, but is consistently in over her head when it comes to the challenges. And her one win was so polarizing that it even had Fashion Photo Ruview hosts Raja and Gottmik booting it.
In the end, I ultimately went with who I think performed the worse this week, and that’s Jorgeous. She lacked the quickness to pivot out of stumbling over her words (which, as Nicole Byer noted, could’ve been easy), and looked a mess during the challenge. On the runway, she once again basically ignored the prompt, going with puffy sleeves instead of shoulder pads. TBD on whether Jasmine or Jorgeous survives longer—it’s going to really come down to who has to lip sync when, and to what song.
7. Jasmine Kennedie (last week: 8)
I already said a lot about Jasmine above, but I’ll just add that I was not on the judges’ wavelength re: Jasmine’s runway look. Though I appreciated that Jasmine made the attempt to edit, the clash of the dark hair and makeup with the super bright jumpsuit was too much for me. I like when queens switch up their usual aesthetic, but in my opinion, this was too much of a departure. That said, it was better than her older woman look for the panel challenge, and it made sense as a lip sync outfit. So, not my favourite, but it worked well enough. Jasmine’s just gotta keep hoping things work out well enough—and her Betsy DeVos for Snatch Game is not inspiring confidence.
6. Daya Betty (last week: 1)
Gotta feel for Daya: she mostly seemed placed in the bottom three by default this week. Everyone on DeJa Skye’s team was great, which means none of them could be in the bottom, and Bosco won the challenge. That left Daya as the odd woman out, and despite largely positive critiques, she scored her first low ranking of the season. (You know, besides that time she was eliminated.) The villain edit let up a bit this week, although her frustrated confessionals about Jasmine wanting to moderate meant the editors didn’t quite take their foot off the gas. Next week seems like we’re heading into even choppier waters; you have to wonder where this storyline ends.
5. Lady Camden (last week: 7)
It’s almost like Camden’s big triumphant week never happened. She’s once again repeatedly getting the “too quiet/shy” critique from Ru and the judges, and this week, much was made of a silly slip-up in which she said Blake Lively was her celebrity crush instead of Blake Shelton. (Honestly, I agreed with her more when she said Blake Lively.) On the runway, she came the closest after DeJa to getting something interesting with the shoulder pads look, but I thought her take on the Nutcracker was a bit too literal; her reveal from a Nutcracker headpiece didn’t do much for her. I remain a Lady Standen, but I’ll admit, her edit is looking shaky these days.
4. Angeria Paris VanMicheals (last week: 2)
Speaking of edits looking worse than expected: Why is Angeria, the queen with the best early-game track record, being all but left behind by the show? She’s still getting a few confessionals a week, sure, but there’s no investment in her storyline. We learned a lot more about several queens who have gone home—Kerri Colby, Kornbread “The Snack” Jeté, even Maddy Morphosis—than we have about Angie. I’ve mentioned in previous recaps that modern Drag Race winner edits are much more about narrative than challenge performance, and I wonder if this is a bad sign for Angie.
She was solid this week in the challenge, and I appreciated her doing something different with her Club Kid runway look. But Angie has mostly slipped into the middle of the pack after so many weeks of soaring on top. I’d like to see her get some momentum back, particularly as we enter the much less predictable back half of the competition.
3. Willow Pill (last week: 5)
This week ultimately belonged to the moderators, but Willow made quite a case for herself as a Drag Con panel participant. She was open, honest, funny and remarkably composed—you could instantly see her holding her own on a talk show. Willow has continuously surprised us this season, and Ru is as invested as ever: “You get more and more fierce every time you come out here,” he told her this week. (This as she wore a completely off-category runway look; that’s when you know Ru really loves a queen.)
Her trajectory is starting to remind me a bit of Kylie Sonique Love’s in All Stars 6: she’s not racking up a bunch of wins, but she’s doing well in multiple kinds of challenges, and is arguably the person making her case for the crown the most in confessionals. Her quiet strategic streak is fun to see, too. She’s a fighter, and I think it’s more and more likely that she fights her way to the title of America’s Next Drag Superstar.
2. DeJa Skye (last week: 3)
Frequent flyers of the DeJa Skyes, we are cleared for takeoff! DeJa was excellent this week, so in command of her panel and so naturally charming while discussing even the toughest of topics. She was smooth, genuine and eminently watchable. So why on earth didn’t she get the win? I’ll admit, I’m baffled on this one: not only was DeJa great, and not only was she the only one to really get what the Shoulder Pads runway category was calling for (I loved her “a nod to Chanel, a nod to linebackers”), she also expertly led her team. Bosco, on the other hand, may have done well in the challenge, but she led the rest of her team straight to the bottom three. Isn’t a crucial part of being a moderator being able to lead effectively?
Luckily, I’d place good odds on DeJa taking the win next week instead. Lil Jon is an absurd, inspired choice, one that I don’t think DeJa would make if she weren’t confident. It may be fan delusion, but I’m inclined to put my faith in her on this one.
1. Bosco (last week: 4)
Congratulations to Bosco on her second win! Even if I don’t totally agree with it, I can’t deny that she was easily runner-up this week. Sure, her “neon Blade Runner” look on the runway was a whole lot of nothing, but her look in the challenge was note perfect. And individually, she was amazing in the Drag Con panel, effortlessly firing off joke after joke. Ru said she was born to be a moderator in a riff on his favoured compliment for Jorgeous, and he wasn’t wrong: Bosco’s got a natural gift for gab.
Maybe there was nothing she could’ve done to save her team—and hey, no one went home, so no harm, no foul. I just can’t quite get behind the winner of the challenge being the one who moderated the entire bottom three. I’ve had plenty of weeks in which I thought Bosco should’ve won—including, most recently, last week—but on this one, I’d have given the win to the more effective moderator. But a win’s a win, and Bosco’s got two of them! She’s all but a lock to make it to the end at this point; beating Willow when she gets there, though, might be difficult.
Why you can trust Xtra
