Welcome to RuPaul’s Drag Race Power Rankings! Every Tuesday, we’ve debriefed the week’s new episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 to determine which queens were riding high, and which needed she-mergency care. For the final time this season, let’s take a look back at our top four, and offer congratulations to our champion.
3rd/4th: Luxx Noir London (last placement: 2)
Were this finale judged solely on the final performances, Luxx should have finished in the top two with Sasha Colby. Her number, “It’s Giving Fashion,” was perfectly suited to her, and she killed the performance of it. She also looked gorgeous in her finale runway look, and aced her interview with RuPaul. In truth, despite what Ru says, it feels like these finale performances are effectively filler, and the top two is decided based on the season as a whole. (Not to mention the fan vote, which Anetra crushed in herstorical fashion.)
I do hope Luxx comes back someday, but after some time spent touring and getting even better at what she does. She’s immensely talented, especially for someone so young, and she has a confidence that she can back up. But it’s clear from one look at her Twitter account that the vitriolic fan reactions this season have taken their toll on her. I wish I could say with confidence that the fan base will get better, but I’ve been doing this for too long to make such a foolish prediction. Instead, I’ll hope that Luxx makes the coins she so richly deserves, and comes back when she’s ready to smash Drag Race even harder next time.
3rd/4th: Mistress Isabelle Brooks (last placement: 4)
No performance during the finale has drawn more divided reactions among my friends and what I’ve seen online than Mistress’s. Some have her at the bottom of the list among the solos; others say “Delusion” was second only to Sasha’s. I’m firmly in the former camp: I was underwhelmed by the song, and as we’ve seen previously this season, choreography is not Mistress’s strong suit. I’d argue Mistress did not get some of the wins she deserved this season (first and foremost in the Ball), but she didn’t benefit from the last two “challenges” being the Rumix and a solo dance performance.
Of the final four, I would say Mistress is the safest lock to return for All Stars. While she struggled with choreography at the end of the season, she demonstrated all season she could excel in nearly every other category of performance that Drag Race calls for. More than that, she revived the sense that Drag Race competitors should be less concerned about their image and more concerned with making great TV—that’s exactly the kind of approach that would make her great for All Stars’ more directly competitive format. Could she win? I’ll admit, it’s tough for narrator types to take home the crown. But as we continue to wait for Drag Race U.S. to crown its first big-girl winner, it feels like Mistress is well-positioned to be the one to finally win the crown.
RUNNER-UP: Anetra (last placement: 3)
She walked that fucking duck all the way to the final two, but alas, Anetra fell short of the win. I’m in an odd place with my feelings regarding Anetra’s loss: I was rooting for her all season long, but the last few weeks of the competition shifted my thinking. While I adore Anetra and plan to stan her no matter what she does next, I felt the heat of her candidacy for the crown cool considerably. Her win for the makeover challenge felt random in terms of the edit. Her Rumix verse was the worst lyrically, and her final lip sync of the season was her least impressive. Her reunion performance was pretty muted—although that tends to happen to contenders for the crown. (Since the finale is all about them, they’re edited down significantly; remember how little we saw of Aquaria in the Season 10 reunion?)
Then in this finale, Anetra’s “Lotus” was a solid song, but her performance wasn’t in the same league as Sasha’s (or even Luxx’s). Entirely possible that’s because of the incident with the dancer, but like Rosé’s injured ankle two years ago, we can only consider factors we don’t see onscreen so much. We’ve gotta judge the performance on the day. And based solely on that, Anetra really shouldn’t have made it into the top two. But she was the fan-vote leader and won the second-most challenges this season, so I understand her getting there. Unfortunately, when she did, she served us a lot of the same moves in her lip sync that we’d seen all season. The “bleeding heart” fabric bit was cute, but in truth, nothing she did caught my attention the way Sasha did.
I do think Anetra will come back for All Stars one day, but I think she needs some time to buff up certain skills and especially her wardrobe ahead of that. She is a superstar, one who gained literally hundreds of thousands of new fans this season and she could easily join the Drag Race Hall of Fame one day. But even beyond this season’s winner’s dominance, this was not Anetra’s time to take home gold.
WINNER: Sasha Colby (last placement: 1)
It was always her. No disrespect meant to any of the other finalists: they all did great this season, and I see excellent All Stars runs in all their futures, should they choose to return. But Sasha is a living legend, and her performance this season reflected her stature in the drag world. She won the most challenges, never had to lip sync (but showed in the LaLaPaRuZa that if she had to, she’d crush any opponent), and conducted herself with tremendous grace and class all season long. She is the definition of a drag superstar, and the crown is rightfully hers.
It’s funny: I used to never have to think about a winner’s potential future on Drag Race, because the idea of a winner coming back (besides BeBe Zahara Benet) was never in the conversation. Post-All Stars 7, though, it’s easy to immediately start thinking of a queen’s future All-Winners run. While I hope Sasha takes quite some time to simply revel in her victory, I will admit that it would be great to see her back on our TV screens again. Especially if she competes alongside her pandemic roommate Kylie Sonique Love! Sasha is endlessly entertaining to watch, and no matter what her future is with Drag Race, it’s guaranteed to be a bright one.
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