‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Season 18, Episode 9 recap: Bring it to the ball, Fannie

If there was one certainty about this season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, it’s that Athena Dion and Juicy Love Dion would have to face off in a Lip Sync for Your Life. The storyline was just too perfect to ignore: (grand)mother and daughter, in the same competition. One is a polished veteran, the other a young upstart. The upstart took an early lead, but has been struggling as of late. Their other drag family member, sister Mia Starr, just went home last week. The likelihood of both of them making it into the endgame was basically nil.

And so, as this episode opens with Juicy revealing a past struggle with drug addiction—and citing Athena as a major reason why she’s now in recovery—it seems inevitable that we will be seeing one of them depart by episode’s end. Even though Juicy is happy about reaching the Rusical challenge, since it means choreo is back, there’s just no deviating from the path ahead. In a Rusical where basically everyone does well (Ru even says the judges are splitting hairs), the writing is on the wall.

I’ll get more into the Rusical and runway in a bit, but let’s actually start at our ending, with the lip sync. Performing to Selena Gomez, Benny Blanco and Gracie Abrams’ “Call Me When You Break Up,” the Dions are fairly low energy, but Juicy’s clearly doing better. Athena’s grasp on the words is tenuous at best, and while Juicy isn’t dancing like she usually does, she’s interpreting the song well in her facial expressions. By the end, even Athena seems to be aware of what’s happening, and takes a beat to kneel and welcome Juicy onto her lap. Juicy bursts into tears as Athena lip syncs the last line or two, and the applause is scattered as the song ends. It’s a heavy moment, one Myki Meeks calls “too much” in confessional. Juicy wins, and Athena sashays away.

While I have enjoyed the Miami Trio’s arc this season, I gotta say, it’s pretty underwhelming to suddenly lose all but Juicy with five pre-finale episodes still to go. Part of the problem is that Juicy just seems so defeated now. I could see her going as early as next week, because her spirit has taken a beating these last few episodes. I also have pretty major problems with Ru asking Juicy who she is, triggering Juicy’s anxieties around her recovery, having no on-camera follow-up with her about that, then making her send home the person who helped her with her addiction. It’s using real people and real trauma for a story beat, and I must agree with Myki: it’s too much.

But even just thinking about it from a storytelling perspective, it sucks that the trio that was quite dominant through the first third of the season is now all but gone. This is the third week in a row we’ve seen a former maxi-challenge winner go home, while Darlene Mitchell, Discord Addams and Kenya Pleaser are all now in the final seven without a single win—or even an otherwise remarkable track record. It’s just deflating to get invested in these queens for the first part of the competition, then send them home almost immediately after their moment of victory.

Let’s talk about that perpetually safe trio and their performances this week. I actually think all three are pretty good in “Fannie: The Hard Knock Ball,” a ballroom take on Annie. (Do you think Ru saw CATS: The Jellicle Ball while it was in New York?) I would say Kenya is best as Grace Gaultier, the emcee of the ball. She’s the right fit for the character and really gets into the ballroom vibe. She also looks gorgeous in the Beige Against the Machine runway category, sporting what must be her best mug and hair of the season. Darlene is also a lot of fun as Fannie’s dog, a role she is eager to take on for its camp value. Discord’s the least impressive as part of a dancing duo with Nini Coco, but the judges praise them as probably the most in-sync duo of the Rusical.

But in a strange decision, Discord and Kenya are kept on the main stage for critiques, only to be given positive-but-mixed notes. They’re the kind of critiques you’d expect for a safe queen, not someone in contention for the win or for the lip sync. Indeed, when Ru does call out the top contenders, she only mentions Myki and our eventual winner, Jane Don’t. Nor does she mention either Kenya or Discord when she begins to call Athena and Juicy as the bottom two. In this case, at least, it’s more understandable: Juicy’s inability to translate her performance on her face leads to Kenya outshining her, and Athena’s occasional stiff dancing and stilted line deliveries mark her as the worst of the week. (Though before her mostly positive critiques from Ru, I would’ve said Discord was going to land in the bottom two.)

Still, this speaks to the awkward position we’re in with this cast, and why it feels like no one besides Jane is really proving themselves to be a threat for the crown. A queen can have a terrific week, then almost immediately go home: Mia won the talent show, then landed low in the political ads task and was sent home for Snatch Game. She can win, but then get buried in the edit—we’ll talk more about Nini this week in the final thoughts. And I don’t even know how to describe what’s happening with Ru and Discord, a queen he seems to like but does not have any way to reward. 

Of the non-winning queens so far, only Darlene has the kind of track record that could indicate better things for her down the line. With Discord and Kenya, we just seem to be marking time before their eliminations, losing strong competitors instead along the way.

So let’s talk about our top two, Jane and Myki. Initially, this seems like Myki’s week, blowing everyone out of the water in the queens’ recording session with Leland. Jane even compares her to Sutton Foster in her confessional! And then, in the challenge itself, it’s clear she’s the best performer of the lot … in her first number. The opening of “Fannie: The Hard-Knock Ball” is much more traditional musical theatre, with a “Tomorrow” parody called “Next Tuesday” that is both funny and a sincerely great vocal opportunity for Myki. Her theatre kid training pays off big, and she describes the experience as “therapeutic” for the former wannabe musical theatre star inside her.

However, this Rusical is unusually structured. Despite playing the title and main character, Myki disappears for most of the rest of the act. Perplexingly, when Jane comes in as the Miss Hannigan character type for her big number, she’s ostensibly searching for Fannie … who we have not seen in several minutes. When she finally does come back, she and Darlene perform a ballroom-inspired number that is decidedly a worse fit for Myki than the opening. Overall, the plot of this Rusical is pretty shaky, and it pales in comparison to the past few Rusicals. I think everyone is still good in it, but they’re good in spite of the material, not boosted by it.

No one exemplifies that better than Jane, who snags her second maxi-challenge win. I’ve grumbled a bit here and there about Jane’s dominance, which I think is deserved but nonetheless makes for somewhat boring television. Not this week, though! Jane is a superstar in this part, with perfect physical comedy, characterization and vocals. It’s exactly the kind of performance that wins Rusicals, and I’m glad for her that she finally actually got the win once again. Kind of funny that both of her victories were for music challenges—I wouldn’t have expected that at the start of the season!

Jane also dominates the Beige Against the Machine runway, which Ru notes is also quite good. Normally, I have issues with this kind of runway that’s just a colour, especially one that can read as boring as beige. But the queens turn it out, with Jane’s Mae West recreation being the most spectacular in a very strong lot.

And so we arrive again at the end, with the lip sync that is borderline hard to watch as it ends. “The position I’m in right now is having the one thing I’ve wanted more than anything in my life standing right in front of me, and the one person that means the most to me in my life standing between that,” Athena says before it begins. Again, I do think that by the time the performance ends, and Athena says “I love you” to Juicy, she knows how it’s going to go. I also think, while Athena does want to win, she would never really do anything to stand in her drag daughter’s way.

With Athena’s departure, we’re down to the final seven of the season, and I do think this is not the most desirable situation we could be in. Other than Jane, I don’t think anyone is a lock for the finale, and I wonder how much longer we’ll have to have both Discord and Kenya knocking around in the bottom before we move forward. I really like this cast, but I think the structure of the season and the judging have created a strange situation for them. I’d say that could make the next five weeks really entertaining, as we see who comes to the fore, but I also think it could just be five more weeks of Jane domination.

I’ve been a big fan of Season 18 up to this point, but I can’t help but think about another season that started quite strong, only to have an unappealing run of eliminations leading to a rough back half of the season: Season 10. I’m hoping I’m proven wrong on this point, because those last few episodes of Season 10 were painful to sit through. (Remember the evil twins challenge?) Season 18 isn’t there yet, but I would say this is an inflection point—and what happens next week will likely decide how this season will be received moving forward.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨ At the start of the episode, Jane says she’s “mostly feeling good” after her eighth week in the top (“Jane Don’t bottom,” Kenya says as I giggle), but really wants to get a win. You can see the winless Discord staring daggers at her as she says this.

✨ The scene of Kenya putting on Nini’s panties and vice versa is the kind of werk room shenanigans I love that we don’t get as much of anymore. Remember Asia O’Hara and Monét X Change sassing each other back and forth? I quote “and your talent is in the bottom two” all the time! Those scenes of casual sisterhood are just as important as the more serious mirror moments, and I hope this is a signal that we’ll get more of them.

✨ Poor Nini just gets buried in the edit this episode. First, we learn about “Nini has a gun,” the phrase the other queens use when someone catches a random stray from her. (In this case, it’s Vita VonTesse Starr, as Nini contradicts the prevalent feeling in the room that it’s surprising Vita is not still in the competition.) Then, when selecting parts, Nini is an indecisive mess once again, getting Myki to temporarily give up the lead role, only to turn around and not want it. It’s the exact same situation we saw when she panicked over whether to go Week 1 or Week 2 for the Rate-a-Queen Talent Show, which Jane notes in confessional with an accompanying flashback. Not a great week for Nini to be seen as the kind of in-control, confident queen who makes for a fitting America’s Next Drag Superstar.

✨ I cackle every time Athena in a recording booth is compared to Dr. Seuss. I really will miss her.

✨ Let’s talk a bit more about the Nini/Myki situation. There’s an audition between the two for the other queens, and while Myki is clearly better, Nini feels like the other queens have already made up their minds before they even audition. (Yet another sign that Nini isn’t very popular in the room.) After Nini tries to pivot to take Athena’s role—which Athena quickly shuts down—Myki makes what she frames as a savvy strategic play by agreeing to give up the lead. Myki’s thinking here seems to be that, like Bosco before her in Season 14’s Rusical, Nini’s desperation for the lead will be a trap of sorts, leading to her being up for elimination if she can’t measure up. Nini seemingly realizes what Myki is doing, and panics. “Nini is trying to outsmart the challenge,” Jane says, and I think we’re seeing a lot of that this season in unspoken ways, including from Jane herself. You can’t get 18 seasons in without the queens learning how to game things a bit—I’d actually prefer if they let the queens be upfront about it.

✨ Carlos Basquiat, who Legendary fans will recognize as the former Carlos Lanvin from the dominant Season 1 House of Lanvin, is here to help Jamal Sims with choreography. Not only that, but Jamal explicitly shouts out Legendary! Bring it back! It’s great to have Carlos here, as he adds an authenticity to the choreography that helps it not get too Rusical-ized.

✨ Quick update on the Black Widow Darlene theory: everyone from her girl group besides her has now been eliminated. She strikes again!

✨ Kenya mocks how white Nini and especially Discord dance during the choreography session. Her distant “Holla …” had me giggling.

✨ What’s that I hear in the distance? Is it … is it RuPaul saying the words “mini-challenge”? Yes! The Majority Rules-style competition, previously called Spill the Tea but now “Grindr? I Hardly Know Her!” to tie-in with a sponsor, has the queens vote in a variety of superlative categories, and matching the group consensus earns you points. Athena quickly gets pegged with a lot of them: most likely to lie and say she’s vers, most likely to hook up in drag and in a unanimous vote, most likely to lie about her age on her Grindr profile. “It still says 30,” Juicy reveals, prompting the funniest expression of betrayal from Athena. Darlene is voted as having the lowest body count, Nini the most likely to have “masc4masc” on her profile (Nini!) and Kenya as most likely to be on Grindr at a funeral. “There’s rich people at funerals, girls,” Kenya replies. Finally, on the question of who goes home next, Kenya reads the room correctly and votes for herself, earning her the final points she needs to win the challenge in a tie with Discord. But as Kenya notes, in this very same challenge last season, the queens voted Jewels Sparkles as most likely to go home, and she made top two. Anything can happen!

✨ Nini sings “It’s a new day in the werk room!” as they come in for elimination day. “And I should … not sing, I think I’ve learned,” she adds in her normal voice. Self-aware queen!

✨ Darlene says she loves drag without a lip, and sometimes stops her makeup before she does her lips. “Yeah, we gotta get you back in the bars,” Jane responds.

✨ Our guest judge this week is Benny Blanco, and apologies to Mr. Selena Gomez, but he’s just kinda there. For those watching UK vs. The World Season 3 right now (and if you’re not, you’re missing out on one of the most fun Drag Race seasons ever), Will Poulter was a much better example of how to be a straight guy as a guest judge: you gotta know the show a bit! Benny’s commentary was just surface-level. Not a problem by any means, but he wasn’t adding to the proceedings.

✨ The ball in “Fannie” being held in “the FDR Center for Cultural Appropriation” is fucking hilarious.

✨ Ru Rules is still dead. I come to bury Ru Rules, not to praise them.

The next episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race will air Friday, March 6, at 8 p.m. EST on MTV in the U.S. and on Crave in Canada. Check back every Monday 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 month.