Welcome to RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Power Rankings! Every Friday, we’ll debrief the week’s new episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Season 3 to determine which queens are riding high, and which need she-mergency care. Your guess is as good as ours as to how the queens are doing this week—but we’ve parsed through the tea leaves to try and come up with a general power ranking.
8. Charity Kase (last week: 7) — ELIMINATED
I can’t help but feel like, if she hadn’t clearly won the lip sync last week, Charity would’ve just been sent home then. She wasn’t terrible this week in the challenge, but the other queens citing her negative attitude in the workroom seemed to be enough for Ru to put her back in the bottom with Scarlett. Unfortunately for Charity, lightning couldn’t strike twice, as Scarlett pretty clearly beat her in the lip sync to “Big Spender.” As I mentioned in a previous power ranking, you could tell Charity and the judges were just never going to fully see eye to eye. Michelle respected her outré drag but also expected to see range. Charity’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of drag meant she was going to keep striking the same note. This was sadly inevitable.
7. Scarlett Harlett (last week: 8)
Scarlett is in a really interesting place coming out of this week. She’s fully pitted against the other girls now, which could make her the season’s new antagonist. But the show has invested so much in her and her storyline that I hope they would avoid taking such an easy, well-trod path. If Ru’s going to call out the girls for a lack of originality in their advertisements, then we shouldn’t get a tired villain story from Scarlett. If anything, it’d be interesting to see how Scarlett reprioritizes her energy moving forward. She felt that the other queens throwing her under the bus was a rejection of the friendship they had created. If Scarlett decides she’d rather focus on herself and her drag than on building bonds, it could totally change the workroom dynamic. Going it solo is a lonely road in Drag Race, but if Scarlett’s “Big Spender” lip sync is any indication, she may be able to hack it on her own.
6. Vanity Milan (last week: 4)
I was pretty shocked to see Vanity be called out as the other member of the bottom three. I thought she was one of the funniest—she got the only actual laugh out of me—and her dripping-in-jewels runway really worked. Moreover, Ru seems really invested in making Vanity come out of her shell, so encouraging her by placing her in the safe group feels like it might’ve produced greater results. Alas, she adds another low placement to her track record, while queens who got worse critiques avoid the bottom.
5. Krystal Versace (last week: 6)
Oh, here’s one of those queens now! Honestly, I’d have put Krystal in the bottom three over Vanity. As team captain, she bore responsibility for the failure of her team’s commercial, no matter how much she wanted to blame Charity for taking over. She also underwhelmed on the runway; Leigh-Anne Pinnock was rightfully obsessed with Krystal’s hair, but her bodysuit didn’t read as expensive at all. By virtue of having two wins to everyone else’s one (and Kitty Scott-Claus’ zero), Krystal remains the frontrunner, and Ru does seem to want to keep her out of danger. But I think she’s lost critical momentum; she’ll need another win to get it back.
4. Choriza May (last week: 2)
Luckily, Choriza’s humour still seems to have its hold over Ru and Michelle. Despite a truly dreadful gold rush-themed runway this week—it managed to both look ugly and not fulfill the runway prompt—Choriza basically got a pass from the judges. In fact, their main criticism was that they wanted her to take the lead as the voice of her team’s Draglexa. That the judges want to see more of you is not a bad critique to get! I’m still dubious about just how far Choriza can go, but at least for the time being, she seems safe.
3. Ella Vaday (last week: 3)
I kinda don’t know what to do with Ella. The judges seem to like her, if not love her, and thus her critiques skew positive. But this week, Michelle finally said that Ella has a tendency to age herself with her hair and makeup choices. And while the call to step it up was made to the entire cast, I hope Ella, in particular, hears it. Of everyone in the cast, save maybe Kitty, Ella has been making the safest choices relative to potential. She usually looks great—the crystal cascade on the back of her dress this week was gorgeous—but she needs to shift into a higher gear. Will she be able to pull off an impressive Snatch Game? Time will tell!
2. Kitty Scott-Claus (last week: 5)
It’s hard to put Kitty in the top slot this week. Despite her overwhelmingly positive critiques, she remains the only queen not to have a win under her belt. While she’s been a major character all season, she doesn’t have much win momentum going—though I actually think she has the best chance of winning Snatch Game next week. She’s a proven impressionist, and there are a couple of characters I could see her doing to great effect. If she can’t triumph next week, though, there will be real concerns over just how realistic a Kitty win is this season.
1. River Medway (last week: 1)
It feels like River has finally struck the right balance with the judges. She looked absolutely gorgeous on the runway, and her contributions to her group’s commercial were the most positively received. Like Choriza, the one note they gave her is that they’d like to see more of her. Unlike Choriza, though, it does feel like River is doing the kind of drag that could earn her a win. Rather excitingly, next week is Snatch Game, and she’s already shown a penchant for being able to improv with Ru and the judges. (See: her pointing gimmick during the first episode’s runway.) If she can ace Snatch Game, I think River may be one of the few who could challenge Krystal as a frontrunner in this competition.
A reminder that, as recaps of Drag Race UK will now be coming out on Mondays, the next edition of the Drag Race UK Power Ranking will be published on Tuesday, Nov. 2.
Can’t get enough drag content? Check out Wig!, our gag-worthy weekly drag newsletter! Sign up for exclusive content only for Wig! subscribers.
Why you can trust Xtra
