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. We’re down to the final four as we say goodbye to Scarlett Harlett. But who among the remaining queens has a real shot at taking the crown?
5. Scarlett Harlett (last week: 4) — ELIMINATED
Despite doing well in the hometown ball and winning the design task, it did feel like surviving the pageant challenge this week would be a real hurdle for Scarlett. Her momentum was fully gone, and even making it through last week’s Snatch Game felt more about taking a note from Ru than it did about her performance. Where she really lost the plot this week was when she threw out the two animal-print items during the charity shop category to go with a basic little black dress. That was a game-losing play, as it took her away from the spirit of the challenge and into something that was naturally going to be compared to Krystal Versace’s own LBD.
I do hope to see Scarlett on Drag Race again someday, because she proved more than once this season that she’s good at the show—most notably in the design challenge and in her “Big Spender” lip sync. I just don’t think this was a cast that was going to give her room to thrive.
4. Vanity Milan (last week: 5)
Well, go on, Vanity! This was a thrill to see: not only did she smash the lip sync dead, but she also rocked two of the three categories in the pageant. I feel for her that she had to lip sync at all, but I think Ru very much wanted Scarlett gone next and knew Vanity would be the one to make it happen.
Still, it’s worth discussing that after Tayce last season, Vanity is the second Black queen on UK to be repeatedly tossed into the bottom two on her way to a final four finish, even when those placements were dubious. I’m not exactly breaking news when I say Drag Race UK has a racism problem, but I also think it’s not something that can be fixed simply by casting a more diverse pool of queens. It’s about how those queens are treated in the competition. This is something production really needs to look at deeply when producing future seasons.
In the meantime, I actually am rooting for Vanity to knock someone out of the assumed final three. Can any of them hope to beat her in a lip sync—particularly after what she pulled out this week? I think her “Scandalous” performance might be my favourite single UK lip sync ever—it’s certainly up there with Tayce’s “Memory.”
3. Ella Vaday (last week: 1)
Ella did fine this week! None of her looks stunned me, but none were offensive. I would’ve probably put her in the bottom two with Scarlett but since we haven’t seen how she lip syncs, it’s very possible Scarlett could’ve knocked her out (and a final four with both Scarlett and Vanity clearly was not on the menu for this season). While Ella has two wins already, one of them was for the girl group challenge, so she probably needs one more to be a viable contender for the crown—especially since Krystal’s two victories were on her own. I admit that seems like splitting hairs, but I also think Krystal will win this competition unless something radically changes. Ella really needs every bit of firepower she can get in her fight for the crown.
2. Krystal Versace (last week: 3)
Man, you could feel Ru wanted to give her this win. Honestly, I think Ru wanted to give Krystal most of the wins this season but this one in particular was so close. Had Kitty been anything less than great in any of the three categories, I think Krystal would have clinched it. Most revealing this week was Krystal’s reaction to none of the other queens saying her look was the best: Is she getting rattled realizing that it’s been quite a while since her last win? Or is this just more of the friction between the queens that I described in the recap? Hard to tell.
But I do think, in a normal edit, those kinds of moments are important to note. How Krystal responds to it next week will be big: Will she have an Aquaria-esque moment of calming down and coming to terms with the girls? If she does, she’s even more golden than she seems now. Of course, this is all assuming this is a normal edit and not the Drag Race UK-version which have suddenly swerved at the end of two separate seasons. I’m not placing bets just yet!
1. Kitty Scott-Claus (last week: 2)
What a thrilling win for Kitty. After so many weeks without a RuPeter Badge, she’s finally secured one for herself. Kitty was the most consistent of the night for me, excelling in all three categories even if she wasn’t the absolute best in each. She also, in my opinion, got the “fugly” brief the best—she never let that part of the challenge fall away from her aesthetic, and she also won major points for how she presented her looks on the runway. She created characters for each of her looks, and I laugh every time I think of her short little steps in the swimsuit look.
Obviously Kitty is earning this win pretty late, which makes me doubt she could actually win it all. But it’s worth noting that, like Ella, Kitty has never so much as scored low this season, much less had to lip sync. (Krystal has done both, though her lip sync was one for the win, not for her life.) Could Kitty win it all? I’ve said from the beginning that she’s one to watch—maybe I was onto something back then. But it feels hard to imagine her winning over Krystal or Ella, much as I desperately hope she will.
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