This story contains spoilers about “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 17.
RuPaul has a splashy twist up her sleeve for the queens of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 17 to wrap up the two-part premiere.
Teased in the first trailer for the season, the Badonka Dunk Tank has the power to save a queen, who otherwise would have to sashay away. Each nearly eliminated queen will have the chance to test their luck by pulling one of 10 levers. If they guess correctly and send resident judge Michelle Visage into the tank, they will get to escape elimination and slay another day.
In last week’s premiere episode, Acacia Forgot was ranked in the bottom by her fellow queens for her original country song performance. This week she faced off against the least favorite from Week 2.
The other half of the queens took to the runway to display their talents for Ru, Visage, T.S. Madison and guest judge Doechii this week. While there were several standout performances, one truly took the air out of the room.
Hormona Lisa’s subpar stand-up routine received pity laughs from Ru (as called out by Visage) and very few from her peers on the sidelines. As the final decision was up to her competitors with the Rate-a-Queen system, Hormona found herself in the bottom for the week.
Acacia Forgot and Hormona Lisa faced off to lip sync for their lives to Ariana Grande’s “yes, and?” and escape the first elimination of the season. After Acacia revealed a hidden makeup brush in a special place to finish her performance, Ru’s decision was made, and Hormona was going home — or so she thought.
But, Ru asked the queen, who had been hand-picked from a fan event of his in Tennessee, if she was feeling lucky.
Visage then revealed herself in a cheetah print one suit, seated atop the Badonka Dunk Tank. Ru told Hormona that she had a 20% chance of staying on the show if she chose the right lever to pull that would send Visage into the tank.
After a couple prayers and even licking a lever for luck, Hormona pulled lever number seven and successfully dunked the resident judge in the tank.
All 14 queens will return for the third episode of the season next Friday.