It’s back to business on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 17 this week, for better or for worse.
The thing about a paradigm-shifting episode of Drag Race, like the terrific installment we saw last week that thrust underdogs Lydia B Kollins and Lana Ja’Rae into the spotlight, is that it needs to have some kind of lasting impact to really shake the table. Sure, Heidi N Closet didn’t make it to the end after she won that branding challenge in Season 12, while perpetual challenge winners Gigi Goode and Sherry Pie still made it to the final four. (Only Gigi made it to the actual finale, owing to Sherry’s disqualification.) But crucially, in the very next episode—the debate challenge—Heidi did well once again, while Gigi and Sherry both struggled. The biggest story, of course, was who won that challenge: Jaida Essence Hall, earning her first victory in weeks and coining her iconic “Look over there!” catchphrase.
Conversely, in this week’s episode of Season 17, featuring an acting challenge called “Ross Mathews vs. the Ducks” (a parody of Feud: Truman Capote vs. the Swans), last week’s underdogs promptly fall back into the bottom two, each lip-syncing for their third time in this season. Onya Nurve and Sam Star, who have been dominant all season long, once again find themselves in the top two, competing for their third win. Suzie Toot continues to do well, this time bringing Lexi Love into the high-scoring side of the judging with her—but neither seems in real contention for the win. If anything, the lasting impact of last week’s episode seems to be the dulling of Jewels Sparkles’ shine, as she lands in the bottom three and just barely avoids lip-syncing again.
Does this negate the value of last week’s episode? Not as a one-off installment; I stand by my claim that it is one of flagship Drag Race’s best and most interesting episodes in years. But anyone hoping that we might see genuine disruption to the expected final five of this season is likely to be disappointed, chief among them Lydia herself. It’s at this point that I want to get into something a bit spoilery about the future of Drag Race, so if you’d like to continue to experience future seasons with completely fresh eyes, go ahead and skip to after the next image. But if you’re curious, read the next paragraph—it’s the only one that will include this spoiler-filled talk.
It’s been a bit of an open secret online in Drag Race fandoms that Lydia is on the cast of the upcoming All Stars 10. Her (technically rumoured, but come on, Reddit doesn’t get casts wrong anymore) casting is the quickest turnaround we’ve ever seen for a queen, beating out former returnees like Aja, Mo Heart, Monét X Change and Jan who all returned one year later. Because of this, two things have been understood by fans who knew this information: Lydia must do something to earn the invite, and she cannot make it to the finale. She definitely demonstrated why she was invited back, what with her Lip Sync Assassin status, her surprising roast win and Ru’s love of her middle name. But the latter point is why it’s a bit easier to accept Lydia’s elimination, even if it feels like a too-quick stop to her momentum: we know her Drag Race story is just beginning.
Okay, back to the land of the non-spoiled! This is not technically a team challenge, but there is a team element to it: three of the scenes involve two of the queens acting together, while one scene is a monologue. All the characters are based on reality TV and online celebrities, which means most of the scenes are based on viral moments that the queens are largely familiar with. I’ll give Drag Race credit on this: fans have been clamoring for the show to drop the Old Hollywood references and give the Millennial and Gen Z queens something they’ll recognize. It does lead to unintended consequences for one queen, but we’ll get back to that in a second.
The way the pairings shake out, we get some interesting dynamics: Lana specifically wants to work with Onya, as she feels comfortable acting opposite her sister. (They did the same in RDR Live a few weeks ago.) Lexi, meanwhile, gets stuck with the person she is least comfortable with in Suzie. She’s even having bad dreams of being chased by Suzie at this point. “I enjoy working with Lexi!” Suzie says in confessional. “The catch here is that, for whatever reason, Lexi has decided that I am her archnemesis.” Lexi points out that it’s actually easier for her to perform with Suzie instead of against her, but she still winds up getting in her head a bit. More on that later.
Our last pair is Lydia and Sam, and I’ll give the show credit for some subtle, consistent storytelling here. We’ve seen on multiple occasions that Lydia and Sam do not respect each other’s drag, most notably when Lydia ranked Sam last on Rate-a-Queen and when Sam called Lydia “delusional” for thinking Sam should’ve been in the bottom two on the Betsey Johnson challenge instead of her. But crucially, this is not a personality conflict at its core. They come from such different worlds and have distinctly different perspectives on their art form, so it’s not that they dislike each other. They just don’t speak the same language. Their success in this challenge is dependent on overcoming that barrier.
Finally, we have Jewels monologuing alone, in a part she fought hard to get against Suzie. Once again, Suzie finds herself in a losing battle as the other queens push for Jewels to get what she wants—and, crucially, for Suzie to not get what she wants. However, when Suzie relents, Lydia notes that there’s something a bit too nonchalant about her demeanour. After all, Lydia says, Acacia Forgot went home after Suzie let her have the Kansas Dorothy role in the Rusical. Might Suzie be hoping for a repeat outcome here? Notably, the monologue is based on Tiffany “New York” Pollard’s anti-Gemma Collins rant from Celebrity Big Brother UK, which Jewels says she knows like the back of her hand. Put a pin in that.
I’m going to talk about both the recording and the final product of “Ross Mathews vs. The Ducks” simultaneously, because interestingly enough, they don’t quite tell the same story. Lana and Onya’s scene is probably the best of the bunch. Playing Love & Hip Hop-style rap queens who may share a familial connection, they have great comic timing and delivery. The shot of them darting their eyes back and forth after Onya reveals Lana’s butt pad is hilarious. They fully commit to their fight scene, and they set the tone. Were this a team challenge, I would have easily declared them the winners. But this task is judged individually, and of the two, Onya is the more dominant performer. While I don’t quite agree with Michelle Visage that Onya “steamrolls” Lana, if I separate the performances in my mind, I think Onya’s elevates Lana’s.
Sam and Lydia play a socialite and her best friend, a proctologist who is stealing Sam’s man. Conceptually, it’s the strangest scene, but it actually makes for a good fit for these two. Both are much improved from their disappointing RDR Live performances, Sam in particular. I gotta say, while I rolled my eyes a bit at the judges trying to replicate Trinity the Tuck’s Season 9 arc on Sam circa Snatch Game, Sam has really taken the opportunity to “loosen up” and run with it. She’s been terrific every week since. Lydia has some very funny moments (love the spit take), but she’s still a bit too hesitant. Even in the recording session, Ross and guest director Cheyenne Jackson really push her to amp up her line deliveries, and she doesn’t take the hints. In a week where basically everyone does well, Lydia is just not up to par.
Lexi and Suzie portray loosely inspired versions of Lisas Rinna and Vanderpump, late of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and this scene is cute. I actually like Lexi a bit more than Suzie—there’s a natural quality to Lexi’s performance, a confidence that we haven’t seen from her in a while. She does get in her head again during the recording, requiring a lot of takes, but the end result is strong. Suzie’s also good, but I think I’m getting a bit bored of Suzie’s baseline, solid performances. She’s naturally talented as an actor, which makes challenges like these easy. I’d like to see her reach a bit more, though I’ll admit it’s hard for her to do so when the other queens keep preventing her from getting the parts she wants. Regardless, they do well together; the ASMR bit in particular is very good.
And then there’s Jewels. Jewels has a very unique and odd problem this week, which is that she knows New York’s original monologue too well. Playing “Chicago” (ha), with a monologue purposefully written to be very close to the Gemma Collins rant, Jewels keeps mixing up what’s from New York’s rendition and what’s in this script. Cheyenne has to correct her multiple times, and while the final product is decent, you can tell she’s just trying to get through the monologue without mixing up the lines again. From my perspective, at least, Jewels is the worst performer of the week—tough coming off her first bottom two appearance last week.
Ru and the judges actually don’t agree, though. They put Lana and Lydia in the bottom two instead of Jewels. It’s possible that Jewels’ Black and White Ball runway is what saves her—it’s a spectacular rendering of a Hayden Williams illustration—but I’m not sure I would’ve given the runway that much weight when both Lana and Lydia’s looks are also terrific. To me, Lana and Lydia’s sins in the challenge of not quite being at their scene partner’s level are less egregious than Jewels not making a moment out of her spotlight monologue.
The win comes down to Onya and Sam, both of whom are up for their third win. Sam is hungry for it, having expressed in the cold open real disappointment over losing last week to Lydia. But it looks like Sam will have to wait, because Onya takes her third win. There’s been a lot of talk online, especially after last week’s Untucked when Onya defended Jewels against Arrietty and Lexi, that the winner of this season simply must be Onya. I do think Sam is still making a solid case for herself, but I do see the vision of Onya as America’s Next Drag Superstar. She has aced every element of this competition, and if she indeed makes it to the end, it will be hard for anyone to argue that she doesn’t deserve it. If nothing else, Onya responding to Ross telling her she’s cracked the code with “You mean quacked the code?” should earn her a guaranteed finale spot.
Lana and Lydia lip sync to “Unholy,” and oof, this one’s tough to watch. Lydia actually has the advantage in the first half of the performance, being her typical funny and expressive self. But her garment limits her mobility, so she has a plan to cut herself out of it. Here’s the issue: she cuts slower than anyone has ever cut before, and she doesn’t even cut it all the way. She gets trapped in the garment, tripping over herself, and it’s kind of a train wreck. Lana, meanwhile, takes full advantage, giving her best lip sync performance yet and stealing the spotlight. She wins, which means Lydia sashays away.
While I fully agree with this result, I do think it makes next week a bit of an anti-climax. Lana is the only queen left without a win, and she’s had to lip sync three times. It would take a miracle for her to stay over the other five queens. Lydia’s brief moment of success last week promised that maybe, just maybe, this competition wasn’t locked up for the final five yet. Her failure in the lip sync this week means the underdog story has almost certainly come to an end.