When I’m not writing about RuPaul’s Drag Race and its various variants, my day job is as an adviser for student media programs at a university. (Hi to any of my students reading this!) I started that job when I was still in my 20s, but I’m 33 now, and some of the students I work with like to rib me about being older. They mean it with love, and I take it in that spirit. But I nonetheless did not expect when I was a student myself to be in a workspace where most of the people I see on a daily basis are at least 10 years younger than me—especially while still in my early-30s.
I have to imagine Lexi Love felt the same way while filming Drag Race. There are just two other queens over 30 this season, Hormona Lisa and Onya Nurve. The average age of the cast is just over 26, and eight of the queens are that age or younger. Still, Lexi is 33 herself—not exactly an old crone. I can’t imagine she expected her fellow queens to refer to her as “auntie” or “grandma” this season, but that’s exactly what we see in this week’s episode. I stand with my sister in 33-dom, and support her in her efforts to beat out this army of twinks for the title.
Age jokes aside, though, I’m not loving this cast as a whole. I enjoy quite a few of them separately: Lexi’s my clear favourite, but I also enjoy Onya and Suzie Toot, and am warming up to Lydia B Kollins’ strange, laissez-faire approach to drag. As a whole, they’re a pretty similar lot, both in their style and their attitudes. The sense of needing a strong “brand” is more prevalent than ever, but the younger cast makes those brands feel inorganic and simple. The queens are perky and professional in confessionals, but Lexi and Onya excepted, they come off as almost too camera-ready. I feel like I’m being served a lot of personae, not actual people.
What’s funny is that this is not some emblematic problem with modern U.S. Drag Race. The last three casts in particular have been loaded with charismatic, distinct personalities. Yes, certain superstars shined immediately, like all three of our finalists from last season. But alongside Sapphira Cristál, Nymphia Wind and Plane Jane, you had dynamic side characters like Morphine Love Dion, Xunami Muse and Megami. Even an early out like Amanda Tori Meating showed a lot of personality in the premiere episodes! Maybe this group will start to click more as we get into the season, but at least for now, I’m a bit worried about their chemistry.
Interestingly, this episode opens without RuMail or even a werk room appearance from RuPaul. Instead, Drag Race UK Season 2 winner Lawrence Chaney shows up for a guest appearance, introducing this week’s runway category: “Is It Cake?” It’s always nice to see Lawrence, and she brings with her a bevy of The Traitors references (“It’s me, Alan Cumming!”) that are well-timed to that show’s return this week. Still, her appearance feels a bit random, especially without Ru to introduce her. It makes you wonder if there’s an alternate agenda at play here: introducing her to American Drag Race-only audiences for a potential second all-winner season? Setting the stage for her to replace Ru on Drag Race UK? The mind does wander!
As the queens prepare for the talent show, we hear some of last week’s performers worrying about Lexi’s planned roller-skating act. (This is where Jewels Sparkles calls her “auntie-grandma,” which you can mark as the point when I officially turned on Jewels.) In all fairness, Lexi herself is worried. She has the memory of Season 8’s roller-skating runway in mind, what with how wobbly some of even the most confident queens were. I only really remember Thorgy Thor and Robbie Turner being able to handle the skates with aplomb, and while the new stage gives them a bit more space, it’s still a tight fit.
Hormona, meanwhile, is this week’s single queen still trying to give a non-lip sync talent, going for stand-up comedy. There is a long and rich history of stand-up acts flopping spectacularly in the talent show. Derrick Barry! Trinity K. Bonet! Jasmine Masters! There’s no reason to still think stand-up will be a successful strategy in the talent show. To piggyback on my own thoughts from last week, we can wish that “real” talents would win the talent show until we’re blue in the face, but there is overwhelming evidence that is not going to happen. Moreover, if you really want to take a shot with a “real” talent, you need to make it good. Ra’Jah O’Hara sewing a 60-second dress? Genuinely impressive and iconic! Hormona’s stand-up? Not so much!
Granted, Ru does laugh a bit at Hormona’s set, though Michelle Visage ribs that he’s an easy laugh, and his laughter felt more born out of pity than anything else. I’m going to take it a step further and say I think Ru feels a sense of “ownership,” for lack of a better term, of Hormona’s run this season. He hand-picked her, as Hormona loves to remind the rest of the room (even being so audacious as to say voting her low in Rate-a-Queen would be going against Ru’s wishes!), so her failing could be read as an indictment of her skills. Of course, it could also be as Sam Star says: maybe Ru will regret the decision when he sees her werk room behaviour.
Quick rundown of the Is It Cake? runways: Sam’s Moschino-inspired (read it like Melinda Verga) wedding cake dress with the back cut out is cute! Onya’s peach cobbler take is a like-don’t-love for me, while Crystal Envy’s strangely muscular take on the Coppertone girl is too many ideas in one look. Kori fully comes out in one of Monét X Change’s Werq the World looks, which is a strange choice to me this early—show us who you are!—while Lexi wears a holographic TV screen look that is both very cool and only slightly connected to the category. Last two of the queens in the talent show: Hormona’s take on Marie Antoinette is just not interesting enough, while Lana Ja’Rae’s laced-up green gown is sexy and striking.
And now for last week’s queens! Acacia Forgot wears a garden dress with a hairy ass reveal that feels actually shocking—not because it’s hairy (I’m a 33-year-old gay man, I’m familiar), but because the look is in such a stark contrast with the reveal. I almost admire it for its shock value. Arrietty gives “time-traveling elf,” and I don’t blame her for this, but after a season of Dawn I’m not sure how many more elf drag looks I need to see. Jewels looks good in a look that incorporates the Puerto Rican and Cuban flags, but I’m still mad at her for calling Lexi “grandma,” so that’s all the praise I have on tap.
Joella gives us another Marie Antoinette look, this one with BDSM theming, while Lydia serves a genuinely intriguing ruched look with spikes on her ass. Lucky Starzzz does a “sponge cake” look that seems to thoroughly flummox Ru, and I’ll admit that I’m not a big fan either. Finally, Suzie Toot gives us a love potion-gone-bad transformation from maiden to donkey—a literal ass. It’s a bit of a stretch, and the transformation isn’t elaborate enough. Kind of a miss from Miss Toot.
Whew, that was a lot! 14 queens is just too many. At least we’re down to 13 after this episode, right? Right?
Talent show time! Sam does a country pop track with a call-and-response “yee-haw!” bit that the judges seem to love and her fellow queens seem to hate. (Lydia calls it boring!) Onya delivers one of my favourite performances of the night, an introductory bitch track complete with dance instructions that is catchy as hell. Crystal gives us a high-energy dance performance, including reveals, that impresses Lexi, and impresses me as well honestly. Hormona’s stand-up is indeed awkward, and met with stone-faced expressions from the other queens. Kori’s “shake that ice” number is cute, though it’s what I was thinking about most earlier when I was talking about the self-conscious branding from the queens this season. Lana’s number is too low-energy, unfortunately, which she herself has admitted was born of nerves. And finally, Lexi comes out on skates and absolutely demolishes everyone else. It’s just spectacular, the best performance from either premiere. Fatality, total victory, nepo babies smoked and toked.
Rate-a-Queen is chaotic as hell this week. Suzie gives Lexi her deserved #1, while Arrietty honours her deal with Lana and rates her #1. Jewels, who is in the same drag family as Sam, rates her #1 while assuming no one else will. Lucky, meanwhile, puts Crystal at #1. We don’t see who the other three rate so highly, though we can make some guesses based on results. I am very excited to see the published results in next week’s episode, though. Judging by the preview, Sam has thoughts about Lydia ranking her last. (As do I!)
We get two lip syncs in this episode, the first being a Lip Sync for the Win between Lexi and Crystal (should’ve been Onya, but I get it) to “Alter Ego” by guest judge Doechii. It’s the best lip sync of the three in these first two premieres, with both queens fighting hard. Lexi gets the win, earning $5,000 and the joy of being adored by her peers. She continues to be my favourite this season, and it’s not particularly close.
The second is Acacia vs. Hormona to Ariana Grande’s “Yes, And?”, which marks the 14th time queens have lip-synced to an Ariana song in a season hosted by Ru. (The first ever: “Break Free,” from when Ariana herself guest-judged in Season 7.) It is mostly fine, but Acacia does a butt plug reveal, and I kinda can’t believe I just wrote that. What an innovation! Acacia wins, which means Hormona should sashay away …
… except, Ru asks Hormona if she feels lucky. And here we have the introduction of this season’s major twist, sponsored by Las Vegas (not the Flamingo Las Vegas, not the Visit Las Vegas campaign—just Las Vegas): the Badonkadunk Tank. In front of each eliminated queen will be 10 levers. Every week, the queen will get to pull a lever, and if they pick correctly, Michelle will be plunged into a dunk tank. Only two of the 10 levers will dunk Michelle, which means the show has built in two non-elimination weeks. And one of them is right now, because Hormona somehow picks correctly on a 20 percent chance.
Now listen. I would certainly never accuse Drag Race of production shenanigans. Who, me? The man who once questioned the entire veracity of the chocolate bar twist on Season 14? Perish the thought! But if you were someone who thought that way, then Ru’s hand-picked queen being saved in spectacular fashion by a new twist, thus keeping the double premiere as a non-elimination, might draw some suspicion.
At the end of the day, it’s no real skin off my nose if Hormona stays—in fact, I love that it bothers the other queens so much—but Drag Race is determined to feel less and less like a real competition every season. When the cast and show are entertaining, that’s more forgivable. But if these premiere episodes are any indication, we may have a rough season on our hands.