Last week on RuPaul’s Drag Race, Vita VonTesse Starr was eliminated in a blaze of glory. A blaze of Juicy Love Dion’s glory, that is.
Vita held her own against Juicy in a lipsync for their lives to “Houdini” by Dua Lipa, but in the end, she was ultimately dismissed by RuPaul. Her elimination came as a shock to some in the fandom, who had pegged her as potentially making a deep run in Season 18. Her design skills and overall polish were noticed and admired by many Drag Racers.
Sadly, those things were not enough to carry Vita through into tonight’s episode, where the nine remaining contestants will be participating in a dating show-themed edition of Snatch Game. Here’s our thoughts and predictions on each queen’s current standing in the competition.
Oh, I should also mention now that we are planning on analyzing these articles for accuracy when Season 18 is finished airing. But if we turn out to be wrong, well… sue us.
9. Kenya Pleaser
Kenya is hanging on for dear life at this point, and she is probably about to get blown out of the water. This queen can’t even remember her own words in a lipsync, so how exactly does she plan on being able to quip, drop one-liners, and make off-the-cuff comments, as is necessary for a successful Snatch Game performance?
Kenya has charisma, sure, but she’s not really a comedy queen, nor does she seem to have much crossover appeal for playing the Snatch Game, à la Aquaria as Melania Trump. We don’t have very high hopes for Kenya tonight, not even if/when she falls into the bottom two. She definitely won’t scrape by if she doesn’t know her words in the lipsync for a second time.
8. Jane Don’t
You’ve probably heard of a filler queen. You know, like Season 13’s Joey Jay. But what about a bummer queen? That’s what we think Jane Don’t is: a bummer queen. Jane hasn’t captivated us yet. She’s a bit of a downer.
A long list of Emerald City contemporaries precedes Jane’s Drag Race appearance. She hasn’t left much of a distinct mark on her season yet, as many of her fellow Seattleites managed to. We’re about halfway through the competition by now, and Jane Don’t hasn’t come close to touching the legacies of her homies: Season 14’s Bosco, or Season 15’s Irene the Alien, both of whom stood out in their original seasons (although for very different reasons.) The pair of alternative Seattle queens made respective deep runs when they returned for last summer’s All Stars 10, as well.
So far, Jane has opted to play bright, cheery, and quirky characters. She was a clown representing “the teehee community” in last week’s political ad challenge. There was also that grating, cringey, 80’s suburban mom character she played in RDR Live… Sitting at the news desk, clad in rainbow knitwear, blithering on some irritating nonsense about doing poppers with the daddies she met in her LGBT support group. Someone, please tell us why this is happening?
It might also be an issue with the script writing quality on the production side of things, as has been widely speculated and harped on, for years now, in the Drag Race fandom. Regardless, though, we wish Jane had breathed more life into her performances. It’s unfortunate for us as the audience, yet advantageous for Jane Don’t, that the calibre of acting talent this season is extremely poor. It allows Jane’s glass-half-empty mediocrity to be framed as some of the best we are to expect from the cast of Season 18.
It’s making us feel a little like Lana Winters and her “good” food:
7. Mia Starr
Mia still hasn’t Swiffered the floor with her taint or shot ping pong balls out of her ass, so our optimism for her prospects going into the rest of the competition is eroding quickly.
Dunno what it is about this queen’s edit that makes us wanna put on our Edgic tinfoil hats, but her visibility in the edit feels just a little too artificial. I mean, it is reality television, to be fair, so maybe we’re way off, but it just comes off as if Mia’s moments are meant to set her up for some sort of epic downfall later on. She narrowly escaped the bottom two last week, where if she had faced off against the firecracker that was Juicy, she very well may have been taken out right then and there.
Tonight, we will see who shows up at the table for Snatch Game, and we don’t mean what character Mia is playing. We’ll be watching to see if it’s the fiery Mia, who claps back in the Werk Room who shows up in character to the Snatch Game? However, we’re not particularly enthused with her chances, so of course, take all that with a colossal grain of salt.
6. Juicy Love Dion
Last week, Juicy Love Dion lipsynced for her life in a bizarre headpiece that looked like a pink, rhinestone-encrusted cross between an Iris Van Herpen dress and George Costanza’s hairstyle. Her bald head was giving fuschia Sweet 16 Easter egg. It’s too much, Juicy, please stop immediately.
We think the problem here might be that Juicy already had something like “fuck you” money coming into the competition, and the designer she worked with to curate her Drag Race runways has expensive and sometime high-brow or even straight-up avant-garde taste. That’s merely an assumption, of course, and we could be wrong. But Juicy’s aesthetic truly does seem to be a pretty cliche “sexy and opulent” vibe, mixed with some sort of trendy haute couture, as we mentioned before.
Juicy’s dance powers were on full display during last week’s lipsync for her life. All those weeks ago, we did mention that she basically spoiled her skills during the Q-Pop performance, where she engaged in a few wild acrobatics on the main stage. Nevertheless, in “Houdini” versus Vita, Juicy danced with wild abandon, paralleling both Season 14’s Jorgeous and Mila Kunis in Black Swan. She will surely be a difficult contestant to eliminate, depending on the circumstances going into a bottom two matchup.
Which is good, Juicy will probably need to use her resources again tonight if she flops in the Snatch Game. Earlier in the competition, we did hear Juicy complaining about not “doing comedy or acting” during RDR Live. But Juicy won the RDR Live challenge, so maybe lightning can strike twice for her. Either way, in the arms race of lipsyncing, Juicy is fully ready to do so, so she’s a lock for next week.
5. Nini Coco
Denver’s own Nini Coco is in quite good standing within the competition as of now, but for the first time this season, we feel just a tinge of nervousness for Nini going into tonight’s challenge. We hate to ask, but… will Nini be funny? She’s not stone cold serious, but Nini hasn’t quite incited many laugh riots since she first walked into the Werk Room.
This is so random, but for some reason, we can picture Nini flopping the Snatch Game in the same vein as Bosco playing Gwyneth Paltrow in Season 14. Bosco tried real hard to be a prop comic that day, with her yonic candle and huge plastic bottle of vulgar “K*mbucha” to plug. All from her website, “Droop.” Yes, “Droop.”
Even if worse came to worst, Nini’s fierce dance-weapons seem like they could go up against even the best of her opponents in a lipsync. Her praying mantis Rate-A-Queen performance proved that, so us Nini fans here in Denver will all have our work cut out for us tonight in rooting for our Mile High queen to make it through tonight unscathed.
4. Athena Dion
As certified Athena haters, we hate to admit it, but yes, it’s true… Athena did great last week. She showed strong comedic acting chops with her Foreign Trade political ad. It was on point. The whole “get rid of the foreigners” schtick channeled a fucked-up lovechild of Sarah Palin and Lauren Boebert. So despite her sometimes-lukewarm previous engagements thus far, we could see Athena delivering a fun, funny character in the Snatch Game tonight.
Athena also did just surprise everyone when she beat out Jane Don’t in a lipsync for the win to Amyl and the Sniffers. That was quite an unexpected result. Thrust into the limelight, Athena is now giving full on main character energy. We can imagine Athena might bookmark a spot in the judges’ good graces if she keeps up this trajectory. That “Jerkin’” lipsync was nowhere near long ago, and momentum is key to making a deep run in Drag Race.
But who’s to say what could go down, because Snatch Game is a pressure cooker of a challenge. Athena has shown “a lot of emotions for safe” at times… Particularly about being snubbed in the Q-Pop girl group picking. That was what? Four or five challenges ago? And yet Athena keeps it relevant. She has a majorly bruised ego over not being picked.
Athena honey, there’s one word for people who don’t get picked: LEFTOVERS! Accept the label and move on… Good God girl, get a grip. The glamorous Greek girlie is gunning for gumption, grinding an axe about her grudge, and griping about her grievances. And as the numbers are slimming down, the pressure is rising exponentially.
Maybe Athena is the type who thrives under extreme pressure, and we just haven’t seen that level of intensity from her thus far. Whether or not all this will pay off for her in the long run remains to be seen. Or, will the producers keep rage baiting Athena with her with placements? Allegedly, that is what is happening, according to a few choice Reddit comments. Anyway, whether she nails or bombs tonight, something is telling us Athena will swing big.
3. Darlene Mitchell
Darlene’s performance in the political ad last week highlighted her ability to excel in a wacky, semi-improvised comedy situation. If she can marry that ability with a spot-on, or at least highly entertaining celebrity impersonation, Darlene shouldn’t have too much trouble advancing on to next week by the end of tonight.
Snatch Game is a wild card challenge, though. Really, anything can happen. Comedy queens can bomb, look queens can kill, underdogs can win. Or get snuffed out. We would really, really hate to see Darlene become a victim of Snatch Game’s extreme nature: you excel, or you flop. If Darlene made a smart choice in picking her celebrity character, she should be just fine.
2. Myki Meeks
Things came full circle last week for Myki. After surviving the rotted Rate-A-Queen rankings and ensuing bottom two lipsync, Myki went on to win the next challenge, clad in a see-through plastic business suit office siren look on the main stage.
We could see Myki doing well in the Snatch Game tonight, probably at the very least well enough to continue on to next week. Myki can make a reference, she knows how to act, and she has comedic timing. She can pull dramatic facial expressions and communicate with her body language, as we saw in her “Toxic” lipsync against Ciara Myst.
The track record is a little bit chaotic so far, sure, but we’ll still be firmly in the Team Myki camp going into tonight because of her cuteness and her charisma.
1. Discord Addams
In the preview for tonight’s episode, it was shown that Discord is playing The Pope for the Snatch Game. From the looks of it, Discord will be eating this challenge up. Discord, a self-professed “rainbow hater,” playing The Pope? That’s GOLD, Discord. GOLD!
This is sure to take a little heat off Discord for her signature stiff walk. But, they might still dunk on her for it with the runway presentation edit like they have been. Has any Drag Race queen ever had their very own “Cam” in the edit before? I think not.
Discord Addams has a little Florida Man energy for sure, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially when it comes to playing the Snatch Game. In fact, we’re actually sitting here right now, on the edges of our fucking seats going into tonight, waiting for Discord’s Florida Pope to preach to us. All hail The Pope!
Photos courtesy of MTV
