Last week on RuPaul’s Drag Race, some storylines reached their payoffs, while others kept on trucking (and tucking,) unresolved as of now. The Dions, Athena and Juicy Love of Florida (and Mykonos) faced off against each other in a lipsync for their lives. Such is life for closely-linked duos of the Drag Race canon, including Season 15’s “TikTok twins” Sugar and Spice, who were also subjected to each other in an epic fight to the death on the Main Stage:
Mother Athena, seemingly one of Season 18’s main characters, is now dust in the wind. Tonight’s the night for the girls to be out for blood as seven deadly queens will become a sensible six, and last Friday night’s preview for tonight was quite… elusive. We’re not exactly sure what it is the queens will be tasked with doing tonight, but regardless, these are our weekly Power Rankings of each remaining contestant’s standing in the competition thus far. Of course, if we turn out to be wrong (which we often do,) well… sue us.
7. Kenya Pleaser
We feel so bad for putting Kenya in dead last, especially for the third time in a row, going into tonight. However, charisma alone is only a quarter of the C.U.N.T. required to win the crown, and it doesn’t seem like there will be any breakthroughs to power the rest of Kenya’s run on Season 18. The mediocrity is off the charts, and with nothing to go off of in the preview for tonight’s episode, we unfortunately are going to have to assume the worst for Kenya Pleaser.
6. Juicy Love Dion
Coming off her second bottom placement, and now as a motherless child without Athena by her side, things aren’t looking great for Juicy. Tonight being the wildcard that it is, we can’t confidently say if Juicy will be able to apply her skills tonight. She is indeed deeply skilled in some areas, like dancing, and she even won RDR Live, as someone who “doesn’t do comedy or acting,” which is a pretty impressive feat on Drag Race.
But in the fashion design department, we aren’t convinced that Juicy can survive tonight. Her look in the first challenge of the season, a self-made “outfit,” aka a bra and panties with fabric draped on it, was a flop. And as we have mentioned, Juicy’s designer seems to have curated the aesthetic equivalent of a check Juicy can’t cash in a design challenge.
However, it’s not cut and dry yet; Juicy could still excel tonight. Even if she doesn’t, and she finds herself lipsyncing for her life again, we already know Juicy might be extremely difficult to eliminate. She’s on that Jorgeous trajectory; all we need now is for RuPaul to tell Juicy she was born to do drag.
5. Jane Don’t
Going into tonight, it’s hard to root for Jane Don’t. We have not been living for her Season 18 run as a whole; it’s been giving mediocre. But RuPaul and the judges are seemingly eating up everything Jane does. (Is that her new name? Jane Does?)
We feel like Jane is a ringer for the final four, but not because we like her. Tonight, we aren’t expecting much out of Jane, but we expect a lot out of RuPaul’s opinion on her. The Stockholm syndrome-ing worked on us liking Juicy, kinda…
4. Myki Meeks
Myki has bounced back from her Rate-A-Queen bottom placement quite well. It seems like that could have been somewhat of a rock-bottom moment for her, and now she’s motivated to work hard and make it to the end of the competition. Myki has indeed shown herself to be quite talented in more than a few areas, but she may be slightly overlooked by the judges in favor of some of the less-subtle showings we’re seeing from her peers.
3. Darlene Mitchell
Something is telling us tonight could be a design challenge, and if that’s true, we’re just hoping that Darlene won’t be horrifically robbed again, like she was in the last design challenge. That dress was haute couture to the max, and we’re still thinking about it weeks later. But the judges didn’t live for what Darlene was serving, although RuPaul has mentioned that Darlene’s drag name is quite amusing. RuPaul has a soft spot for “stupid” queens, and Darlene has been filling that niche on Season 18, for the most part. We can only hope Darlene will kill the challenge tonight and finally be recognized for her talent.
2. Discord Addams
So many rumors surrounding Discord have been swirling around and flying through the fandom, particularly on Reddit. No one seems to be on the same page about this punker, so it’s really a toss-up as to what might happen for Discord tonight.
But we do also know that Discord’s walk has been playfully joshed every single week so far, and that kind of care and continuity taken in a queen’s edit could be pointing towards a “robbed queen” 5th place finish, akin to Season 7’s Katya, or more recently, Season 17’s Suzie Toot. Regardless, Discord is one of the more exciting contestants left in the race at this point in time. Please, Drag Gods, let Discord get through tonight, so she can serve us more entertainment!
1. Nini Coco
Obviously, Denver’s horse in the race continues to top our Power Rankings. We can’t get enough of Nini, and similarly to Jane, we feel she is a lock for the finale. But we actually like Nini, so we’re happy to keep rating this queen so highly. Nini appears to be a jack-of-all-trades of sorts, and so we feel confident that Nini’s position in the competition as of now is relatively unshakeable. We’re still rooting for the Mile High queen of Season 18, as we have since it started airing back in January. Go, Nini!
Photos courtesy of MTV
