Last week on RuPaul’s Drag Race, seven deadly sinning queens … stayed an intact seven. No one was eliminated, while Jane Don’t and Kenya Pleaser faced off in a lip sync for the win; Jane came out on top, clinching her third challenge win and cementing her status as a frontrunner.
Tonight, Alyssa Edwards (or Alicia, if you’re a chronic name forgetter like RuPaul,) will be the center of attention in a Comedy Central-style roast challenge presented on the Main Stage. Standup comedy on Drag Race is always a field day, a wild experience, and a gold mine of amazingly bizarre, endlessly meme-able moments. This crown jewel of a performance by Laganja Estranja on Season 6, although not strictly a roast, comes to mind:
Raise your hand if you still refer to things as “very dry, almost kinda like your vajoina” over a decade after the fact.
The roast has been a saving grace for a few queens with checkered track records at this stage of the competition, particularly Bosco’s Season 14 roast comes to mind. That performance was practically enough to catapult Bosco straight into the finale in and of itself, and a few queens going into tonight will be aspiring for that sort of boost, if they’re smart.
These are our weekly power rankings, defining each contestant’s current standing in the competition. They are, of course, merely our speculative opinions, so if we turn out to be wrong, well … Sue us.
7. Juicy Love Dion
Uh-oh, look out, it’s the queen who “doesn’t do comedy or acting.” We’re still wondering why on Earth Juicy won the RDR Live challenge. That performance was serviceable, we suppose, but who is Juicy kidding? She probably can’t tell a joke to save her life, and she doesn’t even have her drag relatives by her side in the Werk Room to bounce ideas off or gain confidence boosts in her ability.
Now that we think about it, we feel a little bad. Juicy must be feeling lonely without her friends, but the training wheels are off at this point. We have our doubts about it, but let’s see if Juicy can successfully write some solid jokes and make the judges laugh tonight.
6. Darlene Mitchell
We love Darlene, but it’s not been hard not to underestimate her in the competition thus far, seeing as the judging panel seems to keep giving Darlene the short end of the stick. She’s not being recognized for her talents, which is a travesty. Obviously, we’re not mind readers, but we have to wonder if Darlene might be starting to feel just a tad defeated at this point.
She’s been doing amazing, sweetie, but the judges aren’t living for Darlene nearly as much as we at home have been. We can only hope that she can put some grit and determination to use in this challenge and do something to stand out tonight.
Geez, where are the good old days when we used to get girlies on Drag Race who would Swiffer the floor with their taints? It’s so hard to find good entertainment these days.
5. Nini Coco
Oh, no … Is this Nini’s lowest Power Rankings placement thus far? If not, it’s still deviating from the norm. Usually, it’s quite easy to place Nini atop our Power Rankings. But we have also noticed that Nini can be a bit, well … dry (yes, kinda like your vajoina.)
On the other hand, we did have similar concerns for Nini going into the Snatch Game a few weeks ago, where she ended up killing the game and winning with her hilariously perverted David Attenborough impression. So maybe she’ll exceed our expectations once again, and pass the roast challenge with flying colors. Regardless, we’ll be tuned in to watch the Mile High queen (hopefully) make us proud once more.
4. Kenya Pleaser
Wow, Kenya’s still here, and she’s finally ascended a few points in the Power Rankings for the first time in quite a while. She was indeed placed dead last in the previous three Power Rankings, and has been enduring a few bumps in the road for awhile now. Even last week, in her Top 2 lipsync against Jane Don’t, Reddit still noticed Kenya’s obfuscation of her lyrical knowledge … or lack thereof, more like. But Kenya does indeed still have charisma to burn, and seems like she knows how to deliver a joke that lands.
Can she write them, though? That part will be key, and we haven’t had much of a glimpse into Kenya’s sense of humor yet. Tonight it will be tested in a big way, so let’s all hope Kenya can rise to the occasion tonight and knock it out of the park. If not, this girlie better know her words. If she doesn’t, she just might find herself officially blown out of the water.
3. Discord Addams
As she said in her own words previously, people don’t expect Discord to be funny, since she comes off so seriously in demeanor and adopts an elegant-yet-rebellious aesthetic. But since Discord performed strongly in the political ad challenge and in the Snatch Game, we are expecting a solid showing from her in tonight’s episode.
Discord still hasn’t won a challenge yet, but she also hasn’t made any appearances in the bottom two. We’ll be rooting for Discord to snag her first win tonight, which is entirely within the realm of possibility. This could be especially true storyline-wise, since a prominent subplot throughout Season 18 has been Discord’s eeky-creeky, ooky-spooky, disjointed runway walk, and the efforts of Michelle Visage and RuPaul herself to workshop the walk.
It’s not been unlike Miss J. Alexander and her very helpful runway advice on America’s Next Top Model:
2. Jane Don’t
Sigh … Yes, we are indeed certified Jane haters. We’re bored. We want some zestier fashion, more va-va-voom in the humor department, and more ugly, catty, gritty, bitchy drag queen gaggery. Jane Don’t feels very … safe.
Yes, we will admit that she is obviously quite prepared for this competition. It is plainly apparent that Jane did a fair bit of homework before flying out to film Drag Race, but still … yawn. It’s all feeling a little milquetoast at this point in time, but that’s not to say RuPaul and Co. won’t still be eating out of the palm of Jane Don’t hand, hence her placement this high in the Power Rankings. Jane excels, by Drag Race‘s standards, at comedy. She knows how to ham it up a bit, but color us unimpressed at who she’s going up against in this challenge.
1. Myki Meeks
Myki is the crown jewel atop our Power Rankings going into tonight. This queen excels at comedy and is on an upward trajectory now after hitting a low point in the Rate-A-Queen challenge. She bounced back quite well from that, and has proven conclusively why she deserved to stay thus far. She’s an excellent jokestress, as we saw in the reading challenge, which she won last week. Tonight our expectations for Myki are high, and dare we say, we’re anticipating that those high hopes could be exceeded by a wide margin.
Photos courtesy of MTV
