As Episode 3 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 17 kicks off, Hormona Lisa returns to the Werk Room, “safe to slay another day” as RuPaul so aptly put it (she escaped elimination by pulling the correct lever to drop Michelle Visage into the Badonka Dunk tank).
Immediately, she senses that some of her fellow queens are not as thrilled as she is that she is still in the competition, specifically Kori King who makes it clear that she would like “the competition to dwindle.” Conversely, Lexi Love relishes in her win and the validation that she has received from her Season 17 sisters. Lana Ja’Rae approaches Joella about Joella being critical of Lana’s talent show performance, while it quickly becomes very clear that some of the queens have their own issues with Lisa, who made it clear that we are still waiting for “this season’s Pork Chop” to be eliminated.
The queens enter the Werk Room for the day and Onya Nurve senses that “clicks are forming and energies are shifting” and that she has two games to play now: one in the Werk Room and one with the judges. RuPaul enters the Werk Room for the day and the queens dive into their mini-challenge of the week, complete with a scantily clad Pit Crew member topped with a top hat as Mr. Monopoly! The queens reach into the Pit Crew’s Community Chest and pick a card until they grab a property deed, straight out of the board game of Monopoly. After choosing cards (and Crystal Envy grabbing the Hey Kitty Girl card and stealing Ja’Rae’s Boardwalk card) it is revealed that the queens are now divided up by colors: red, orange, yellow and blue and they need to create outfits from scratch, the challenge is Monopulence. (In a turn of fate, Ja’Rae chose the Is The Railroad Still Running card, stealing Boardwalk back from Crystal Envy.)
The queens were tasked with crafting outfits from fabric, a development that Lucky Starzzz was not happy with. Love approached the challenge from a sartorial/high fashion perspective, while Sam Star and Crystal Envy thought that they may have the challenge locked up due to their pageant backgrounds and eye for excellence. After meeting with the queens in groups, one thing became clear to RuPaul: after a decade and a half of “Drag Race,” some girls still don’t know their way around a sewing machine. Ru also left the queens with parting gift-a dossier listing the Rate-A-Queen results. Not only did this expose Arrietty and Lana’s alliance, but it let the other queens know exactly what their competitors thought of their talent show performance.
Right as the day of the runway kicked off, Lisa was asked to remove stoning from her garment that she had added, as she had brought them from home which was against the rules (and pointed out courtesy of Love). Lisa was clearly unhappy about his development as she steadily removed the stoning while on the other side of the room, Nurve and Jewels Sparkles had a minor issue that bumbled over into full-fledged war over some Nurve snagging some material from Sparkles’ station without asking.
We head to the main stage and RuPaul is joined at the judges table by Michelle Visage, Ts Madison and Sandyland host and actress Sandra Bernhard. The “Monopulence-You Own Everything” runway kicked off with queens like Sam Star and Envy delivering stunning royal blue and rich presentations, while Suzie Toot delivered her look in a devilishly crimson creation. Arrietty presented a stunning headpiece also decked out in red, while Kori King delivered a vibrant yellow look that the judges did not find to be opulent at all, crisp color notwithstanding.
The bottom queens unfortunately were Starzzz (who presented a more traditional style of drag that typically is not their aesthetic) and Joella (who up against her competitors, presented a very basic, yet classic drag look). The two queens battled it out to Paula Abdul’s “The Way That You Love Me" and while Lucky pulled out all stops possible, it was Joella who ultimately took the win this week.
Starzzz received one final chance to stay in the competition (courtesy of the BadonkaDunk tank) but unfortunately, she pulled a lever that did not ultimately dunk Visage and dunk Starzzz back into the competition. Starzzz became the first queen to officially “sashay away” from “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 17.
Follow RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 17 on Instagram @rupaulsdragrace.
