The episode kicks off with our final six queens reflecting on Lydia B. Kollins’ mirror message and seemingly significantly upset that “Miss Butthole” herself has departed the competition.
The fact that Lana Ja’Rae has not won a challenge yet also was brought to everyone’s attention, with Onya Nurve now having three wins under her belt. There was definite tension from the question posed on the runway about who should leave the competition (they almost unanimously said Suzie Toot), but the queens seemed to rebound very quickly.
The next day, the queens entered the Werk Room, and RuPaul joined them soon after. The queens were asked to pair up with the queen in the competition who “gets them best.” Lexi Love partnered up with Nurve (which Sam Star was not happy about). Star was paired with Ja’Rae, and Toot partnered up with Jewels Sparkles. In a nod to Mad Libs of sorts, the queens were tasked with writing fill-in-the-blank bios, with varied results. Toot delivered some hilarious zingers during her bio for Sparkles, Nurve and Love seemed to struggle with finding their comedic rhythm, and Ja’Rae and Star did a fantastic job and seemed to get each other instantly.
The maxi challenge was both writing and performing in the Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve and Talent Monologues. They would be writing their own monologues based on the prompt that they pulled, with the mini challenge partners fleshing out the story through an interpretive dance.
As the queens brainstormed their monologues, Love remained her own worst critic, and Star ironically thought that Love would be getting in her own head working with Nurve, currently the competitor with the most challenge wins. Once again, Sparkles was tasked with tasking the order of the challenge, and she was more than happy to place the queens exactly where she thought would work best (for whom, though?). The queens dove into their performance practicing, with some taking the interpretive dancing very seriously, and others being a bit more flippant about it and keeping it light.
We head to the main stage and RuPaul is joined by Michelle Visage, Ts Madison and Jerrod Carmichael. Following their monologues and dances, the girls would be showing off their ugliest dress during the runway presentation.
The performances were definitely a bit of a mixed bag. Love and Nurve were a raucous good time, Toot and Sparkles had a blast but seemed to be a bit one-note, and Star and Ja’Rae seemed to have a bit of a hard time with fleshing out their stories. The runway presentations were tasked to be ugly, but some of the queens looked absolutely stunning. Love crafted her entire garment on her own, Ja’Rae donned Kandy Muse’s ugly pocket dress from Season 13, Nurve hit the runway decked out as a turkey, and Star was dripping in crimson, with a bloody good headpiece included!
Following the runway critiques, Love and Nurve won the challenge, with Ja’Rae and Star landing in the bottom two. Dua Lipa’s song “Illusion” was the perfect song for these two dynamically talented queens to battle it out to, and battle they did. Putting on a stunning lip sync, complete with dual death drop (!), Ja’Rae ultimately was determined to “Sashay Away.” As she departed the competition, she offered her parting words, cheekily saying, “Is the bus still running?”
Follow RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 17 on Instagram @rupaulsdragrace.
