RECAP: RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 18, Episode 15 (LaLaPaRuZa)
Now THAT was fun. After two fairly controversial eliminations in a row (three, I guess, if you count Discord getting axed on the makeover challenge for literally no reason), Season 18 regained its footing and gave us a wildly entertaining LaLaPaRuZa. All 14 queens were reunited, and some mid-season beef was reheated and digested. But the episode was really about the lipsync battles, and almost all of them were solid to very good.
That doesn’t mean I agreed with all of the winners. In fact, of the 9 match-ups, I thought the wrong person was picked to win in 3 of them. But they were mostly good performances, and we can with absolute certainty that this one was miles better than the truly banal Season 17 LaLaPaRuZa, which I don’t think gave us even one truly great battle. (I still think the Season 16 LaLaPaRuZa was the best, largely because of Megami’s out-of-nowhere, unexpected domination, which was magical to behold.)
Read on for my take on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 18, Episode 15 “The All-RuPaul-A-PaLuZa Smackdown.” Leave your own takes in the comments!
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Before we got the lipsyncs, we got a mini-reunion in the work room. Ciara Myst clearly decided that she needed attention, and came in covered in blood and wearing a Rate-a-Queen sash, a reference to Carrie White getting doused in pig’s blood in the climatic prom scene in “Carrie.” I was generally fond of Ciara during her time on Season 18, but I thought she was pretty obnoxious. I get it, she’s a drag queen. She’s messy and attention seeking – and I love that for her. I just found this to be aggressively corny, and also hypocritical. Maybe I’m misremembering it, but I recall Ciara actively participating in the vote-rigging scheme during her Rate-a-Queen episode – it just didn’t work out in her favor. She was not the worst queen of that night – Vita VonTesse Starr’s talent was the worst of Group 1 – but she was also far from the top. Whatever sympathy I felt for Ciara over elimination evaporated within the first 15 minutes of this episode, including the dust up with Jane Don’t over the fabric for the design challenge. Jane read her down for that one, and it was deserved.
I gained some sympathy for Boston’s Briar Blush, who shared that after she was eliminated from the show, she discovered that she actually had pneumonia, and that once she got home, the condition worsened and she contracted sepsis. I’ve read some of Briar’s interviews on this subject, and it sounds like a pretty scary situation. She was also urged by her physicians to not participate in the lipsync showdown (I believe this was filmed fairly close to the main season, so I’m guessing she didn’t have time to properly recover), and instead watched from the sidelines, peppering in a few shitty comments, as she is wont to do. Honestly I found myself missing Briar this season. She’s a great harmless antagonist, and I wouldn’t mind her coming back for Season 19 since she was essentially a medical elimination, not unlike Cynthia Lee Fontaine on Season 8.
We then got to the actual lipsyncs, entirely set to RuPaul songs. I’ve seen a great deal of bitching about this online, and to that I say: shut up. First of all, yes, there were probably economic factors with that. It is what it is. Secondly, RuPaul has several many very good lipsync songs, and I had no problems with any of the picks for this episode. I don’t get why, in this political climate, people continue to dunk on RuPaul as if she’s somehow part of the vast right-wing conspiracy to strip us of our rights. Those people are very real, and they are making great strides in doing exactly that. RuPaul ain’t one of them. Stop alienating people in our community and be grateful we have what we have. It is most certainly not promised.
There was also a twist to the LaLaPaRuZa format, and I’m torn as to how I feel about it. The first group of eliminated queens – DD Fuego, Mandy Mango, Ciara, Vita, Athena Dion, Mia Starr – were the only competitors in Round 1. The three winning queens from that round then went on to compete against the three next eliminees, Kenya Pleaser, Discord Addams, and Jane Don’t. The winners of THOSE battles were joined by the most recent boot, Juicy Love Dion, and then the winners for those semifinals squared off in the F2.
It’s fair in the sense of a meta-season perspective. If you did better on the season, you had to survive fewer rounds than someone who struggled on the main season (my partner compared it to “Top Chef” and “Last Chance Kitchen,” which I think is an interesting comparison). But from an episode-specific perspective, it really stacked the odds in favor of the queen who had just been eliminated. That queen (Juicy) only had to win two rounds. Whereas one of the first boots would have to survive at least three match-ups. That’s a big differential.
With that said, even with some bad calls in early rounds, we got the absolute right winner in the end.
ROUND 1
Match 1: Ciara Myst vs. Athena Dion, “Born Naked”
Continuing in her episode-long mission of Doing The Most, Ciara showed up in an outfit ripped from “The Substance”’s Monstro Elisasue, while Athena wore a refined white ensemble that revealed to a deep red under layer. Probably the weakest battle of the night, Athena lost me at the jump when she mimed guitar playing on the opening riffs — personal pet peeve, it always reads as a cringey to me – while Ciara gave us almost a comically bad costume reveal down to Sue from “The Substance.” I say “almost” because it wasn’t funny, it was borderline embarrassing. She just couldn’t get the Monstro look off of her for what felt like minutes – it was probably 30 seconds. Beyond that, that reference was over a year old when this was filmed. It’s even less relevant now. It was just…not good. Clumsy and out of touch. I would have given it to Athena simply because she didn’t fuck up completely, but the judges gave it to Ciara. I audibly booed.
Match 2: Mia Starr vs. Mandy Mango “Just What They Want”
A big improvement form the first match-up, I thought both of these queens did well. Mia also seemed to struggle with a wardrobe reveal, which was especially bad because I thought her outfit was a MESS. Meanwhile, Mandy was terrific, moving like a dream and giving us some ballroom-inspired moves. At one point, Mia started raining down bills on Mandy, and in a twist, it turned out it was actual money – $100 worth of bills in fact. I love that. But was it worth the win? I would have given it to Mandy, but the judges gave it to Mia, who was…fine. We have seen Mia perform far better in other lipsyncs. Mandy, meanwhile, cannot get any love from the judges, and I found myself frustrated on her behalf. Justice for the Mango!
Match 3: Vita VonTesse Starr vs. DD Fuego “Main Event”
A personal favorite RuPaul song, and the only song that verged on a ballad in the mix, this featured a good performance by Vita, while DD was dressed as…a dust mote? A melanoma? A puffball going through a goth phase? I have no idea. It was one of the more clumsy lipsync looks I’ve seen, and worst, the reveal was equally tragic. It’s shocking that DD is based in NYC, because she should have access to better drag than this. Perhaps she just has a taste-level problem. On a positive note, I saw huge improvement in her make-up here. Some friends questioned whether Vita knew all the words, which may have been the case. But she certainly nailed the emotion of the song. The judges and I both agreed: Vita won.
ROUND 2
Match 4: Vita Von Tesse Starr vs. Mia Starr “Call Me Mother”
No rest for the wicked, as the two Starr people were back to battle it out on one of Ru’s wordier tracks. I’m really not clear what Vita was thinking picking Mia here, but as expected, Mia threw down a harder lipsync than Vita (who looked beautiful tonight, by the way) and cruised to what seemed like an easy win to me. Again, we have seen Mia perform much better in other lipsyncs on this show, so I’m not clear what was going on here. But it was still enough to get the nod from me and the judges, and Mia continued to the quarterfinals.
Match 5: Kenya Pleaser vs. Ciara Myst “Pretty Gang”
For all the flack I gave Ciara earlier, I thought she won this lipsync by a wide margin. I was both surprised and impressed at how naturally Ciara took to the song, and I thought she had more than one sick move. Meanwhile, speaking of moves, we got from Kenya what we always get from Kenya: a limited number of elements that she interchanges as necessary, sometimes multiple times per song. It’s like a Mortal Kombat combo but in drag. I think she knew the words this time, so that’s great. But I really thought she was outperformed by Ciara here, and pretty definitively so – and it was all stuff we’ve seen before, both from Kenya and from other queens, many of whom execute it better. Alas, Kenya was given the win and continued to the semi-finals.
Match 6: Jane Don’t vs. Discord Addams “Sissy That Walk”
One of the highlights of the night was Jane deliberately picking this song as a reference to the now-iconic Discord Cam and Ms. Addams’ signature runway slouch. This was so fun to watch. Discord did a good job, but Jane really nailed this, giving us some great comedic moments in addition to some surprisingly sexy moves (tonight was easily the sexiest I’ve ever seen Jane, and she was fully giving me the fantasy). Jane was given the win (agreed) and Discord took it like a champ, leaving as she came in, the surprise lovable queen of the season.
ROUND 3
Match 7: Jane Don’t vs. Juicy Love Dion “Cha Cha Bitch”
If you think Jane was crazy for deliberately picking Juicy, I get it. But she had a perfectly good logic for why she did so. Anyone going up a fresh Juicy this round was going to have an uphill battle, but I think Jane really did as best as she possibly could have here. She had some absolutely hilarious moments, especially after she read the room and knew where this was going, resigned to her fate. Juicy, meanwhile, lived up to and exceeded my very high expectations, delivering a great, multi-stage reveal, which culminated in a handstand dress drop, which I’ve never seen before. She dances so beautifully, and seemed to be having a blast out there. Juicy won, and we bid another sad goodbye to Jane, who proved once again tonight why she will be one of THE defining queens of this season, crown or not. And this will go down as a legendary lipsync for all of “Drag Race.”
Match 8: Kenya Pleaser vs. Mia Starr “Peanut Butter”
Jane knew that both Kenya and Mia would have picked this song, and she also knew she could not beat them in an ass shake-off. Honestly, tea. I thought Kenya and Mia both did well here. I don’t know if Kenya knew all the words (and there aren’t a ton), but she and Mia had a lot of fun selling ass on this track. I was entertained. I would have given them a dollar. I still felt like we have seen Mia perform better on this show, but I was not mad about it. In the end, Mia was named the winner. Correct result.
FINAL
Match 9: Juicy Love Dion vs. Mia Starr “Covergirl”
That gave us the seemingly inevitable Final 2 of Miami vs. Miami in Juicy and her drag aunt, Mia. This was Mia’s best performance of the night, although I still think it paled compared to, say, her Talent Show number or that Top 2 lipsync (also against Juicy). Juicy just annihilated this. The dancing was SO good. The body movement was so precise and so expressive. The face was locked into the song. She is an S-tier lipsync performer across the entire franchise, and all I could think every time they panned to the S18 finalists watching from the couches/chairs was, All of these queens must be thinking how lucky that Juicy, Mia, and Jane are not in the finale, because they could SO easily win the whole thing in a lipsync. That was especially true of Juicy.
Juicy was named our winner, the Queen of She Already Had Herses (like mother Morphine Love Dion from S16), and awarded $50,000. Good for her. Juicy is a special queen, and will make a ton of money touring. I would 100 percent buy a ticket to see her perform live. I don’t think we’ve ever had a performer like her on the show, and again, Season 18 was stocked with incredible queens who are so good at their craft. It’s just a shame that several of them did not make the finale.
WIth that being said, the finale is next week, and Darlene Mitchell, Myki Meeks, and Nini Coco have a very tall order living up to the entertainment value of this LaLaPaRuZa. Can they do it? I guess we’ll see.
What did YOU think of the LaLaPaRuZa? Did you agree with the winner? Who do you want to win the whole season? Drop your comments below!
