Due to spring break, I took a week off so I was unable to discuss episode 12 of Season 15. In summary, episode 12 was “The Rusical,” a live musical performance challenge. This year, the queens starred in “Wigloose” — a parody of Footloose — a story about a town that wants to ban drag. The big moment was when the queens were asked who should go home and why and Luxx Noir London gave an iconic answer. Anetra won, Loosey LaDuca and Salina EsTitties lip-synced and Salina had to sashay away.
In the fallout this week, there is some clear tension in the room. Besides Salina’s shady mirror message, there’s some discomfort as half the stage said Loosey should go home but she’s still there. There’s some discussion about the queens’ answers and I go back and forth in my head about the drama. I love it for sure — it helps make the show dynamic. But I feel bad about the show’s portrayal of Loosey.
The next day, the queens walk in and Mistress Isabelle Brooks guarantees she will be winning this week. RuPaul walks in, and the mini-challenge is announced to be a fun game called Spill the T (with some not-so-subtle Anastasia Beverly Hills sponsorship). The queens will simply be answering some fun most-likely-to-style questions about each other.
The highlight was when Ru asked the final question: Who is going home next? Unanimously, the queens said Loosey, including Loosey herself. While I can appreciate Loosey knowing the queens are going to say her and wanting to get the points to win the mini-challenge, I feel like she basically gave the producers the ammunition to send her home.
The main challenge is announced to be the makeover challenge, which is one of the most fun challenges in the Drag Race universe in my opinion. The challenge is simply to put a group of people into drag. Usually, the people they’re putting in drag have some common thread, such as when they did female boxers, gay veterans and members of the production crew. This season, the queens will be putting teachers in drag. Since Loosey won the mini-challenge, she will be assigning the teachers to the queens.
[The Diamond Drag: Two Queens, One Joke of ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’]
As much as I love the makeover challenge, I feel it sometimes leaves some room for rigging. It’s kind of hard to judge the makeover challenge because, more often than not, the criteria of “family resemblance” is hard to judge.
The queens split up and really start connecting with the teachers. Anetra and her partner bond over both being Filipino, while Mistress and her partner bond over being queer and Latina. And while you have those queens really clicking with their partners, we see Luxx kind of brushing off her teacher. I’m going to assume it’s the edit that showed Luxx in this light because I just can’t imagine any queen being cold to their partner during this challenge.
We also see Sasha Colby’s partner talking about how she wants to go full-throttle drag with padding, big hair, big makeup and big everything. Because of her partner’s commitment, Sasha decides she’s also going to pad on top of her curves.
This moment, while small, really illustrated the range of Sasha. She’s not afraid to do things that, for lack of a better phrasing, may not make the most sense to her. There are people out there who think trans women have no place in drag because they have an advantage with breast implants or surgically made curves. Sasha showed what she can do as an artist.
Ru comes back to the Werk Room and does some walkarounds and ends up announcing the teachers will also have to do a lip-sync for their life. Each queen gets a brief segment on the stage with their partner where they practice performing and it was cute to watch.
The next day the queens are getting ready and then hit the stage. One by one, the queens hit the runway with their teachers and I think generally everyone was pretty good. Even though I just praised Sasha for padding, I will say that on the stage, it was very exaggerated and I don’t know how I feel about it. Loosey’s partner was basically identical. Mistress took a simple approach and I didn’t hate it or love it.
Luxx was really the only person who missed the family resemblance mark. I think this is the first week Luxx wasn’t a smash on the runway. It was just too simple. Her outfit should’ve been blue like her partner’s dress.
Anetra smashed the challenge out of the park. Her makeover was a copy-and-paste, and I also liked the outfits a lot.
[The Diamond Drag: 50/50’s Most Gagworthy Stars of ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’]
The teachers then do their lip-sync and I thought it was super cute. They were all just having so much fun up there and I loved the queens cheering them on.
The tops are announced to be Sasha, Mistress and Anetra. Anetra wins the challenge, and I completely agree.
Luxx and Loosey are put in the bottom and I honestly don’t really agree with Loosey being there. I thought Mistress did worse than Loosey, and this is coming from a Mistress stan and Loosey hater (but not actually hate — just not the biggest fan).
Luxx and Loosey lip-sync to “for the girls” by Hayley Kiyoko and Luxx ate Loosey up. Luxx is an electric performer and it was fun watching her do something high-energy. Luxx wins the lip-sync and sends Loosey packing.
Honestly, Loosey had a rollercoaster of a journey on season 15. She was written off as this crazy competitor and while I don’t doubt that was somewhat true, I also don’t think it’s fair to only show that side of her. Regardless, thanks to Loosey, I know to always let loose.
