RECAP: RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 17, Episode 15 (LaLaPaRuZa)
For the second blog in a row, I find myself opening with, “Well, that was some bullshit.” And I’m sorry, but it is true. We have had numerous LaLaPaRuZa lipsynch smackdowns on Drag Race at this point, over multiple different franchises. This is our fourth in a row on a main U.S. season (fifth if you count the awful intro episode of Season 13), and this was by far the worst of the bunch. Boring, disconnected performances and some blatantly wrong calls by RuPaul. This felt less like an actual tournament based on the results on the stage, and more like a way to reward the queens who had become fan favorites throughout the season, or done great things after the show. I could maybe accept that if the lipsynchs were decent, but they weren’t. I genuinely don’t think any match-up except the finale was in any way memorable, and even the finale was nothing compared to lipsynchs we have seen in the past.
Below find my thoughts on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 17 Episode 15. SPOILERS AHEAD!
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Prior to the tournament, the whole cast was reunited in the work room to address some lingering plotlines and for the breakout stars to get more camera time. Those queens specifically were Kori King — who has become a Cameo celebrity since the season started airing — and meme queen of the season Joella, who was fully feeling her oats this episode. Arrietty had a heavily produced moment with Onya Nurve in which she apologized for that heinous mirror message she made post-elimination (I am glad it was “resolved” but I also felt that whole moment was demanded by Producers, and Arrietty was hoping it would help rehab her reputation, which…I don’t think it did), and Kori King confirmed that they are still making the most of the Butthole part of Lydia Kollins’ name, as they are a genuine couple in real life. Aw. Hope you didn’t want to hear anything from most of the other queens, because they got very short shrift.
The tournament played out similarly to the way it did last season, with a few key differences. First, there was no studio audience — I feel like there was last season. Am I hallucinating that? I certainly think a crowd might have helped with the mid energy of the whole proceedings. And second, instead of the queen being selected at random picking her competitor, they were now given the option to pick competitor OR song. I understand why they did that, but I actually think this made the tournament less spicy than previous editions. In Season 16, the queens were blatantly selecting the person they thought was their weakest competition; here they were just focused on picking a song that worked for them. Way to make one of the bitchiest seasons in recent history somehow less dramatic.
I’ll go over my thoughts on the battles one by one, but you should know going in, I’m gonna do a lot of bitching. I’ve said consistently that an undercurrent this whole season was young, unseasoned queens being exposed for their lack of ability, and I think we saw that on full display here. There was very little creativity on that stage (aside from a couple of basketball tits) and depressingly few queens seemed to have any ability to connect with a song. How dreadful.
Match-Up 1: Hormona Lisa vs. Lydia Butthole Kollins to “Liza with Z” by Liza Minnelli
You know a lipsynch sucks when the most interesting part of it is another queen lipsynching in the background (Suzie Toot, who Michell Visage joked was dying inside by not being able to perform this song). Lydia is a great lipsynch performer. We’ve seen her come alive in a few showdowns this season. She was adequate here, but this jazzy Broadway number just isn’t in her wheelhouse. I also did not understand what the fuck that thing was supposed to be on her head following the hat reveal. Was it a dickhead? A conehead? But I guess kudos to Lydia for being consistent in giving me looks that make absolutely no sense to anyone but her (the dress was striking, though). Hormona somehow did both too much and too little in this lipsynch. She very quickly whipped through numerous reveals, shedding pink layer after pink layer all over the stage, like the gayest Blooming Onion at a strip-mall Outback Steakhouse. There was no connection to the music, and mostly she just walked around the stage looking pissed. I suspect she was concentrating on the words. This was likely Hormona’s best shot at moving into Round 2, and the fact that she delivered such a dull performance is a grim indication of her performance skills. I know she’s been doing this for years, but if you told me she started drag at the beginning of this competition, I would believe you. Lydia was named the winner, and I agreed with the call.
Match-Up 2: Suzie Toot vs. Joella to “Training Season” by Dua Lipa
Suzie’s ball was picked second, and instead of opting to select the song, she decided to select her opponent — she went with the Premier Slaysian Diva of L.A. (TM), Joella. Suzie picked Joella because she thought Joella was weak; let’s not have any pretence around that. Joella got to pick the song and went with Dula Peep. She picked that song. Herself. So it was wild that she didn’t seem to actually know the words, and delivered a thoroughly forgettable performance that coupled all the excitement of standing there with all the mystique of pointing at things. Joella’s brand is delusion, so she was being true to herself in this moment. But this was another case of a merely adequate performance advancing past a total dud, and at this level, we should all be expecting more. Suzie did have an outfit reveal and a wig reveal, although I thought the latter verged on clumsy. But I loved seeing Suzie give us a more contemporary, sexy energy and thought she was…fine. She was declared the winner, as she should have been. Joella was faux outraged at the decision. I’ll say this for the gal: like three months after her elimination she remains one of the biggest memes from the season, and I hope she continues to lean into that, because her cluelessness is her bread and butter.
Match-Up 3: Lucky Starzzz vs. Acacia Forgot to “Step by Step” by Whitney Houston
Y’all, I have been WAITING for this song as a lipsynch. I would have preferred the original, more ballad version, but I’ll take the sped-up club remix if that’s what we are doing. Two of the most forgettable queens this season meant that this was a fairly even playing field. Neither Lucky nor Acacia were renowned for their lipsynch skills, but in their own ways I think both of them got a kind of redemption here. Lucky’s biggest regret from her first elimination was going out looking and performing in ways that were not authentic to who she is as a drag artist — she showed up here in a ridiculous look with basketball hair poofs and basketball titties, and clowned about with her no-guing (that’s faux vogueing, per Aja). Acacia’s time on the show is arguably defined by her barely being on the show, one of the most invisible edits in recent seasons. The Acacia that showed up in this lipsynch was fully engaged and serving puss on the runway. I thought Acacia did a great job here, giving us some sex, some comedy, and she was emoting more than most of the other girls in this tournament — including several match-up winners. But as soon as Lucky started shaking her cartoonish ball tits like she had a PhD from the Jessica Wild School for Coconut Arts, I knew it was over. RuPaul loves dumb shit like that, and even though it was lowest-common-denominator performance, while Acacia was delivering a more holistic and varied interpretation, the win went to Lucky. I don’t ultimately mind it. Lucky certainly needed the exposure and the boost. I think she’s one of the most forgettable first outs we have had in many seasons, which is wild since her looks are so explosive. I think she just doesn’t “pop” on TV. In this case, she should be glad her inflatable tits didn’t pop…
Match-Up 4: Arrietty vs. Kori King to “(Blow Me) One Last Kiss” by P!nk
While I could go along with most of the previous winners — even if I didn’t necessarily agree with the calls — this was egregious. There was absolutely no way that Kori won this lipsynch. No way! I literally could not tell you a single thing that Kori did in that number. Was it her “emoting”? Which read to me like, “Straining on the toilet after an ill-advised 3am Taco Bell run”? There was nothing there. Meanwhile, Arrietty came in hot and gave us one of the more successful reveals of the night (not saying much, almost all these reveals were flops), moved beautifully, and delivered a vibe that perfectly matched the song. Kori had the distinction of being a newly minted internet celebrity that the show would want to enshrine, and also not being Arrietty, from whom I believe the show wants to distance itself. But if we’re just handing out wins to who we like, despite the fact that they were completely smoked by someone we don’t like, why are we evend doing this? Let’s just hand out participation trophies and be done with it.
Match-Up 5: Crystal Envy vs. Lana JaRae to “(You Make Me Feel) Mighty Real” by Sylvester
Disappointing. Crystal and Lana were…fine. Like they were both obviously trying. It was competent lipsynching. But these were all tricks we have seen from both of them before — in Lana’s case, several many times; I genuinely don’t need to see Lana do another long-legged split literally ever again — and it lacked the energy that this epic song demands. Don’t believe me? Compare this battle to Bob the Drag Queen vs. Derrick Barry to the same song in Season 8. Bob the Drag Queen — not traditionally known as a great lipsynch artist — lives that song, and Derrick is throwing her pussy and those terrible eyebrows all over that damn stage. Here, watch it:
By comparison, Lana and Crystal gave us a technically adequate but disconnected interpretation. Lana in particular has an issue many younger look queens have: they have no idea how to actually serve face in a lipsynch. She looks dazed and uncomfortable. Crystal was more dialed into the urgency of the song, but lacked the funk and soul that the number requires. It was close, but not in a way that was competitive. Since someone HAD to win, I probably would have given it to Crystal, but RuPaul gave the win to Lana. Not surprising; the show also has had absolutely no use for Crystal, and even though she performed well right up to her elimination, I don’t think she was ever taken seriously as a contender by the panel. Lana did look cute, I will give her that.
Match-Up 6: Lucky Starzzz vs. Suzie Toot to “We Found Love” by Rihanna
There’s not much to say about this one, because there wasn’t much to it. Suzie had a secondary reveal after her first round reveals; it was fine, but you could tell she was running out of tricks. She pulled out the stanky leg, which is…cool, I guess. But even more creatively bankrupt was Lucky, who just washed, rinsed, and repeated her performance from Round 1. These are very different songs narratively and tonally, and the fact that Lucky did basically the exact same moves is telling. The basketball-tit dribble lost its novelty fast, and even though Suzie didn’t do anything particularly exciting, she was moved into the finals. Yay?
Match-Up 7: Kori King vs. Lana JaRae vs. Lydia Butthole Kollins to “365” by Charli XCX
Full disclosure, which may color your opinion of my takes: I hate this song. I hate this whole fucking album. I think it is the most soulless, banal pop music in recent memory. And the whole project was so beloved and so influential for the intended demographic, that I dread what that means for pop music going forward. Anyway, it’s fitting that one of the most boring, emotionally vacant songs in contemporary pop would give us a boring, emotionally vacant performance. Even with three competitors this was dull. I just kept waiting for someone to do SOMETHING. Anything! Had Lydia and Kori started making out again, that would have been preferable. I don’t as I would have given a win to any of them, but I genuinely think the best of the three was Lana. But the win went to Kori, because, again, she’s now Queen of Cameo, and the show wants to tap into that. I just wish she gave us SOMETHING to back that up, but that’s literally Kori’s journey on this show in a nutshell.
Final Showdown: Kori King vs. Suzie Toot to “APT.” by Rose and Bruno Mars
And here is where I change my tune, because: Kori King won this lipsynch. I thought she smoked Suzie. Suzie had a couple comedy bits, mostly referencing what Kori was doing — never a good sign — and Kori finally gave us the reveal of her appalling tit covers to show her breastplate knockers, which, again, were shaking all over the place. Basically, breastplates/fake tits were the big gag of this episode, which is deeply shameful when you consider the incredible routines we got in Season 16 — nearly all of those were better than ANY of the Season 17 match-ups — and even some of match-ups in Seasons 14 and 15 (Anetra v. Sasha Colby; Anetra vs. Jax; Willow Pill vs. Bosco; Lady Camden vs. Bosco). But ultimately the win went to Suzie Toot. Congrats, I guess. You turned in three basically competent but unremarkable lipsynchs and got a check for $50,000. Nice work if you can get it.
Honestly, this episode reflected poorly on the Season 17 cast as a whole; on a performance level these girls simply do not compare to the queens from the past three seasons. Where was the passion? Where was the joie de vivre? Where was anything new or exciting on that stage? These queens had nearly an entire year between filming the bulk of this season and this episode (it filmed just a few weeks ago; the Season 16 LaLaPaRuZa filmed before that season had even started airing). And basically none of these girls could come up anything remotely interesting for these numbers? Or at least throw themselves fully into the assignment? How depressing.
I had been enjoying Season 17 for the most part for the bulk of the episodes. I agree with S16’s Dawn when she posted on socials that her cast was focused on giving 10/10 drag every week, while S17 was interested in 10/10 television. This episode and last week’s dreadful Vegas Live episode were barely 5/10 television, and the drag was even lower than that in the LaLaPaRuZa. The queens can and should do better, and I’m chagrined that the season is petering out the way it seems to be. I can’t say I’m super excited for next week’s finale…
What did you think of this episode? Am I being too harsh and dismissive? Drop a comment.
Next: it’s the finale. Which Team are you rooting for? Is it Jewels Sparkles, Lexi Love, Onya Nurve, or Sam Star? Let us know in the comments.
