RECAP: RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 17, Episode 6 (Ball)
When it comes to drama, Season 17 brings it to you every ball. And I mean that literally for Episode 6, as it was in fact this season’s ball — the Sea-Sickening Ball, continuing the water throughline for the season started with the promo and continued through the now-defunct Ba-Donka-Dunk Tank twist. SO not only did we get 36 looks from 12 queens over 3 categories, we also got some spicy drama that, surprisingly, made me kind of like everyone involved more.
Below find my thoughts on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 17 Episode 6, “Let’s Get Sea Sickening Ball.” SPOILERS AHEAD!
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Everyone was happy to see Arrietty saved from elimination last episode, including Lydia Butthole Kollins, the queen who sent her home. Lydia wisely read the room, and didn’t want to be the girl who sent home one of the more internally popular queens of the season. The girls also realized that there will be no more saves — they’ll lose at least one cast member per week until the end. Given that it’s Episode 6 and we still have 12 queens, I think yeah: we need to start making some chops. And some of these gals have made it clear they do not have what it takes to win.
Following a gloryhole-themed mini-challenge that made me miss my younger days (Alexa, play “Memories” by Barbra Streisand), Ru informed the queens that this week’s maxi-challenge would be the ball, which would consist of three looks: a swimsuit look, a look inspired by an actual sea creature, and a look made in the work room by upcycling materials that would be found in the floating trash heaps that now sadly dot our oceans. You have to know that Lucky Starzzz was furious when she heard the concept for this design challenge, as she would have crushed this.
The big drama of the episode occurred midway through the design timeline. Lexi Love had taken a large blue tarp as the base of her look, and spray painted it blue, leaving it to dry in the loading dock outside the studio. Arrietty and Onya Nurve also needed to spray paint elements of their looks, and didn’t realize that Lexi’s tarp was part of her look — they thought it was provided by production to spray paint on top of, to protect the concrete underneath. This resulted in Lexi’s blue paint job being marked with splotches of brown (from Onya’s look) and pink (from Arrietty’s).
When Lexi discovered this, she flipped out, causing a big scene in the work room. This is understandable. They have limited time to create these garments, their nerves are already rattled, and to have something you’ve already worked on tampered by others would be upsetting. When she asked the queens in the work room who did it, nobody said a word — that upset Lexi more, I think. As soon as Lexi went back outside to further assess the damage, Onya immediately spoke up to the rest of the queens and told the other queens exactly what happened; when Arrietty, who was still outside, realized what was going on, she told Lexi that she did spray on her tarp, but she genuinely didn’t realize it was Lexi’s.
I do not think anyone did anything wrong here. Lexi’s feelings were valid for the reasons mentioned above. Neither Arrietty nor Onya were being at all malicious, or even sloppy in my opinion — it was a blue tarp lying on the ground in the area where they were told to spray paint their work. The mistake was completely understandable. Where it gets tricky is that Onya said nothing when Lexi pressed the group, and that led to Lexi going for her throat. Onya initially tried to shift blame to Arrietty, but eventually conceded her part in it. She was yelling at Lexi to calm down, Lexi was yelling for her to own it, the rest of the girls were a mix of shocked and eating it all up — as were the viewers at home.
The next day all parties involved hugged it out, and got on with the show. That’s the kind of reality-show drama I like. It wasn’t manufactured, but it also wasn’t personal or malicious. Mistakes were made, people got in their feelings, there was an eruption, everyone moved on. If we can keep that kind of energy for the rest of the season I’ll be a happy recapper.
As for the ball itself, I think the results were overall decent. For a regular-season ball (I have a higher standard for All Stars), I think it is certainly better than anything we got on 10-15, but I don’t think it matches up to Season 16’s. But still a perfectly good showing.
I’ll BRIEFLY give my thoughts on each of the girls’ overall ball packages, in alphabetical order:
Acacia Forgot: I remain an Acacia defender, and I recognize that jeopardizes my credibility as a recapper in general. I didn’t hate the bathing suit, although I agreed that the fit wasn’t quite right, and I believe Mistress Isabelle Brooks did a similar and more successful version of the beach-ball concept in Season 15. I thought her mug and headpiece were great in look No. 2 but understood the criticism of the rest. Her handmade look was both overly complicated and clumsily executed.
Arrietty: Our look queen of the season did not disappoint, giving us three great outfits AND three intricate and stunning mugs. The very-cool Avatar-inspired bathing suit was the weakest, and it was still great. The lionfish look for the second category was the look of the night, I think; 10/10 no notes. And her homemade coral outfit was impeccable. What a comeback from nearly going home last episode.
Crystal Envy: Polarizing based on the people I talked to, but I loved her looks. The Barbie inspo may be tired, but she executed it flawlessly for Category 1. The puffer fish outfit may not have been the most conventionally pretty, but it creative and had a cool gimmick. I thought her third look was sensational and perfectly styled, she simply couldn’t walk in it. But overall another really strong night for Crystal.
Hormona Lisa: Over the course of the season so far I’ve generally been impressed with Hormona’s runways. Yes, the silhouette is predictable, but she typically looks good and is on theme. These looks were a mess, and more than that, they were boring. As Michelle Visage said, “a bubble gun is not drag.” There was nothing to Look No. 1. Look No. 2 was simply a dress — with her typical silhouette — in the colors of a sea dragon. The third look was fine but again, not exciting.
Jewels Sparkles: I thought her swimsuit was among the worst looks of the night. It looked cheap and awkward on her body. But her other two looks were strong, particularly her handmade look, which was sexy and so fashionable.
Kori King: Once again Kori came out dressed like someone else, as her swimsuit look went from Left Shark to Katy Perry at the Super Bowl. There is a big difference between a reference and just ripping off a look, and Kori does the latter. The sea-creature look was fine, I guess, but that giant frilly coat did most of the work. The handmade outfit was barely serviceable; I should not be able to see your panties and they were fully out. I expected so much more from Kori this season, and at this point I think she’s one of the weaker competitors.
Lana Ja’Rae: Lana considers herself a fashion girl, but you wouldn’t really know that from this episode. The swimsuit was the merest inches of fabric over her long, lanky body — there was no “there” there. The spiky urchin look was the best of the three, but not really enough stand out from the pack. The handmade look was minimalist and messy, and underscored Lana’s lack of construction skills. I felt for her this episode, though. She got a wake-up call from RuPaul when she asked for feedback, and guest judge Law Roach fully read her down regarding her lack of confidence and overall weak presentation. Lana needs self awareness, but this was a lot levied at her all at once.
Lexi Love: Generally I have been impressed by Lexi’s runways this season, but I don’t think the ball was great for her. The swimsuit look was too reminiscent of Valentina’s look from the Season 9 Madonna runway, with the added gross-out element of the natty, crabby merkin. I thought the jellyfish look was much more successful, although completely disagree that jellyfish are at all sexy. As for her final look, we had all that drama for…a tarp with a hole in it. I understand that the concept was lily pond, but where was the transformation of the material? It was very obviously a tarp that she had gathered in a few places and then draped over her body, and attached some fake flowers. It wasn’t bad, but Lexi is capable of more than this — we saw it in her cigarette-pack jacket, which was cool as fuck.
Lydia Butthole Kollins: Once again, I simply do not understand Lydia’s aesthetic. That’s fine. It works for her. The swimsuit with bulges all over it — don’t get it. The anglerfish puppet looked sloppy and amateurish. The outfit she made out of recovered metal felt grade-school Halloween costume, and the face piece was baffling to me —- a recurring theme for Lydia with me. Her DIY aesthetic is one of her big selling points but it just doesn’t resonate with me at all.
Onya Nurve: Onya gave a simple white bathing suit with a sheer coverup and big blonde hair that she said was “very Pam Anderson” — has Onya ever seen Pamela Anderson? Nothing about that seemed Pam to me. Anyway, it looked fine. I thought her sea creature look was her best of the night; it was cute and colorful and chic. I thought her handmade outfit was drab and sad, one of the worst third looks of the night.
Sam Star: I would not have put Sam in my Top 3. The swimsuit look wasn’t great on its own, and especially coming out after Crystal, who did a similar concept but way better — nope. I thought the headpiece on her viper fish was great, but I didn’t like anything else about the look; the cage hoop skirt was ungainly. Sam’s third look, however, was great. It was obviously made of tons of trash bags, but they were constructed in a way that moved beautifully and gave great drama. I think that dress is the only reason she wasn’t Safe.
Suzie Toot: I think she overthought the swimsuit look; doing Lucille Ball in boy drag (giant fake moustache) in a 1920s full-body bathing suit was one step too many. I loved her second outfit, and especially loved the hair and make-up with it. The third look, which was “what if they found Amelia Earhart after she crashed in the ocean,” was impressive in that the judges immediately got what she was going for — but I don’t think it was particularly good. Not bad! But not good. Safe was correct for her.
The Top 3 were Arrietty, Crystal, and Sam, but in my opinion it was clearly Arrietty’s challenge, with Crystal a solid second place. The bottom three were Acacia Forgot, Hormona Lisa, and Lana Ja’Rae, and I think those are all exactly right. The children were gagged when Acacia was spared in third place, but in my opinion, I think producers knew that literally nobody cared to see another round of Acacia v. Hormona, especially if Acacia’s furry butt wouldn’t be out for this one. So instead we got Lana and Hormona lipsynching to “Get Him Back!” by Olivia Rodrigo and it was…bland. A boring lipsynch. I don’t even blame the queens for this. I like this song, and I love Olivia Rodrigo, but this is not a lipsynch song and it never should have been picked. “All-American Bitch,” “Bad Idea Right?” “Love Is Embarrassing, “Obsessed” — all great Olivia songs for a lipsynch (“Bad Idea Right?” has already been used). I genuinely don’t know how anyone would think this song would work.
Lana won, as much as anyone could win that flop of a number, which meant that Hormona was sent home, five episodes after she was initially eliminated. I came to quite enjoy Hormona over the course of the season. She had an awful start, and there were moments where you could see why some of the other girls were annoyed by her, but I think there’s a genuine soul there and someone who loves her drag, and is good at it. I wish her the very best.
Next: It’s Snatch Game, and it looks like another stinkeroo edition.
What do you think of Season 17? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
