RECAP: RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 17, Episode 7 (Snatch Game)
I have historically been a Snatch Game apologist. While many viewers of the show have been over the challenge for several seasons now, frequently citing its precipitous dip in quality from the Golden Age of Drag Race (Seasons 4-8), I have argued that there have always been lousy performances in Snatch Game, and that it remains an important skill check for the queens.
Season 17’s Snatch Game has changed my mind. End it. Put it out of its misery. At least don’t make it compulsory for every cast — hold it until you actually have a group of queens who can reliably pull it off. Because this was shit. Garbage. Embarrassing. Humiliating for most of the performers involved, and infuriating for the viewers at home. This episode was actually work to get through.
And that’s even before some of the worst judging on this show in recent memory.
Below find my thoughts on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 17 Episode 7. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Before we get into the Snatch Game discourse, I think it’s important for everyone to know that when the queen audition for this show, they have to prepare at least one Snatch Game character — it’s part of the audition process. So not only has this challenge appeared in every season since Season 2 — the girls know it’s coming, at this point they fundamentally understand what success looks like in a Snatch Game — but they literally have to have something prepared before they even get added to the cast. So it is truly astonishing that so many of these queens are so bad at this.
That is true every season. We usually have a small group of good to great performers, an equally small group of flops, and then a large group in the safe or forgettable zone. Not so for Season 17, which gave us merely 2 strong performances (one great impersonation that was not very funny, one funny performance for a made-up character), 4 safe performances, and 5 total flops. Not good. This was also one of the largest casts for a Snatch Game, and I don’t think that did the queens or the viewers any favors. Eleven is way too many queens for this challenge.
I’m going to go over my thoughts on each queen this episode, from most successful to least. I’ll include their Snatch Game performance as well as their Nailed It! runway that was meant to focus on elaborate nails (emphasis on “elaborate,” Kori King).
Jewels Sparkles as Lady Big Feet: Generally speaking, I am sick of the made-up characters for Snatch Game (see Arrietty’s passage below for my rationale). I rolled my eyes when Jewels pulled out this costume. However. Jewels was easily the funniest part of the Snatch Game, and more than that, she was completely in character. If you told me to guess who was under all that make-up and fur, I never would guessed Jewels. This was a surprisingly strong Snatch Game from a character that could have been a total dud, and showed off considerable comedy and acting chops from Jewels. I was impressed. I was less excited about her nails runway. I understand that it has personal meaning for her, and I could get a bit of a sense of what she was going for. But I didn’t think it was particularly pretty, and the message was muddled.
Onya Nurve as Eddie Murphy: Onya has emerged as the stealth threat of this competition, and I love that for her. Eddie Murphy is a good Snatch Game pick. He’s broadly known, he’s naturally funny, lots of references you can pick, big personality. Onya did a great impersonation of Murphy. The jokes weren’t super funny, but the impression was dead on. In earlier Snatch Games, this would have been a solid Safe, but in a latter-day Snatch Game, with so many bombs, it was easily one of the best. Her nails runway was wild but I loved it — it had a point of view, it was interesting, it was not something I have seen on the mainstage before. Great week for Onya.
Sam Star as Kim Gravel: I have no idea who Kim Gravel is, nor do I care to know. In Sam’s very specific world of pageants, she’s a big deal, and RuPaul knew her from QVC. So at least Sam had that going for her. Sam did well in Snatch Game in that she bantered with other queens better than pretty much anyone else that we saw. She had a few good lines that connected even if — like me — you had no background on this woman. I hated her plastic-surgery runway look. It is a tired, tired concept that we have seen on this show so very many times at this point. Valentina did something similar, Miss Fame and Sharon Needles did something similar, so many queens have done this concept and it is so boring. Whatever subversive commentary the concept once held is long gone. Put it up there with Marie Antoinette looks in the “we are so done” pile.
Kori King as Big Ang: Kori’s streak of ripping off other queens continues, as she did Mob Wives’ Big Ang, just as Pearl did in the S7 Snatch Game. We’ve certainly had other queens re-do Snatch Game characters numerous times, nothing new there. But Mob Wives hasn’t been on the air since 2016. Big Ang herself has been actually dead for nearly a decade. Of all the characters in all the world to pick, you’re going to go with this person? It is this kind of bizarrely random thought process that I think continues to hurt Kori’s chances not only in this competition, but with the fandom as well. Nothing she does seems authentic. It always feels like she’s hitching her wagon to someone else’s ride, but weirdly, the rides are all hoopties. It’s wild. Her Big Ang was fine. Perfectly serviceable. I do question why she was allowed to race swap for this, as I was under the impression that was strongly discouraged. But whatever. On the runway, Kori continued her impressive bid for worst runway package in a modern Drag Race season with the cheapest, laziest look of the night. While everyone else interpreted “nails” with wild, elaborate pieces, Kori went with a basic-ass French tip. And since it was French, she decided to dress as a mime. Y’all, this is embarrassing. It’s not even fun to watch this level of incompetence. The Honking Bassoons of Idiocy are too ashamed to play for Kori King.
Acacia Forgot as Trisha Paytas: I am BEGGING you queens — please stop doing YouTube influencers for Snatch Game. Yes, they have millions of followers and are incredibly popular with Millennials and Gen Z. But virtually nobody over 35 (I’m being generous) knows who any of those people are. ESPECIALLY the people who are judging you in this challenge. And five years from now, nobody will remember who most of them are. On top of that, they are basically never funny. Ever. If you do an analysis of Snatch Game impersonations of influencers — and there have been many at this point, going back at least to Season 9 when Farrah Moan did that make-up girl — almost all of them have been flops. Paytas has been done twice on Snatch Game, and both times was boring and forgettable. She’s an obnoxious, oxygen-stealing nightmare, so I’m not sure how that keeps happening, but here we are. Acacia barely registered in this Snatch Game, which may have been partially due to its overstuffed roster. But from what we did see, she wasn’t in any way consistent with Trisha’s personality — or rather, personality disorders. I did enjoy Acacia’s runway, which was a clever concept (Switch Army Knife) executed tastefully. She was Safe and deservedly so.
Lydia Butthole Kollins: At this point I have completely given up on trying to understand Lydia’s drag. It’s not for me. That’s fine. She has her supporters. That’s great. I just don’t understand literally anything about her place in this competition. I can’t think of another queen in 17 seasons who is this much of a question mark for me. The idea to director David Lynch is an interesting one. I appreciate the creativity here. The brief moments we saw of her Lynch in Snatch Game were fine. Weird, but not bad. The make-up was ghoulish. Her Lynch looked almost like a cadaver, which was uncomfortable given that he just recently died in real life (obviously Lydia could not have known that). On the runway, the gown was probably the prettiest thing Lydia has worn so far, but the nails were wacky and the headpiece baffling. I just don’t get it. Personality of day-old bread, too. Even the supposed showmance between her and Kori is dull.
Suzie Toot as Ellen Greene: So the Suzie Toot villain edit has begun. In one of the least subtle narrative pivots in recent memory, Suzie went from frontrunner to buffoon in a single episode. She should have done Rob Hetfield because I got fucking whiplash. Prior to Snatch Game, Suzie made no secret of her intention to dominate the challenge with her Ellen Greene impression. Listen, I love Ellen Greene. I love Little Shop of Horrors. This was terrible. Suzie took Ellen’s natural speech affectations and amped them up so ridiculously that they became obnoxious. The “scissors” gag was mildly amusing the first time, but the second time? For such a throwaline line in Little Shop? There were so many more obvious jokes she could have pulled from, and based on what we saw, she just didn’t. The performance itself was Safe, especially in this turd-filled punchbowl. But Suzie’s behavior both before and after the challenge was an AWFUL look, specifically her dismissing Onya’s challenge performance and gassing herself up for what honestly was an unexpected miss. I loved her Iron Maiden-inspired runway, which is one of the best things she’s worn all season and — for the record — completely separate from her typical 1920s aesthetic (for people saying she’s a one-trick pony).
Crystal Envy as Nicole Richie: I’m putting Crystal out of the Bottom 3. Don’t get me wrong, she sucked in the Snatch Game. But I don’t think she was worse than total crater Lexi, and complete flops Arrietty and Lana. I think you could make an argument that her she-wolf nails runway is what pushed her into the danger zone here — it was elaborate and an interesting interpretation of the challenge, but was it aesthetically pleasing? No, it was not. Ultimately, I don’t think it mattered; Crystal was doomed regardless (more on this below). Re: Snatch Game, the make-up was terrible, she made the unforgivable improv sin of shutting down anything thrown at her, and there was no character or humor. It was absolutely bad. But at least there was some level of preparation evident.
Lexi Love as Gilbert Gottfried: We have to unpack this, because a lot was going on with this performance — and specifically the judges’ reaction to it — and none of it was good. Gilbert Gottfried is actually a great choice for Snatch Game. There’s a cartoonish element to his look and voice, and he was a comedian. There was a lot Lexi could have done here. But Lexi spiraled in a way I have rarely seen on this show. She completely buckled under the pressure of this challenge — which many other queens have done — but unlike any other queen I can think of, Lexi broke character multiple times that we saw to underscore how bad she was flopping and how uncomfortable she was. That is not OK. RuPaul has on many, many occasions on this show, and elsewhere, talked about how it’s OK to get nerves or have moments of self doubt, but you can never let the audience see it. You keep that shit locked up. It’s called being a professional entertainer. What Lexi did during Snatch Game was shockingly unprofessional. Can you imagine paying to see a show, and the person on stage starts telling you, “Oh my god, I fucked up so bad. I want to go home”? I immediately thought of Grimes’ 2024 Coachella meltdown, which led to her rightfully being publicly savaged.
What Lexi did here was exactly the same. She didn’t give a single funny answer. She froze and basically had a mental breakdown on camera. She should have been Bottom 2, yet she was in the TOP 3. The judges said something along the lines of, “You were so bad it wrapped back around to being good.” No, it did not. It was hard to watch. Nothing about that was fun. I was concerned for her and her mental health, and after TarpGate last week, I genuinely wonder if Lexi is in the headspace to even be competing on this show, much less capable of handling the pressure that would come with winning the title of America’s Next Drag Superstar. To me, all of this REEKED of the judges and editors pushing a specific narrative around Lexi, but it was so manufactured, so divorced from objective reality, that it has had the opposite of what I believe is the intended effect. It did not endear her to me at all. It made me highly suspicious of her place in this competition, and frankly angry at the hamfisted attempt to manipulate my perceptions. Mark my words, between her recent sulking in Untucked and this wholly unearned praise, this narrative is going to turn the fandom against Lexi. And it’s not even her fault. The Cher runway was good but not particularly innovative; loved the nails.
Arrietty as Baby Cupid: Awful. Embarrassing. So cringe it hurts. I’ve warmed to Arrietty in recent weeks, after what I consider one of the worst Meet the Queens in recent history. She is unquestionably the runway queen of the season at this point, and I’ve noticed that she is doing much better with responding to the judges’ negative critiques. However, this was inexcusably bad. I am quite frankly sick of seeing fictional characters on Snatch Game — it’s a lazy way of getting around the celebrity-impersonation element of this challenge. Secondly, there is literally nothing funny in, “I’m just a baby.” It is stupid. It is boring. It is you basically telling the judges and the viewers, “I don’t want to do this challenge, and I cannot be bothered to try.” The baby shtick isn’t even novel when it comes to Arrietty. She has given us several glimpses of intensely immature behavior at this point, and I think it’s a core part of her personality. I get that she’s in her early 20s, but she is still technically an adult. I’m not sure who is out there telling people that it’s cute or charming for grown-ass men to publicly behave like a toddler, but it’s fucking weird and we need to say it. The judges loved her nail runway. I was less enthused. I don’t get the multiple arms, sorry.
Lana Ja’Rae as Rosa Parks: Oh my god. Like…how is it possible to be as bad at Drag Race as Lana Ja’Rae appears to be each and every week? Have we ever had such an inept queen on this show, or at least survive halfway into a season? Lana explained that her sole joke for this Snatch Game was to play off of RuPaul’s, “Is the bus still runnin’?” catchphrase. That in and of itself is shamefully weak. But then, when Ru introduced Lana’s Rosa using that line, Lana froze. Ru using a line Ru uses constantly apparently threw her completely off, and she just sat there, wooden, clueless, missing each and every softball lobbed at her. I won’t go so far as to say Lana specifically had the worst Snatch Game performance ever. At least she wasn’t aggressively annoying. But I do think she has one of the most incompetent Snatch Games ever, and it really makes me question her intelligence and preparedness for this show. It also, frankly, reflects poorly on her drag mother, S15 queen Luxx Noir London. You allowed your kid to go out there on TV this unprepared? To this level? Ma’am. I thought Lana looked lovely on the nails runway, in a gown highly reminiscent of Violet Chachki’s look for the Camp-themed Met Gala, which has itself been referenced several times on this show. I did like Lana’s middle-finger twist to it, though. The runway is the one area of this season where Lana is showing up, but even then, she’s getting routinely outdone by several competitors week after week. This is a disastrous Drag Race run.
The judging was the best of times and the worst of time. Guest judge Quinta Brunson gave these queens truly excellent advice regarding comedy, and I hope they actually listened to her. God knows they need some direction. But the rest of the panel? Congrats on hiding their crack pipes, because they must have been smoking when coming up with some of these placements. Lexi in the Top 3 is outrageous and will, I think, negatively impact her place in this competition going forward. Jewels was, I think, the funniest queen on that stage, but the runway may have kept her from the win. Onya is surging, and when she was named the winner, I was not mad. It’s one of the least-funny Snatch Game wins probably ever, but at least the impression was strong.
The Bottom 3 of Arrietty, Lana, and Crystal was understandable. But Crystal in the Bottom 2 over either of the others? Not based in objective reality. But it does make sense if you understand how reality TV works. Crystal was never cast as a frontrunner for this season. She was always meant to be a mid-run queen. The trouble was, she was routinely outperforming some of the queens who are obviously getting pushed by Production. She was Top 2 for Talent Show, could have easily been in the top for Monopulence, was arguably the best part of the “Bitch, I’m a Drag Queen” challenge, and was Top 3 for the ball. That’s a damned good run. Meanwhile, Lana has been consistently bombing in challenge after challenge, and Arrietty has moments of brilliance coupled with complete flops.
In my opinion, this was a perfect opportunity for a triple lipsynch. All three of them deserved to do it — I would argue Lexi should have been in there, too. But Arrietty was spared, and it was Lana vs. Crystal lipsynching to Selena Gomez’s “Hands to Myself.” This was, in my opinion, a pretty tight lipsynch. There was no OBVIOUS winner based on the performances alone. There was some dialogue about Crystal getting over physical with Lana, but none of that seemed deliberate — they just kept running into each other while using the entire stage. All things being equal, I did think that Lana should have lost the lipsynch when her wig fell off. I understand that it is not TECHNICALLY against the rules to lose your drag in a performance, but we have been told over and over and over again on this show that it is the sign of an unseasoned, unprepared queen and — again — unprofessional to lose your drag mid-performance. Queens have absolutely lost lipsynchs in the past specifically for this sin.
And yet, Lana was declared thew inner and Crystal Envy was sent home. It is shocking, given the overall progress of the season thus far. I would argue that it was surprising given what happened in this episode alone. But it is not surprising from a meta perspective. Crystal going home here reminds of Max in Drag Race Season 7 — someone who was outshining queens she was not supposed to be, who was chopped the first chance she was in danger. It also reminds me of Shuga Cain in Season 11, who was pretty clearly meant to be a filler queen who somehow made it super far into the competition, and was then eliminated with literally zero justification. I don’t think they wanted to that situation again this season. And in some ways, Season 17 is much like seasons 7 and 11, in that so much of the cast is underperforming week after week.
I was literally angry after this episode concluded. I’m largely over it now. But I do think that was overwhelmingly a lousy hour of television, and one of the worst episodes of Drag Race in recent memory. Snatch Game itself was bad, the judging was worse, and I’m genuinely concerned about where this season goes given the aggressive fuckery I was seeing from the edit this time out.
What do you think of Season 17? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
