SPOILER ALERT: This article contains details about the episode 11 of RuPaul’s Drag Race
As the queens enter the Werk Room, they are a little discombobulated – especially Salina, who has survived her third lip sync. She realizes more now than ever that she needs to step her pu**sy up! Meanwhile, Mistress is still a little gagged because as we saw in last week’s Untucked, she thought that she would be lip syncing for her life.
The queens celebrate Sasha’s third win and we are all just waiting for Loosey to chime in and say something. It doesn’t take that long for her opinion to be known.
“I’m surprised – I really expected to win,” she declares.
This is the part where we cut to Mistress rolling her eyes during a confessional.
But Loosey is not the only one who expected to win. Luxx is also chompin’ at the bit for a W – but it’s not as thirsty compared to when Loosey does it.
Sasha clearly sees what we see and says during her confessional that Luxx and Loosey have a fire under their ass and they are ravenous for a win.
The numbers are dwindling and the queens are getting a little more cutthroat – and this episode is setting up some sort of rivalry between Loosey and Luxx. We’re here for it.
The next day in the Werk Room, the top 7 sashay in and after some jabs at Marcia’s lack of makeup, the queens start to do a debrief about their Beyoncé lewks from last week’s runway. It quickly turns into a debate between Luxx and Loosey about whether or not Loosey’s lewk was authentic to the Beyoncé’s outfit when she revealed her baby bump.
Luxx said Loosey was not pregnant enough while Loosey disagrees that she was just the right amount of pregnant. It gets a tense.
“Let the unravelling begin!” Mistress announces during her confessional.
Now that we are back to 90-minute episodes, we are getting int a familiar rhythm as RuPaul comes in to announce the mini-challenge: a Harlem Vogue Ball!
The queens get into quick drag to dip, spin and shablam in a category RuPaul likes to call, “I’m so into vogue’ing right now!” a la Vanessa Hudgens during All-Stars 3.
The queens get into formation as Luxx is first up and she serves some good face and hair flips punctuated with a death drop. Loosey gives us a cartwheel and then proceeds to blow a whistle like she is directing traffic. Salina, with simply irresistible wet hair and a Flashdance body-ody, flops around the floor like a fish out of water.
Marcia brings some elegant dips and spins on that floor while Sasha flips that hair and tears it all the way up to the screams of her fellow queens. Mistress does some clever crowd work before dropping dead. Then there’s Anetra. Anetra is a force. She walks that f*ckin’ duck and then some.
To no surprise, Anetra wins a trophy from a member of a Pit Crew in a mesh shirt and briefs.
Now it’s time for the maxi-challenge! Ru announces that the queens will perform stand-up comedy in front of a live audience – and they will be performing in duos! With the help of Bubly Sparkling Water and Bruno from the Pit Crew, the queen duos are: Anetra and Sasha; Mistress and Marcia; Loosey and Luxx. That leaves Salina by herself.
Ru says that Salina can choose to perform alone or steal the partner of a fellow queen. She chooses to steal Mistress which leaves Marcia by herself.
It’s clear that Marcia is not excited to work solo.
Since Anetra won the mini-challenge, she gets to choose the lineup for the comedy show. As we have seen in past seasons, where you are placed in these types of performance challenges can make or break a queen.
The lineup is as follows:
- Marcia
- Luxx and Loosey
- Sasha and Anetra
- Mistress and Salina
Cut to: Luxx and Loosey working together. We’ve seen this kind of frenemy team up storyline in Drag Race before: Bob the Drag Queen and Derrick Barry in season 8; Sharon Needles and Phi Phi O’Hara in season 4; Alyssa Edwards and Coco Montrese in season 5 – sometimes the team ups work, sometimes they don’t. Based on Luxx and Loosey’s work dynamic, it seems like they may have a chance of putting on a good show.
Marcia is panicking. She admits to Salina that she might have done the same thing if she was in her position. Still, Marcia isn’t 100% confident with this challenge.
Anetra and Sasha are also struggling because Anetra is having some sort of headache that makes it difficult to think, let alone think of some jokes. Sasha is worried.
Now it’s time for the queens to test out their material in front of Michelle Visage and this week’s special guest judge, comedian and actress Ali Wong.
First up is Marcia. She has some good jokes, but her act can use some tinkering. But overall, it seems that Michelle and Ali think that she’s in a good place. As for Luxx and Loosey, there are some laughs, but Luxx is having trouble with talking too fast. But there are no major red flags here.
For Salina and Mistress, they are telling hook-up stories. Mistress makes the judges laugh while Salina goes on and on and on and on and on and on… and on. She takes too long to get there. It’s not lookin’ too great for Salina, but there is hope.
Anetra got some drugs in her for her ocular migraines and is ready to werk! Sasha has a plan and the judges are feelin’ it. Anetra starts to tell some jokes about her migraines and none of them are landing… at all.
Anetra… it’s your turn to be in danger, girl.
It’s elimination day and the queens are getting ready. Anetra feels a little more confident and Sasha hopes that her head is in the game.
Marcia is a little shook about performing solo and Luxx is warning her not to get thrown off. The other queens think Luxx is being shady with advice because it feels like it’s doing more harm than help.
Mistress and Salina are bonding with their cultural connection as Latinas and as big girls. Mistress talks about her not-so-great relationship with her mother. She goes on to tell a story about how she called her mother to come help her when she broke her ankle during a performance. Mistress’s mother insulted her in the hospital because she was in drag. Mistress told her mother to leave and hasn’t talked to her since.
On the mainstage, Ru struts onto a stage in a gorgeous prismatic mini fashioned out of what looks like soda can tabs. She welcomes judges Michelle Visage, Ts Madison and Ali Wong. In addition to this week’s comedy challenge, the category on the runway is “Rip her to shreds” – but first the queens have to come out and make us laugh with the Bubly Comedy Festival!
Marcia takes the stage first. There are some laughs but it’s just… a little slow. It really doesn’t go anywhere, but it isn’t a disaster.
Loosey and Luxx – actually do a great job. Fantastic chemistry, they have a lot of white jokes – and it’s good. They are clearly frontrunners.
Sasha and Anetra are up next and… it’s a struggle. They are getting no laughs with the exception of some jokes from Sasha. These are two great queens but it’s clear that one of them will be lip syncing for their life tonight.
When Salina and Mistress begin their set, it feels good. They are off to a great start. Salina gives off some good energy with her hookup story. It’s better than what we saw during rehearsal.
Mistress begins to tell her story and she begins to have the problem that Salina had during rehearsals: it’s taking her forever to get to the point. Even so, their set ends well.
It’s runway time and this is how the queens fared with the category “Rip her to shreds”:
- Marcia: A mascara-smeared homecoming queen ripped to shreds. Not totally original, but cute.
- Loosey: A gorgeous victorian vampire who is also a whore.
- Luxx: An amazing interpretation of one of Ru’s most iconic lewks from her Wee Wee Pole punk days.
- Sasha: Ripped jeans has never looked so glamorous.
- Anetra: She is lookin’ like a punk rock sci-fi hero
- Salina: She is sending a message of empowerment with this immigrant glamour
- Mistress: She looks as if Madonna’s Material Girl escaped from being burned at the stake
It’s time for the judges’ critiques and Marcia gets taken down a couple of notches. They realize she had the tough job of kicking off the show and even though she got some laughs, the rest of her act fell flat. As for her lewk, Michelle says that Loosey were a similar lewk a couple weeks ago. Ru tells her: “When it’s seven girls, it has to be more! More! More! More!”
Loosey gets the five-star crtiques she has been craving, getting praise from all the judges for her performance and her lewk. Luxx also gets an equal amount of praise, with Ru getting emotional for seeing an interpretation of one of her most iconic lewks.
Ts Madison tells Sasha she tore up the runway with her denim lewk, but the comedy performance wasn’t as great. Ts says the stoner humor didn’t go anywhere. Like Ts, Ali wanted more good jokes – like the ones she told about Michelle’s balls.
It’s very clear that Anetra struggled the most and the judges saw it. Michelle wanted more confidence from Anetra because she felt lost in the performance. Ru demands that she brings the confidence she has on the runway to everything else in her life. Anetra may have struggled with her performance but Ts is obsessed with her lewk.
Based on the judges’ comments, it’s clear that Salina and Mistress are good, but middle of the road and they are safe this week.
After watching the enjoyable return of seeing the judges deliberate, Ru ru-veals her decisions: like I predicted, Salina and Mistress are safe. Next up: Loosey and Luxx. They are both winners! They finally got their wins! Yay! Everyone’s happy!
Now, it’s time for the bottom three. Sasha is safe which leaves Marcia and Anetra left to lip sync for their life. Marcia knows she has her work cut out for her because Anetra’s performance beyond out of this world.
The two start lip syncing to Doja Cat’s “Boss Bitch” and as soon as I saw Anetra start strutting down that runway I immediately knew this was going to be a show. This was going to be a LSFYL for the annals of Drag Race history… and my God, it was.
Marcia holds her own against the lip sync force that is the Anetra. Showcasing her yoga technique, Marcia goes full wheel on us while Anetra sees an opportunity and, as Salina points out, leaps over Marcia’s arched body like Free Willy.
There are duck walks, struts, floor work spins, dips, kicks, floor humping, hip gyrations, splits, death drops – this is a WAR.
When the dust settles and the mainstage cools off from the fire that was served on that stage, Ru keeps us on the edge of our seats until she says: “Anetra, shantay you stay.” This means that it is Marcia Marcia Marcia’s turn to sashay away.