Better late than never, areweright? Half-hearted apologies for the late recap, but we needed a weekend off to recover from awards season. Let’s get into this mess, because we’re absolutely thrilled by the return of something Drag Race has been missing for far too long.
DEEEELICIOUS DRAMA, DARLINGS! A veritable BUFFET OF DRAMA! Heaping platters of drama! Oh, we are so back, Drag Race. As we said in previous recaps, one of the more appealing things about the season 17 girls is how messy they are, in every sense of the word. You see, we’re old-fashioned sorts who believe that drag is at its best when it’s at its truest and messiest. Crystal Labeija’s iconic read passed into legend precisely because it was so real and so messy. One of our least favorite things about the show’s long success is that we’ve had to sit through far too many seasons of queens who don’t want to ruin their brand or fuck up their booking fees; professionally minded queens who know that having too many breakdowns or getting into too many fights on camera isn’t worth the potential blowback.
And the best part? The part that made it so ridiculously entertaining to watch? It was over NOTHING. It was about nothing more than two queens getting way inside their own heads because they’re not good at performing challenges and latching onto the one external factor they can blame for the disasters to come. It was GLORIOUS. You just don’t see that kind of naked “laying bare my own insecurities” move on reality television as much as you used to.
As Suzie rightly pointed out, the order of a roast barely matters at all. It would only matter to you if you feel you have nothing to offer. But here’s the thing about that: while we get that things like roasts and improv comedy are some of the most intimidating for the queens, we honestly don’t have a shred of sympathy for anyone who’s so unprepared for a challenge they know is coming, that they’ll wind up attacking everyone in the Werk Room for it. As with the sewing challenges, you should be showing up on Drag Race with some sort of bare bones understanding of what you’re going to do for things like the roast and Snatch Game. Gottmik famously showed up with a bunch of ripped-off Nikki Glaser jokes and basically blew off any suggestions that she did anything wrong. It’s a cliche and Ru has certainly beaten it into the ground, but it’s the Number One Law of Drag Race: If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready.
What made it all so hilariously stupid was that Jewels didn’t do a thing to either of the people gunning for her. She gave Lexi the spot that she wanted and Arietty was only mad at her because Jewels positioned herself after her, with the knowledge – THAT ARIETTY CONFIRMED REPEATEDLY – that she wasn’t going to do well in the roast. It was deliciously dumb and both Lexi and Arietty made huge asses out of themselves.
A villains roast with past-season villains was a fun idea and the staging was great.
Professional, poised, and smooth as silk. We’ll say right now that no one actually aced this challenge, although some clearly did better than others. Onya remains one of the most consistently unruffled of the queens, approaching every challenge smartly and giving it her best shot.
Simply painful to watch. After nearly two decades of reality TV recapping, we’ve learned not to make pronouncements about a person’s character based on how they acted while living in the weird fishbowl, but stealing someone’s jokes just because you didn’t like where they placed themselves on the lineup is one of the shittiest things we’ve ever seen anyone do on reality TV. Shame on her.
She was thrown completely off her game by all the shit thrown at her and she truly didn’t deserve it.
Lana was shockingly funny and we would have given her the win for this one
She was very cute and funny, but we think the judges over-praised her slightly. The “bless your heart” southern belle thing is a huge cliche and something that anyone with even the faintest southern accent can put on with no effort at all.
She was funny. We didn’t think she was the best of the lot, but she earned a spot in the top.
We’ll say it: Suzie is simply not as good at all of this as Suzie thinks. Her set was awkward and low energy.
An entertaining mess.
Category Is: Who Wears Short Shorts? Which lewk are you putting on the shortlist? #DragRace pic.twitter.com/u0fDJRq2LM
— RuPaul’s Drag Race (@RuPaulsDragRace) March 8, 2025
The safe girls were Onya, whose look was funny and original, and Suzie, who told us all about how original and intellectual her look was, but it came off like a rental costume.
Arietty’s look was gorgeous and a little strange. So was Jewels’, for that matter. We got the wit of the look, but we felt like the bloomers and garters could have been a little more elaborate and dragged up.
Lana probably killed her chances for a win with this look. The reference was great, but only Naomi can make a blanket look like high fashion.
These are three fantastic looks, but all of them came off like existing costumes that they shoved into the category, unlike, say Onya’s which felt like it was clearly designed in response to the category. Regardless, it never matters to the judges. Sam’s is great, but a little overdesigned. Lydia’s drag continues to be messier than it needs to be, but this really was her best look of the season. Lexi’s is great, but we feel like we’ve seen several versions of this already from her.
It was cute how happy all of the other queens were when she won. It made a nice corrective from all of the bitchiness of the episode. To that end…
If this were a legitimate or fair competition, we think Lexi clearly needed to be lip syncing against Arietty, but this is a TV show, and the two best-Judies-now-mortal-enemies facing off is much more dramatic, of course.
We would have been so pissed if they sent Jewels home after two queens spent the entire episode attacking her because of their own insecurities. We honestly can’t tell you who won that lip sync, but we know they chose the correct loser.
Legendary Children: The First Decade of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Last Century of Queer Life, a New York Times “New and Notable” pick, praised by The Washington Post “because the world needs authenticity in its stories,” and chosen as one of the Best Books of The Year by NPR is on sale wherever fine books are sold! It’s also available in Italian and Spanish language editions, darlings! Because we’re fabulous on an INTERNATIONAL level.
[Photo Credit: MTV via Tom and Lorenzo]
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