Shenanigans were afoot on this latest episode of RuPaul’s Drag Queen Career Rehabilitation Program as the second bracket faced their second challenge! Shenanigans in the Werk Room AND shenanigans on that sketchy judging panel. The results didn’t feel as much fun this time around, as the episode turned itself almost entirely over to interpersonal drama.
To be fair, without that interpersonal drama, this probably would have been a deadly dull episode to watch. The challenge was a somewhat limp one in which the queens had to write dis tracks about each other, but they’ve barely spent any time together, so the results were bound to be somewhat generic.
We said two things about Mistress last week and they both proved correct this week: the first is that it would be silly of us to get all moralistic about a drag queen being shady and underhanded in a drag competition. That’s just the culture, and it’s actually kind of nice to see someone upholding the tradition of being a reality show bitch and having not a single fuck to give about it. The second thing is that she knows that this is her role and she gives the producers exactly what the show needs. Sure, it would be a pleasant thing if all the queens on Drag Race loved and supported each other and never did underhanded things in order to secure their own place in the competition. It would also be pretty boring, not to mention a totally sanitized version of drag culture.
While it’s true that Mistress (and let’s be fair here: also Jorgeous) did a shady-as-hell thing by lying about who they were going to give badges to, it’s also true that Mistress knows her marks well at this point and to be quite honest about it, it’s partially on Nicole and Kerri for believing her. She was clearly pissed that Tina won the challenge! She has a rep! What were you two thinking? The point is that Mistress can only be the villain on Drag Race if other queens like Tina and Nicole are constantly obsessing over her or making the mistake of thinking she’s going to be an ally.
Having said all that, while we don’t find the drama to be problematic at all (and welcome it, in fact), it does feel like this show is all about alliances and pins rather than about drag. As we noted last week, it seems fairly obvious that queens return for All-Stars on certain conditions (sometimes a win is allegedly offered, but most times, they’re supposedly promised less vicious critiques), and it’s hard not to suspect that they’re also being handed some fairly easy challenges to pull off. But before we get to that…
This happened – and it was really cute.
And then this happened. First off, can we just note how weird it is to stage a rap battle by having everyone involved whisper the chorus over and over? Just a total plummet in the energy levels right off the bat. The staging was also a little odd, with weird inserts to dancers that were in some other locations, and pretty much nothing in the way of choreo. The queens never seemed to know where they were supposed to be on the stage. All of the verses were fine enough, but as we said, these queens haven’t spent that much time together, so no one truly got read for filth. It was all, “I’m so great, this one is fat, this one is a bitch, this one looks like a man, I’m so great” lather, rinse, repeat. Tina’s verse was impossible to understand and her look didn’t read rap at all. Nicole’s was fun and she stepped up her drag, which was nice to see. Lydia was cute, but lacked aggression. For us, the clear winners were Jorgeous and, surprisingly, Kerri. Mistress would’ve been our third pick. She was great and she had the look down, but we were a little underwhelmed by her performance. We tend to think if you smack talk as much as she does, you better be fucking flawless on that stage.
Category Is: Little Shop of Whores! Which runway lewk is growing on you? #AllStars10 pic.twitter.com/qJOA50kBZ5
— RuPaul’s Drag Race (@RuPaulsDragRace) May 31, 2025
The details are never quite impeccable with Tina, but this is the best drag she’s ever displayed on the show. It’s very smart of her to work this hard to show how her drag has evolved away from the flame theme she was beating into the ground.
This is just stunning. It plays to all of Jorgeous’s strengths and embodies her drag aesthetic while pushing it forward and out just a little bit. She’s really showing her range this season.
The shoes continue to be wrong, and the reveal was both clumsy and pointless, but this shows a real stepping up of pussy by Miss Nicole Paige Brooks from Atlanta, Georgia.
Lydia will never pass up a chance to swaddle herself in yards of burnout velvet, but as we noted last week, there’s a clarity to her drag now; a sense that she listened to the judges and edited herself accordingly. This is gorgeous.
This was fantastic, although we feel like Jorgeous did a better version of the same concept. Still, the makeup is flawless and those spiked boobs are hilarious.
Kerri is stunning, but it feels like the judges are underwhelmed by her. We can’t say we consider her a frontrunner ourselves, but we wonder if they tend to pass her over because of her much more dazzling drag mother. This probably could’ve used an edit or two. Without the theme to tell you, would you have even been able to figure out that this was a plant?
Jorgeous and Mistress faced off for the lip sync, which seemed inevitable at this point. To our eyes, it looked like Jorgeous beat her handily, but that presupposes that this is all somehow legitimate.
Honestly, this feels like nonsense. As the two bitches who’ve been saying for well over a decade that it’s a mistake to treat Drag Race as a legitimate competition, even we think this is shady and taints the standings. While there’s an argument to be made that the two shadiest queens with the most enemies deserved to be in the top, giving them both half a point feels like twisting the knife a little. If Jorgeous had won it, we might not have felt that it was questionable, but this result really feels like the show guaranteeing Mistress a win whether she earned it or not. And not for nothing, but it’s gonna make these queens look like terrible bitches if older queens like Phoenix and Nicole exit the competition without a single point.
Come see us in DALLAS this month for Pride, where we’ll be giving a talk on the drag and trans legends who changed the world and we’ll be handing out signed copies of our book! Details here!
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: Paramount Plus via Tom and Lorenzo]
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