Canada's Drag Race Season 6, Episode 3
"Pick Your Poison"
Showrunner: Trevor Boris
Director: Shelagh O'Brien
Host: Brooke Lynn Hytes
Cast: Dulce, Eboni La'Belle, Hazel, Karamilk, Mya Foxx, PM, Saltina Shaker, Sami Landri, Star Doll, Van Goth, Velma Jones
Oh girls, we have a season of Drag Race on our hands here! Do I need to say it every week? This is how you do it. Every season, the team behind Canada's Drag Race comes up with twists that actually work. All shade to the Immunity Potion, Badonka Dunk Tank, the Lucky Cow, "It's Chocolate," etc. — all the twists that give queens the illusion of power but ultimately make no impact on the show. The Canadian team is actually producing a competition show; they come up with the rules, the twists, and then they cast killer queens ... and they let them cook. And this week, the queens served up a spectacular double helping of drama and drag.
This is the kind of self awareness that works. To give the queens the option of doing either Snatch Game or the design challenge is a gag and it provides new tensions we've never seen in the franchise. Also kudos to the prop team for those bottles of poison. They looked weirdly tasty, like Ecto Cooler or grape soda.
On to the poison picking. Sami Landri picks Snatch Game, and she chooses her fellow bottom queen from last week, Hazel, to go next. Hazel picks design. Here's where things fall apart. Hazel should pick either PM or Saltina Shaker; PM is her friend from back home, and Saltina saved her with the Golden Beaver last week. Hazel picks neither. She goes for van goth. Van Goth picks design, obviously, and PM is plucked, rightfully. As the dominoes fall, PM is the next to last to pick — meaning she doesn't have a choice. There's only one vial left: design. PM wanted Snatch Game and, frankly, I want her to do Snatch Game! And it turns out that she's the only who doesn't get to pick because Mya Foxx, the actual last queen standing, gets to choose for herself ... and she chooses Snatch Game.
The drama from this is thickened by the reveal that both the Snatch Game and design challenge will have a winner and two bottoms each. PM is not even in the mood to look at Hazel. And then, actual strategy enters the chat.
I roll my eyes every time queens talk about alliances on Drag Race because when are the producers of this show going to let any queens decide any outcome? They want the illusion of alliances, the plotting, but the producers do not want the outcome of alliances. But in Canada? The introduction of the Golden Beaver a few years ago radically changed the game — and the queens know it. By saving a queen from lip syncing, the week's winner can absolutely keep a bottom queen around a week longer and force a frontrunner to enter the arena. So now, when Eboni La'Belle and Van Goth go around making all the alliances they can, you can see how it could eventually pay off.
It helps that Snatch Game is full of chaotic choices that should all go off the rails. So many third rail cursed picks. Politicians are almost always a terrible choice, Sami and Velma! Repeating a character that was previously nailed by a winner is a terrible choice, Kara! Doing a "character" that is you in a different wig is a terrible choice, Eboni! And, worst of all, playing a psychic is cursed, Mya! Ask Phi Phi O'Hara, Jaidynn Diore Fierce, Sister Sister — probably others. The only queen with a good pick is Saltina who, as Albert Einstein, gets to essentially make up a personality from scratch, lean heavily into an exaggerated accent, and can't be compared to any previous impersonations.
Things mostly go as expected. Karamilk's Flavor Flav can't get past his big clock; neither politician is funny, but at least Sami's "Margory" Taylor Greene had a clear point of view; and Eboni's Keke Palmer was Eboni, and Eboni is confident and quick-witted, so it was fine.
The real surprise was, I say this every week, Mya Foxx who somehow broke the psychic curse. Maybe it was because Brooke didn't through the usual trap in front of her ("You didn't see that coming?"), but I also don't think Mya gave Brooke the opportunity to do that. Mya had something to say to everyone, so casually, no flop sweat. As far as this year's Snatch Games go, it's solid.
In the time between challenges, though, Velma starts to worry — and she should. Her Justin Trudeau was a crash and burn and no one really has her back. The only solid alliance in the room seems to be between Eboni and Van, who dub themselves the Scissor Sisters because they aren't afraid to cut a bitch.
Oh — and Pythia and Icesis Couture are here, both as the "contestants" on Snatch Game (as their respective Snatch Game impersonations, Donatella Versace and Zeus) and as mentors in the design challenge. It's so great to see people who know what they're talking about give actual advice that is designed to actually help. Then again, Canada's bringing in Alyssa Edwards next week to coach the Roast Battle and ... I can't wait to see how that turns out.
On the main stage, category was Scene Stealers. Hazel and Dulce skate by in the middle, both turning out looks that would have also been middle of the pack were the entire cast competing in this challenge. Honestly, I didn't think star doll's was a disaster ... until Icesis pointed out that she told Star how to fix the one thing that was really wrong with the look and Star just ... didn't do it. That's a bad look on a bad look.
And then night falls. PM. I don't even know what PM was trying to do. I don't know why the black band was there. Can non-binary nipples not be shown on Canadian TV?
The clear winners were Mya Foxx for Snatch Game and Van Goth for the design challenge. I mean, Icesis said she would wear Van Goth's sultry, animal print creation.
But who saves whomst whenst there are two beavers in play? This is where the gags start gagging. Remember: Eboni was flitting around the work room angling to get Velma out, to take out a strong competitor. Mya seemed on board with that, and there was no reason to think Van wouldn't put PM — absolutely a stronger competitor compared to Star Doll — in the bottom. So why did it end up being Karamilk vs. Star?
But shout out to Star Doll for giving us the funniest moment of the episode, the Snatch Game episode, too. While pleading her case in Untucked, Star Doll says, while bawling:
"Can I just say, like, this is so hard right now. The fact that it's my sister, Van, that you have to pick is so hard. But I am here for a reason. And I am a shooting star. I just am having a hard day. I'm having a bad day. I don't even actually think it's that bad, because, like — "
— and everyone loses it. The journey Star's mind took everyone on. From crying, inconsolable, to "I don't even actually think it's that bad" in seconds. Self-help diva!
Back to the Beaver, though. It wouldn't fit with PM's edit to be so calculated, but her pointing to Velma and underlining how important it is for a drag king to be in this competition. If anything changed Mya's mind, it had to be that, because Velma did objectively worse than Kara.
Van's the real stunner though! Van says she saved PM because PM didn't get to choose her challenge. Star did. Van says this first in a confessional, but it absolutely felt like the kind of thing a producer would nudge her to say ("Now give us a reason whly you wouldn't pick to save Star") so they could fake us out in the edit. it turns out, she was telling the truth ... or the truth that aligns with whatever her master plan really is.
But maybe Mya and Van just knew the lip sync song was Carly Rae Jepsen and they wanted to see a fucking fierce show. Star Doll and Karamilk gave'em one. Also, Karamilk performing at full puss capacity while in her masculine-presenting Flavor Flav mug — she was still kinda eating??? Like, the bone structure gives model no matter what.
In the end, Karamilk nudged Star Doll out of the way and earned the shantay. Star lost it again on the runway, so much so that Brooke gets up from the judges' chair and scoots onto the Main Stage, in full comfy cozy slippers, kneels down, and gives Star a pep talk. It's. Beautiful?
Let me just say: it's a blessing to have a Drag Race series that serves full drama and full empathy. They aren't mooch excluzh.
Next week: Alyssa Edwards and a roast battle. Buckle up, bitches!
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