Canada's Drag Race Season 6, Episode 5
"The Shade"
Showrunner: Trevor Boris
Director: Shelagh O'Brien
Host: Brooke Lynn Hytes
Cast: Dulce, Eboni La'Belle, Karamilk, Mya Foxx, PM, Saltina Shaker, Sami Landri, Van Goth, Velma Jones
Is Dulce the Canadian Joella? And in comparing the two of them, am I also acknowledging a baseline truth about Canada's Drag Race: that the Canadian queens get a more well-rounded, sympathetic edit even when it would be so easy to turn them into a cartoon character? I dunno, let's think about this!
This episode pretty much belongs to Dulce, in the way that a lot of queens' final episodes are all about them. She owns the pre-Ru-Mail table chat, where Velma mentions that Dulce's jokes about her alcoholic mother in the Roast Battle were a bit too personal. Dulce apologizes (although it's one of those "If I made you feel that way" apologies — girl, she feels that way! That's why she's bringing it up!), and counters that Velma made jokes about Dulce being poor. Velma accepts the apology, and Dulce seems to genuinely own the situation. It's mature!
Then Dulce gets the curse of winning the Mini Challenge (a throwaway, fun karaoke bit to some of the show's past girl group verses), which so often presages a sashay in this franchise. The only thing of note from the Mini, for me, is when PM kicked a lightbulb straight into oblivion.
And then there's the Maxi Challenge, quite possibly the most cursed Maxi Challenge in Drag Race's arsenal: the talk show. Seriously. We all know that Snatch Game and any design challenge is tough; that's why this season paired them together. But let's talk about the talk show challenge, which goes by many names but always involves the queens just ... talking. It sounds like the easiest challenge possible. Get in drag and talk. The Drag Race Wiki categorizes this as an improv challenge, which it kinda is, but no one is playing a character. The queens are told to be themselves, with being personable and vulnerable weighted as heavily as being disarming and charming. Ultimately this iteration of the improv challenge is a vibe check: who do the judges — and by extension, who does the season — like? It's a wild challenge.
The queens are told to split up into three groups of three. Sami Landri, PM, and Velma Jones huddle up, forming the Weirdo Clown Alliance. Then three duos form: Eboni La'Belle and Van Goth; Mya Foxx and Dulce; and Saltina Shaker and Karamilk. It's like a split second game of chicken, as the trio of duos wait to see which one will break apart. Eboni and Van pull Mya into their group, leaving Dulce with Saltina and Kara. Saltina, I have to note, greets Dulce with Dulce's catch phrase, "Well yes," likely trying to circumvent any "ugh, they're stuck with me" feelings.
It does not work.
This is one example of why Dulce feels like Canada's Joella. There's a directness to both, an ability to clock the exact situation while still maintaining a degree of obliviousness. Instead of just doing the challenge, Dulce definitely takes a moment to ask why Saltina and Kara didn't want her in their group. Dulce is either genuinely hurt or, more likely, playing out the beats of the show. This is the argument that is supposed to happen when a queen is chosen last. Saltina — honestly, Saltina does exactly what I would do. She knows there are two narratives: what's happening on the show as it will be edited in the future, and what's happening in this moment on this soundstage in their real lives. Forget "the narrative," work on the task at hand. Don't do this shit, focus on the challenge. Dulce's response is, essentially, to immediately play another tried and true Drag Race story card: the "don't negate my feelings" card. Saltina and Kara have to laugh at this, them trying to work while Dulce is trying to be on a reality show.
Mind you, Dulce is very good at being on a reality show. Another Joella comparison. But Dulce is good at being on a reality show in a natural way. Like how she casually rolled her eyes at Hazel's mirror message and then dog-walked the shit out of her without even missing a beat. Effortless.
Anyway — this drama doesn't continue. All three groups actually end up working well together, and if the challenge's requirements were tweaked slightly, the results could've been read in any number of ways. Like, Eboni, Van, and Mya were great at their celebrity news portion. Eboni's growing on me; what started as a kind of immaturity, a kind of performative confidence, is giving way to situational awareness. By that I mean, I think she's becoming more comfortable on camera and actually confident. Her observations about people who smile too much, or her finding a way to quote Laganja's "kinda like your vagiiiina" in her confessional (two weeks in a row for Laganja roast references!). And Mya Foxx continues to surprise me with how quick she is and how she's able to hold her own with a force of charisma like Eboni. Mya's stealthily becoming someone to watch. I don't think she can win, but final four? Maybe??? But if this challenge was tweaked more towards comedy, there's a world where Van Goth ends up in the bottom because she was overshadowed by the other two. As it stands, though, she and Mya end up safe; Eboni lands in the top.
When the weirdo trio chose to go for the interview portion, I thought they were doomed. A 3-on-1 interview could be a trainwreck — but these three got it down. PM was genuinely excited, Velma was genuinely curious, and Sami was genuinely charming. I think Sami won this week partly, as Brooke Lynn Hytes said during judging, because she blew past expectations. The weirdos are rarely smart enough to know when to pull back the weird, and they rarely know how to pull back while still being weird. Sami threaded an impossible needle. But there's an alt. reality where the judges wanted more realness in their kiki and one or all of these three end up in the bottom.
And shout out to Kiesza, a massively under-appreciated diva here in the States whose "Hideaway" totally predicted, like, all of the current, enduring pop music trends way before Lady Gaga, Carly Rae Jepsen, Dua Lipa, Kim Petras, et al. got into '80s synth and house music. "Hideaway" remains a supreme bop, and the music video that Velma mentions remains a low-budget masterpiece.
But the first group to go in the Maxi is Dulce, Saltina, and Karamilk — which, when combined, does not go down as smoothly as their name implies. The three of them do fine. They share the convo well, and they listen and react to each other. No one overpowers the group, either, but that's because they all remain pretty chill — which is presented as, uh, a total flatline. A snooze-fest. Add in the fact that the three of them looked insane as a trio (Mya says one is going to a wedding, the other is a figure skater, and the third is going to a rave) and they were doomed.
But — like, think about the edit. This was the losing group, so the edit had to show them in a negative light, and what we saw was still was nowhere near as bad as US9's "Not On Today." If any of them — especially Dulce — had really fucked up, it would've made it in the episode! So, these three did a competent job, but were just not as lively as the other two groups.
For the runway this week, category is "A Perp Walk to Remember." The looks range from the absolutely bizarre (Sami getting illegal injections, old-timey Mya being arrested for showing her ankles, Velma ... stealing a vat of maple syrup?) to the profound (PM's genderfuck Twink of Finland ode to the '80s bathhouse raids, Van Goth embodying the stigma surrounding being HIV+ via huge, blood red chains).
But let's talk about Dulce again, who continues to own this episode. Pre-runway, we learn that Dulce worked in the army for six years and can assemble a rifle blindfolded.
Sincere invitation: if this ever finds its way in front of Dulce's eyes, please come on the queer-forward G.I. Joe podcast that I have not launched yet, but will.
And post-critiques, Dulce has her last Untucked breakdown. She truly thought she was in the top and feels so dumb for it. Here's the Joella of it all, and an example of how Canada's Drag Race still treats its queens with the utmost respect. The drag delusion, as they call it, is thick in this Untucked. I think the US series leans harder into the delusion aspect, playing up the disparity between what the queen thinks and what the judges say. On Canada's Drag Race, the divide between queen and judge isn't as intense. Like, I see why Dulce thinks she was in the top — and I also see why the judges weren't living. Remember: if they had footage of any bottom queen putting their high heel in their mouth, they would've used it.
But Sami, as the winner, is feeling her oats. She asks the queens to explain how they would improve, going off their critiques. It's big, bold, and y'all — Sami is a li'l schemer. She's the one who called the Weirdo Clown Alliance, after all. And Sami saves Saltina Shaker, likely using the fact that Kara and Dulce have been in the bottom before as a shield.
Kara and Dulce duel to Kiesza's 2024 single "Dancing and Crying" and ... well, Kiesza was impressed! I sincerely hope Karamilk and Dulce perform with Kiesza sometime! I, however, kinda got double sashay vibes (which, knowing what's going down next week, I now realize would not have happened this week). Both performances felt restrained and the stunts felt a little sleepy. It's the kind of lip sync that would've been chopped up on US, but felt a little long because Canada opts to show lip syncs in full with no cutaways to talking heads. Anyway — Karamilk wins. Dulce leaves, and honestly? I think we absolutely need her on Drag Race Mexico: Latina Royale. Like, ASAP. For Season 1. I don't care if they've already filmed it. Add her in. Start over.
Next week: the return of the Slay-Offs — and two queens go home?! Part of me is hella bummed that Hazel and Star Doll aren't here for this challenge but, bitch, we're still gonna get a show. And considering how lip sync assassins almost always get sniped in a lip sync tournament, there are no sure bets.
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