It's more than just a new day in the Werk Room. RuPaul's Drag Race 17x02 low-key confirms that it's a new era for the franchise — at least that's how it feels right now. There is something fresh about not only this cast, but the show within which they are participating. I feel it. My group text feels it. The podcasts and video recaps I spend way too much time consuming feel it. Season 17 feels like a ... new wave? A fresh body-ody-ody of water? A summer ... rainfall? I am trying to think of a water metaphor considering the season's theme, but my brain is wrung out.
So, what exactly about Season 17 is making all the viewers toot? There are the queens, duh, but every new season includes a new Sugarbaker's dozen of personalities. The Season 17 cast seems to have struck the perfect balance of messy to polished, seasoned to baby, and shady to sweet. We haven't seen this much drag diversity since, I don't know, Season 13? Let's look at the dolls in question, focusing on the talented seven we get to know more about this week.
Sam Star and Crystal Envy are so close to being the exact same person as far as my recollection is concerned. Sam is Crystal in a cowboy hat and Crystal is Sam on HGH. Is this a fair comparison? Absolutely not, but it does convey that this season has some incredibly polished pageant girlies who are here to serve absolute perfection until some variation of a comedy challenge lands them in the bottom (or sends them packing). Right now I'm keeping them separated in my mind by remembering that Sam Star looks like she graduated from the ages 10-12 class at Alyssa Edwards' Beyond Belief Dance Company, and Crystal's confessional look is very Gay Ryder Strong.
And now I'm hearing it: Ryder Strong would be a great drag name.
Kori King is absolutely living up to whatever vibe-ruining legacy Plane Jane left behind — except I am actually living for Kori King. So far Kori is shady, shady, messy boots — and she does so while wearing Monét X Change's literal hand-me-downs on the runway and an iridescent Amazon bodysuit in the talent portion. Everyone's coming for Joella's off-kilter shadiness-to-excellence ratio, but Kori's also all akimbo. Kori just so happens to have the most sickening body and nerve that seems backed up by experience and reputation. Plus, her talent? A bop about shaking your Dunkin' cup. So dumb, and so right.
Onya Nurve remains a bit of an enigma — not in the personality category. The girl has personality for days. She immediately won my heart when she talked about not fitting in with the queer community in Cleveland and hoping to find a drag sisterhood on the show (after she beats them all, of course). Hard relate, Onya!
Her talent performance, a bitch track take on the Hokey Pokey, felt intentionally low on stunts and high on attitude — kinda like when Monét X Change fakes out doing the splits in a lip sync. Like, Onya, is this all you're going to do? "In in in out, in in in out" — but it had RuPaul in stitches. And, uh, Onya was the first girl to give us a stoned hole on this week's butt-centric runway, which is a trend that ... I hope lived and died during this week's butt-centric runway.
FWIW, Arrietty's stoned hole gets the top toot of the week, and that toot sounded like a wind chime but smelled like sulfur.
Lana Ja'Rae is the season's "how does a human look and exist like that" wonder, so much beauty and charm. Still, agreed on the judges' critique that her performance was oddly low energy — and not like Onya Nurve. Onya gave nothing but intensity and energy while doing a literal one-two step. Lana ate the stage up, but she ate like the stage was a microwaved Lean Cuisine: No rush, no excitement, and maybe you forget you're eating it halfway through. I also must shout out The Virgo Queen from the currently-airing Canada's Drag Race Season 5, who essentially wore Lana's look last week.
They shouldn't worry, though. This look has about 42 more trips down the runway before it approaches Marie Antoinette territory.
Hormona Lisa — Pop Heist's Season 17 winner, just going off of the Meet the Queens, which apparently did not help us meet these queens — is unlike any queen we've seen on Drag Race ... primarily because no other queen has been able to brag about being hand-selected by RuPaul himself to compete at literally every single opportunity. It's entirely possible that Hormona's bragging is dipped in a self-awareness that's been stripped by editing, but as we're seeing it play out, the girl can't read the room.
Also, Hormona tells Acacia Forgot (last week's unjustly bottom queen) that she knows, like, the second cousin of an in-law of the assistant to Dolly Parton's regional manager and that if Acacia agrees to rank Hormona high, she'll ... I don't know. It's a cheeky attempt at a bribe. All it does is make Hormona seem like a name-dropper desperate for any kind of approval from a room of sisters who have been paying her dust for, like, 3 days at this point.
Can I just interject some firsthand behind-the-scenes tea here? Unless they were all playing a very calculated, very immersive trick during press week, this cast loves Hormona Lisa. Just read what Crystal Envy and Jewels Sparkles had to say about Hormona in a surprisingly teary interview here on Pop Heist. Better yet, watch it! And during the premiere's blue carpet, when I asked all of the queens who on their cast would give the best holiday gift, at least half — maybe three-fourths — of the cast immediately said Hormona, because of her sincerity and warmth. So, bitch, I don't know what journey we're going on with Hormona and the queens this season, but this is something to watch.
All that brings me to the week's winner and breakout star, the girl that follows in Anetra and Mirage's footsteps as the queen with the talent show performance we will all be replaying on our phones and in our heads and hearts for the next six months: Lexi Love.
Y'all, this is winner energy right here. As foretold by her entrance line, Lexi Love is indeed stepping on everyone's neck — and everyone loves it. She is that perfect mix of underdog and force-of-nature talent. She's from Louisville, is part of no drag dynasty, and at the age of 33 has one roller skate in the grave. Jewels Sparkles and Arrietty have the nerve to call her "grandma."
Maybe I'm offended because, objectively, in no reality is 33 considered old. Or maybe I'm offended because when Lexi spoke about being dropped off at the roller rink as a kid, I felt that in my bones. I was immediately in the backseat of my family's Nissan Altima, Friday night, driving past the Smyrna Skate Center and seeing a line of middle schoolers waiting to get in. Notice I said "driving past" because, unlike Lexi, I spent my Friday nights alone reading comics in the Waldenbooks at Hickory Hollow Mall. Still, Millennial recognizes Millennial.
And the way Lexi dominated in not only the talent show — girl out here doing flips and splits with five pound vehicles strapped to each foot! — but the lip sync? Bitch. When Lexi is on the mainstage, she is absolutely the older sister of the most intimidating girl in your grade. She's more mellow, but she's still caught smoking in the girls' room at least once every single week. Lexi hits the stage with a force that says, "Don't come for me because my nails are basically ten pocket knives." I live for her. I would absolutely go to the Taco Bell where she works the register, stumble through my order, and then eat my chalupa while watching, mesmerized as she takes orders while click-clacking her nails on a burner phone.
I love Lexi Love.
So — the cast is great, but if you're not watching Untucked, you're actually only getting half of their appeal. And this speaks to a larger note about Season 17: it's physically different, and it's opening up a new world of possibilities. There's the Main Stage, which is now a full-blown TV talent show production complete with icy black floor and dynamic AF lighting. This was really evident when Lexi hit the stage on her skates. If her own track wasn't playing, I could absolutely hear Will Smith's "Miami" playing over the skate rink speakers. But Untucked is where shit is actually popping off.
After what may be nearly a decade of Untucked consisting of all the queens glued in place on two side-by-side couches, the new Untucked format encourages the queens to break off and have side convos. It really feels like a club house, with some queens doing stupid poses for the iPhone and ring light setup while the shadiest queens kiki at the makeup station, and the leftovers on the couch talk about who's lip syncing. There are actual stories to develop and follow now, like Joella reading everyone else's tracks. We're actually getting to see the queens interact, and I think that's going to lead to even more intense Werk Room dynamics in the regular episodes.
And I'm even going to say that the biggest change of all, the Badonka Dunk Tank, lived up to my hyperbolic expectations.
I'm not gullible when it comes to Drag Race. I know that, barring any kind of major story disaster, production was going to dunk Michelle Visage no matter what in the dunk tank's debut. Drag Race has — mercifully! — opted to give the queens a little more time before sending someone packing, but they've concocted these elaborate contraptions to try to hide that fact because catty gays at the bar want to see a queen's dreams crushed every week.
If you're gonna give us rigor morris, might as well go big. It doesn't get much bigger than a damn dunk tank and putting the show's #2 on the soon-to-be-wet seat. I don't know what this means for the rest of the season since there's now a 1 in 9 chance of a lever dunking Michelle. At least Michelle will get to show off a new swimsuit every week? As a gay man who owns over 30 speedos, I understand the appeal of that.
Did we come closer to figuring out why this season feels different, but different in a good way and not different in an "it's chocolate" way? It's definitely due to the cast and the first two winners, Suzie Toot and Lexi Love. The new Untucked format seems poised to spice things up. The new stage makes the show seem even more high stakes, a feat I thought was impossible. And if the queens keep delivering all this personality every week, we could be in for a wild season.
