Welcome back to Pop Heist's no-rules Drag Race recap, wherein I can take a week off because of mental health reasons. Who's gonna reprimand me, my editor-in-chief? I am the editor-in-chief, mama! I'm used to reprimanding myself, and that's partly why I needed a week off for mental health reasons!
But you're not here to read about my struggles (if you're even here at all; let me know you're here by @'ing me on Bluesky). You're here to read about the struggles of 11 drag queens tasked with surviving the hardest RuPaul's Drag Race challenge: Snatch Game.
Yes, it's time for Snatch Game — with 11 queens. God help us all.
The theme for Season 17 continues to be drag delusion. Everyone has it! After a mid-at-best lip sync, Lana Ja'Rae's getting praise for ... being able to scratch the back of her head with her toes. Jewels is making "piggy of the week" happen whether anyone likes it or not. Even the queens diagnosing other queens with drag delusion have drag delusion — Kori King!
Kori's confessionals are some of the most untethered I've seen since ... maybe Valentina's in Season 9. Kori loves reading bitches down, laughing behind their backs, while scraping by in every challenge. I don't like being mean, but Kori is low-key giving "what do you do successfully — quickly?" energy.
Adding Snatch Game mania to drag delusion proves to be a chaotic cocktail. As is tradition with any Snatch Game overseen by RuPaul, we get Werk Room chats wherein RuPaul — and this week's guest, Alyssa Edwards — give advice that ranges from meaningless to outright sabotage. Sidenote: They filmed Season 17 before Global All Stars aired, which explains why the only mention of Alyssa being the crowned queen of Earth comes from Sam Star's confessional.
Now, Alyssa isn't exactly the person you'd go to for Snatch Game advice, considering that RuPaul made Alyssa tweet an apology to Katy Perry of all people following Season 5's Snatch Game. But at least these queens didn't have to get "advice" from Miss Vanjie like the Season 12 cast. Whatever — Alyssa's appearance was made worth it just to hear her reaction to the name "Lydia Butthole Kollins."
As for the advice — I've seen worse walk-throughs. Ru only tried to sabotage one person, Onya Nurve, by once again trying to force a queen to do an impression of someone they've never even heard of, simply because RuPaul — and only RuPaul! — thinks they look alike. RuPaul can't remember Jinkx Monsoon's name, but she does remember every single human being who graced TV screens in the 1980s in extensive detail. RuPaul knows who Glodean White — wife of Barry White — is. Onya Nurve, born in 1993, absolutely does not. No, RuPaul. It would not be "very funny" for Onya to impersonate Glodean White. This is even more ridiculous than Ru trying to force Crystal Methyd into being El DeBarge for Snatch Game, because at least Ru's El DeBarge reference had a music sting to go along with it. Viewers could at least be like, "Oh, okay, that song, sure." Glodean White is just RuPaul going full old-man-yells-at-cloud meme. No one knows what you're talking about, Ru! Anyway. Onya does not listen to RuPaul.
The queen doing the deadliest self-sabotage is Lana, without a doubt. Tell me, Lana: You're not a comedy queen, you're not really comfortable with acting, and improv is acting comedically without a script. Why, dear God why, would you choose to be Rosa Parks? Rosa. Parks. Rosa Parks! If you don't know what you're doing, choose a Housewife or an influencer! Choose a pop star that you idolize! Just choose someone with references that aren't exclusively related to the notably hilarious (not) Civil Rights Movement!
I'm sorry, we're going into Paragraph #2 about this. Without a doubt, and Lana cops to as much, the only reason she picked Rosa Parks is because RuPaul asks, "Is the bus still running?" Lana says this in the confessional, she says it in the walk through. Sigh. Off the top of my head, here are other celebrities that Lana could have impersonated in order to make one joke about a bus:
- André 3000
- Roxxxy Andrews
- The teacher from Magic School Bus
- Sandra Bullock
- Monét X Change in a bus driver wig
- Busta Rhymes
- Ralph Kramden (Ru would lose her mind)
- Oh — anyone from The Partridge Family (again, Ru, hysterical laughing)
However, Lana does get in a funny moment about Rosa Parks. When RuPaul asks Lana how she'll play Rosa Parks, Lana responds, "She's very like a normal person. She's just like on the bus having a good time."
...
Rosa Parks famously did not have a good time on the bus! You know you are floating 30 meters above reality when even Alyssa Edwards looks at you like you're a Martian. Rosa Parks, as Alyssa says, "just in the back kiki'ing with the girls."
Also — Ru goes rogue and hunts down those mesh heels that Kori's wearing every single week on the runway (but not getting clocked for because she's almost always just safe). Seeing RuPaul do anything other than hit her mark is such a joy. The chaos when Ru goes off-script, it's magical. And speaking of Kori King — her choosing to do Big Ang and the show not playing a clip of Pearl's Big Ang in Season 7 — the most underrated Snatch Game impersonation of all time? The shade. The bad blood between the show and Pearl is still badding.
Now it's time for Snatch Game! From WORST to BEST —
Lana Ja'Rae as Rosa Parks: An absolute train wreck — or bus crash. It didn't help that RuPaul kept backing the bus over her with all the follow-up jokes.
Crystal Envy as Nicole Richie: She lost this the moment she couldn't name not only a Lionel Richie song, but literally any song. I wonder what it was like for Alyssa Edwards to see a "Ru, never!" moment happen right in front of her.
Arrietty as Cupid: Y'know, at least when Aurora Matrix played 13th century baby Emperor Zhao Bing on Canada's Drag Race Season 4, she had a lot of bizarre Wikipedia facts to rattle off. Arrietty went from "I'm a baby" to "my diaper is full" in no time.
Suzie Toot as Ellen Greene: Suzie's lucky that she didn't go full Aiden Zhane as Patricia Quinn, but it wasn't much better. The thing is, you can go this specific and still make the jokes universal! Look at Jinkx's Little Edie! But just talking about scissors over and over again? I'm here for Ms. Toot, but even I didn't get this. And I've spent 10 minutes googling "audrey little shop scissors" trying to figure this out and I'm still clueless.
Acacia Forgot as Trisha Paytas: Mid. After serving nothing but — I say this approvingly — tacky '80s looks all season long, Acacia Forgot's doing Trisha Paytas ... a 21st century YouTuber, because RuPaul's always thrilled to banter with those. Acacia: You literally did Rue McClanahan in "RDR Live!" You could have broken the curse and do for Blanche Devereaux what Jujubee did for Eartha Kitt. Alas ...
Kori King as Big Ang: Nowhere near Pearl, but got in a few good zings. Most notably to me, she got the only laugh during what was Rosa Parks' intro.
Lydia Butthole Kollins as David Lynch: What timing. Honestly? Werk. This is how Suzie should have played Ellen Greene, by playing with a general vibe and not getting bogged down in specifics. For some reason, Lydia's Lynch was weirdly captivating and — most importantly — confident.
Lexi Love as Gilbert Gottfried: Inspired choice. Iconic choice. Immediate disaster. Even Lana Ja'Rae got through her intro. I've never seen a queen bomb this hard this quickly. But what Lexi did, which was brilliant and I'm guessing instinctual, was stay in character. She said "somebody shoot me" and "fuck my life" as Gilbert Gottfried on Snatch Game. She somehow turned her own anxiety into a fun bit that was fun to watch.
Sam Star as Kim Gravel: Again, no idea who this is but Sam — who studied this character like she was the SATs — managed to use the specifics to make Kim Gravel generally funny. Sam absolutely bit into this role, and she managed to get in a few ad libs too. Textbook example of a solid performance.
Onya Nurve as Eddie Murphy: Onya made Snatch Game look easy. Any queen sweating over Snatch Game should watch this performance. Onya picked someone she's been watching for some 30 years, never let go of the impersonation, and listened to RuPaul. Her getting the cue from Ru to do "Hercules! Hercules!" is exactly how you win Snatch Game.
Jewels Sparkles as Miss Bigfeet: Call Snatch Game a wounded deer in the forests of Northern California, because this Sasquatch ate. If Onya's Eddie Murphy is how you win Snatch Game, then Jewels here showed everyone how you own Snatch Game. Coming into Snatch Game with a fully-realized original character is wild, and to be able to deliver hard jokes that you can't pull from a TV episode ("You need hair period, bitch!" "That's blood.")? I'm glad Quinta Brunson said she wanted to drop Jewels in her writers' room, because the talent on display here went deeper than memorization and impersonation. THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN A DOUBLE WIN.
After Snatch Game, Suzie predictably comes down with a potentially fatal case of drag delusion when she makes the bold claim that she believes she'll be in the top. The fans, she says, are going to appreciate the "small -isms." Suzie, honey, small -isms do not make for a big win.
And on the runway, category was Nailed It! The three worst looks belonged to Lydia, Sam, and Kori.
Lydia's look, six-foot-long nails and a bunch of baby hands reaching around her face, was ... hm. My problem with Lydia's looks is that they make no sense in a way that makes no sense. I love a stupid, conceptual, bizarre look, but queens like Yvie Oddly and Willow Pill are able to pull that off in a way that still conveys an idea.
Sam Star, my god, we do not need another plastic surgery, voodoo doll / gingerbread diva look. This is up there with Marie Antoinette, and I can't believe Michelle let this go by without comment. It had to have been snipped out of the edit.
And, the worst look of the week goes to Kori King who not only wore a generic French Person costume fresh from the Spirit bag, she chose to go for a sensible French tip in the nail category. Lord.
Top looks of the week for me were Suzie, Onya, and Arrietty. So much is made about the runways not counting, but I actually think they did this week. Suzie delivered an iron maiden look that was completely out of her wheelhouse, with makeup to match, and really proved that she can do elevated drag. I think that kept her out of the bottom three. So we didn't get the full-blown dissociative eent of Suzie landing in the bottom for what she knew was a top performance, but we did get the first face-crack to give Jan's a run for her money.
I think Arrietty having hands (x2) down the best look of the night kept her from lip syncing. And I think that Onya's look — a full-blown salute to hair show eleganza — told a much cleaner and clearer story than Jewels Sparkles' look, which was trying to tell some Terminator 2 meets Labyrinth fantasy that I could not follow. Thus, Onya got the win.
At least that's what I'm telling myself to make it all make sense. I personally would've put Kori in Arrietty's place, but I would've left the bottoms as Crystal and Lana. And, after an uncomfortably contentious lip sync wherein neither of them seemed to remember that they were sharing the stage and Lana lost her wig — Crystal sashays away. Which is ... the result of this show having a stroke and lobotomy all at once.
Maybe next week we will finally see the storyline that production is trying to wring out of Lana, a story that she's not giving week after week. And maybe next week Kori will either do something well or finally land in the bottom. This cast started out really strong, and suddenly it feels like we have a few Aiden Zhane's being kept around just to agitate the dolls! Maybe there is a double sashay in the works, considering that there are still 10 queens here. We'll see...
