RuPaul's Drag Race Season 17, Episode 11
"Ross Mathews vs. the Ducks"
Director: Nick Murray
Cast: Jewels Sparkles, Lana Ja'Rae, Lexi Love, Lydia Butthole Kollins, Onya Nurve, Sam Star, Suzie Toot
I don't feel the need to recap "Ross Mathews vs. the Ducks" in detail. This was one of those episodes of RuPaul's Drag Race that, to put it plainly, exists. It's there. It sure was an episode, one that I can sum up in a few quick paragraphs.
Prior to joining the cast, Arrietty saw Phi Phi O'Hara's All Stars 2 exit and said, "Just wait'll they get a load'a me." Has there been a more immature and hateful exit in the franchise's herstory?
There are two realities: the one the queens are living in, where Suzie Toot is apparently a tap-dancing Sasha Colby; and the one we see on TV, where Suzie is doing just fine. These girls will not give Suzie Toot an inch.
Feud: Capote vs. the Swans aired January to March 2024, which is likely when this season was in pre-production (it filmed in spring/summer 2024). The writers (or one 60-something white gay man with writing credits on '90s sitcoms that they give $100 to to bang out these acting challenge scripts during a lunch break) clearly thought the show was going to be bigger than it was. Oops?
I turned on Ross Mathews hard at some point — I think it might've been during Season 12, when the edit had to rely on Ross's adoration of Sh*rry P*e in order to justify her challenge wins after having to edit her out of the episodes. Ross didn't know, of course, but it sure made me question his taste.
What would this show have done if Lana Ja'Rae and Onya Nurve had fought to do, I don't know, ASMR Girl #1 and Chicago? The entire house of cards would have tumbled if their scene instead went to Lydia B. Kollins and Suzie Toot. It's ... there's ... a lot to unpack there and y'all should listen to Drag Her's recap for a better breakdown.
I don't know — the runway was fine. Onya clearly deserved the win. Lana and Lydia were doomed to lip sync this week as soon as an exiting Arrietty spat across the Werk Room. "Unholy" is such a weird song. I don't know how we as a society let a song where a haunted choir of ghost monks chants the words "body shop" become a hit. Arrietty is the clear villain of the season, but scissors (or "thithers") are a close second.
Moving on.
What this episode really got me pondering can be summed up in one word: legacy. What is the legacy of RuPaul's Drag Race Season 17? What did these girls serve? What did they do well, quickly? For example ...
Season 16 was the seamstress season. Season 15 was The Sasha Colby Show. Season 14 was RuPaul's Best Friends Race, guest starring Daya Betty. Season 13 was the season of star quality, who had it and who did not (with a big dose of quarantine-induced frenzy). And Season 12 was weirdly the ... communal, warm hug season due to it airing at the literal beginning of lockdown — despite it also being the season that had to be re-edited on-the-fly due to an alleged sexual predator making it to the finale. I feel like I have to say alleged? Do I not? I can't get sued, so I'm going to.
So how will Season 17 be remembered? For all the grief that I've given Arrietty so far, I think this week's episode may have revealed that Arrietty is emblematic of this season's legacy. This isn't a good thing. I'm saying that Season 17 may be remembered for the messiness over any of the queens' actual talents — because this season has been messy. These queens came to fight — or at least stir up shit — to a degree that we haven't seen since Season 10. It's made for some great TV, but has it made for great Drag Race?
If you remove all of the various "-gates" and fights over roles, what's left? I think this is actually a sign of the race being the tightest we've seen in a long time. This has made the season more unpredictable as queens soared or flopped in surprising ways — like Sam Star being funnier than Kori King, or Onya being in the top (and later the bottom) for a design challenge, or Jewels outdoing Suzie in Snatch Game, or Lydia and Lana slaying the roast. Factor in all the delusion and self-sabotage, and every challenge has been a toss-up. It's honestly taken 11 episodes for the clear tops of the season to become apparent, and even then I don't know which four are in the finale.
But on the other hand, this season has a lot of Season 7 energy. Remember when the show thew a bunch of comedy challenges at a cast stacked with look queens? While Season 17's cast feels pretty evenly matched, the challenges have been very same-y. We've had 3 design challenges and 5 comedy challenges — and then the talent show and a Rusical. And next week's episode? Looks like another comedy challenge! But these girls are not particularly funny! Where are the performance challenges? Where's the girl group challenge?
With a cast of well-rounded queens boxed in by challenges, the only place this cast has been able to truly excel is in Untucked. It kinda makes sense! The new Untucked format encourages these girls to roam free, have side convos, snack, play with phones — letting these queens choose their own adventure has resulted in some of the funniest and most dramatic moments of the season. If only the challenges were so varied.
And this is why mess is potentially Season 17's legacy: Y'all clocked how boring this episode was without Arrietty. After last week's all-timer of an episode, a frenetic, chaotic, venomous tour de force the likes of which we've never seen, this one had ... a cute little freestyle moment from Sam Star. The episode tried to squeeze some anxiety from Lexi Love being paired with Suzie Toot, but all of that looked more cooked up in post-production than real. Even the big moment — "Who should go home tonight and why?" — was a kumbaya copout as people kept naming Suzie Toot (or, rather, the Suzie Slays-a-lot they see in the Werk Room and not the one we see in the edit). I would put money on RuPaul adding " — and you can't name your 'biggest competition'" to that question for Season 18.
I don't know what's left for the last 5 episodes of the season, other than the producers gassing up Lexi Love's inner saboteur something fierce. We reached maximum messiness last week, but now almost all of the messy queens are gone. I really hope that after we clear yet another comedy challenge, we get something — a makeover or a girl group challenge — that can show us a different side of these queens. They need more opportunities to show what they're capable of, otherwise their legacy will be a mess.
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