Posted in: TV | Tagged:

RuPaul's Drag Race S18E15 Review: LalapaRuza Riggory Realness?

RuPaul's Drag Race S18E15 lip sync LalapaRuza smackdown challenge saw the eliminated queens fight for $50k and a crown of their own.

Welcome to the penultimate episode of RuPaul's Drag Race Season 18, aka the "loser's bracket," aka the lip-sync LalapaRuza, aka the reunion-not-reunion episode. Production must have gotten tired of paying royalties and licensing on real songs, because this time, the songs are all RuPaul tracks. And the queens have to impress her, performing her own songs. In the immortal words of Sabrina Carpenter, "Oh boy."

Queens are listed in brackets according to when they left the competition. Bracket one is our early outs: Ciara Myst vs Athena Dion, Mia Starr vs Mandy Mango (#JusticeForMandyMango…again), and Vita VonTesse Starr vs DD Fuego.

Bracket 2 took the winning queens and added in the next three outs: Mia Starr vs Vita, Kenya Pleaser vs Ciara, and Jane Don't vs Discord Addams (I will say, choosing Sissy That Walk was a hilarious choice on Jane's part).

The semi-final round 3 saw the addition of Juicy Love Dion, who mopped the floor with Jane Don't, and Kenya vs Mia's showdown to Peanut Butter that felt like too much of a perfect storm, but still entertaining.

This bracket system feels so rigged, and not really in an entertaining way. With so many lip sync assassins this season, I guess it's hard to really make a lip sync lalaparuza that feels balanced, but they could have at least tried and not just stacked all the mid queens against each other, then made them battle with the assassins.

Day 5,000 of begging for #JusticeForMandyMango. She was robbed YET AGAIN, my sickening queen. We also need split-screen for all lip-sync performances, and for the love of all that is unholy in this world, PLEASE stop cutting away to random audience reactions at crucial moments. Just picture-in-picture that bitch and keep the focus on the action, I beg of you. Oh wait, that would mean everyone sees things for what they are, and production can't manipulate the outcome anymore… huh.

Was this whole thing a cheap setup for Mia Starr vs Juicy Love Dion? Yawn, snooze, no thank you. Nothing against the queens, but didn't we get this already? And it bored me the first time. Aww, drag family lip syncing against each other…nah. This is played out worse than RuPaul's new single (now on iTunes). Honestly, save yourself and just go watch season 17's lip sync LalapaRuza again; it was infinitely better than this nonsense.

Shock, Juicy Love Dion wins. I don't think I'm physically capable of rolling my eyes any harder. It felt like character growth and something fresh we hadn't seen when Suzie Toot came back from just not making the finale and won the lip sync smackdown, but now, when Juicy does it, it just feels like shooting fish in a barrel for her. Not fair at all, and they may have tried to balance that out by making her the "final boss," but it still feels shady.

No tea no shade against Juicy, she's adorable and fantastic, but that's the problem – her lip syncs and fashion are too perfect and polished, and yes, that's a vibe, but it doesn't feel organic or real. It's like she's hard, shiny plastic and nothing more than a drag robot. There's a bigger critique about the franchise in there as well – if these are the queens producers are going hard in the paint for, it reflects the franchise, which also feels like a soulless shell of the entire drag art form by this point.

At least we can put this over-produced snooze of a season to bed next week, and hopefully, either way it goes (Darlene Mitchell or Myki Meeks) will be a well-deserved winner. And none for Nini Coco. Bye!

RuPaul's Drag Race Season 18 airs on MTV in the Americas and is streaming on WOW Presents Plus in all other markets.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!