Posted in: TV | Tagged: drag race, rupaul

RuPaul's Drag Race Season 18 Episode 6: Rate-a-Queen Has Spoken!

Part two of RuPaul's Drag Race rate-a-queen talent show is here! Who got to stay? Who went home? Was there any real talent? Let's find out!

Hello, hello, hello, queens! Welcome back to part two of MTV's RuPaul's Drag Race annual "rate-a-queen" talent show, and this episode, rest assured, there WILL be an elimination. Is it who you expect? Most assuredly, which is unfortunate, but hey, it's the game. This isn't RuPaul's Best Friend Race. Or RuPaul's Fairness Race…

Last week's voted bottom queen was Ciara Myst, who will be lip-syncing against this week's voted bottom queen.

First and foremost, performing this week in the talent show are: Myki Meeks (comedic burlesque number), as well as Kenya Pleaser, Athena Dion, Jane Don't, and Discord Addams, all performing to original songs. It's a common rant in the fandom, but if this is all the talent show is going to be, kill it now. We've seen it all before, Mary, and it's boring. Wooo, she made a song about her past. She made a song about turning it on the dance floor. Wowow, a death drop. Please, mercy kill this challenge or make the queens do something other than lip syncing. WE WANT REAL TALENT, RUPAUL.

But I digress. Let's start with the worst of the week – the original songs had high performance value, mostly, but just got so old seeing the same thing over and over. Kenya was called out for not knowing lyrics for literally any song she's lip-synced on the show up until now, and she's not beating the allegations with this performance. My sister in Christ, this is literally your song. You wrote it, and sang it, and still can't remember the lyrics. GTFO, this is Drag Race, not 6 pm on a Tuesday at Skippy's Saloon.

For starters, Discord was targeted by Ciara as someone she should take in the lip sync, so she should be in the bottom. TBH, she would have been a valid bottom placement – lip syncing to an original song, but also pantomiming playing different instruments while singing about how she's so unique and different, and this isn't just another drag song? Chopped, rotted, wrap it up, and take out the trash. I get what she's going for, but with everything she does, it's just not polished and fully baked. Athena was alright, high pageantry, glossy and pretty, but didn't really go anywhere.

Jane's was probably second best – it was funny, campy, Vaudeville, a little repetitive, but classic drag. And Myki – I love an original talent, and her Bride of Frankenstein burlesque number was original, hilarious, a little horror, and absolutely fun. I think the queens are hating for no reason, but there's probably a reason, and it's likely jealousy.

The runway theme was "shake, shake, shake," and it was better than last week's, though that's a pretty low bar. There were some fun looks, though, so let's get into that. The highlights:

Myki won the week for me – her club kid zip tie look ATE. Athena's look was fun, Vita was good, nothing spectacular, same for Juicy. Darlene looks like she channeled Thorgy in a giant wig and tinsel. Nini was another fantastic look; she's giving Cirque du Soleil clown, and I live.

Ranking-wise, the queens rigged it to put Athena and Jane at the top. Athena won the winner's lip sync, and these shady queens voted Myki at the bottom, leaving this week's lip sync for your life down to Myki v Ciara, to a soundtrack of Britney Spears' Toxic. Predictably, Ciara did not win that lip-sync and was eliminated from the Drag Race competition. Discord should have been eliminated, but I bet they're keeping her around for Snatch Game – we'll see how rigged this actually is once we get there.

Tune in next week to watch the RuPaul's Drag Race queens get political in a pairs acting (maybe improv?) challenge. In the immortal words of Sabrina Carpenter, "Oh boy."

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

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