My favorite challenge–the makeover challenge–graced the main stage this week, and there are a lot of opinions to be shared. The queens are challenged to partner up with someone new to drag, and they must give the person a makeover with a “drag family resemblance.” This requires queens to take their look and make it transferable to someone with a different face shape and build. Now that only five queens remain, I’ve ranked them top to bottom. My ideas differ wildly from the episode’s standings: I am suggesting a different winner for the episode along with a different queen to sashay away. The challenge was packed with a dance aspect adding to the chaos, so here are my thoughts about the placements for the week.
This Week’s Placements:
1st place – Q – I love that Q took a distinctly campy route for her drag family resemblance. The makeup reminded me of her goth look from earlier in the season, which is important because it shows how a previous aspect of her drag transferred onto another person. Q is so smart with her designs. The look is brilliant as a whole, but the beauty of Q’s fashion is in the details. With each extra second that she’s on the runway, new design elements meet the eye. A symptom of smart fashion is the ability to make a complexly patterned outfit not seem visually busy. With multicolored ruffles, pattern mixing with zebra print and crazed makeup, Q showed stunning fashion that deserved the win this week.
2nd place – Nymphia Wind – In my opinion, the key to winning the makeover challenge is being similar to your partner but not identical. Nymphia crushed it. By dressing her partner, Juanita Wind, and herself in matching outfits with varied colors, Nymphia delivered the family resemblance that the challenge required but with differing looks. I love that Nymphia stuck with her signature yellow for her own outfit and gave Juanita the complementary color. The ruffled top flares out above the waist and below the shoulder as it should, helping to shape Nymphia’s burley partner into a drag queen. Overall, Nymphia crushed it, and she should have been higher in the standings for this week.
3rd place – Plane Jane – As this week’s official winner, Plane Jane served an immaculate runway. The idea of having a matching hairstyle with opposite black and blonde highlights is a perfect choice for this challenge. However, the rest of this outfit is nothing new for Plane Jane. We’ve seen her in bodysuits littered with cutouts for weeks in a row. Although the novelty of her outfits has worn off, she continues to walk the runway with unbridled confidence. Plane Jane and her partner Lazy Susan (who had the best drag name of the episode) destroyed the dancing portion of this challenge. With their opposing moves and hair, Plane Jane and Lazy Susan performed well in this challenge, but they didn’t deserve the win.
4th place – Morphine Love Dion – This week was rough for Morphine. By herself, she was the most gorgeous girl on the runway, but her partner La Tina Love Dion didn’t deliver the same beauty. The choices that Morphine made in outfit decisions held La Tina back from conveying an entirely “draggy” silhouette. Especially for muscular performers, showing one’s natural shoulders reads extremely masculine. While more masculine drag is valid, pairing it with Morphine Love Dion’s gorgeous femininity fails to accomplish the family resemblance challenge. I wasn’t even mad that Morphine made mistakes this week, though; she has been destroying the lip syncs, and I somewhat hope she will flop the challenges so I can watch her perform.
5th place – Sapphira Cristál – It was surprising to see the season’s clear front-runner stumble near the end of the show. Nevertheless, placing Sapphira in the bottom was probably the least rigged option they could have made. The resemblance between Sapphira and her partner Shakira Cristál from the shoulders down went no further than the shade of orange they wore. While Sapphira’s wig was teased and massive, she gave her partner a skimpier wig that seemed haphazardly glued down. While Shakira wore a fun and frilly bodysuit, Sapphira wore a highly ruffled skirt with a random blue petticoat beneath. To continue with this petticoat, the color story was all wrong. The orange matched between them, but between the blue petticoat, Shakira’s fun silver heel and Sapphira’s rickety black character shoe, the pair were not twins, not sisters and may not even be second cousins once removed.
Make sure to return for the next episode of the Racer Ruview, breaking down more hot opinions on “RuPaul’s Drag Race: Season 16, Episode 14.”