RuPaul’s Drag Race recap S16 E1: “The Time Has Come”

It has been 364 days since Luxx Noir London walked into the Werkroom and proclaimed that her entrance look lace front was 40 inches, sending viewers (and her fellow Queens) into a frenzied investigation that saw social media pushing themselves to figure out how long 40 inches is. We come to this place for entertainment, and the time has arrived to return to RuPaul’s Drag Race and introduce a fresh set of Queens to the world.  

The new queens enter the Werkroom one by one. Q walks in and announces her propensity for fashion; Xunami Muse — Kandy’s daughter — is a signed model; Amanda Tori Meating has the best name and a hard neckline; Morphine Love Dion is the self-proclaimed “Latina goddess of Miami” and mug queen; Sapphira Cristál shows up; Mirage is the legs of Vegas; Dawn “feels so pussy!” when she walks in for the first time. I’m not going to lie, I had to make sure Dawn wasn’t Chappell Roan when I first saw her. An appearance from the Midwest Princess would be H-O-T-T-O-G-O, to be sure, but it isn’t her. 

Ru walks in to meet the girls looking like she has an audition to play a children’s show train conductor right after this introduction. Instead of telling the girls about Thomas the Train lore, she invites them into their first mini-challenge, a reliable photoshoot made chaotic at the end by Love Connie’s appearance to disrupt the girls confidence. Why do the Queens never seem to understand that the point of these silly challenges is to put their confidence forward, sure, but to also showcase personality? Some of the Queens seem to find this challenging while talking to Ru — who is looking at them via her iPad that has the same folio cover as mine — but Dawn seems to understand this perfectly.

The girls de-drag and immediately start judging one another’s out-of-drag looks, a hilarious tradition where they try to figure out possible showmances and attractions that could help soothe their sanities while filming. Ru then begins announcing the twists of the season, an incredible ploy to keep viewers enticed through a cookie-cutter season opener. The winner of the Spring Break Talent Show will receive the usual five thousand dollar cash tip, but will also be granted an immunity prize that can be used down the line. Jeff Probst is somewhere tuned all the way into this new twist that takes audiences back to older days of the franchise. There will also be a “Rate A Queen” where the girls will judge one another’s talent show. It’s exhausting to attempt to keep up with random twists every season that don’t add much to the show but convolution. Everything is fine when Academy Award winner Charlize Theron appears with a sickening bob and Mirage says the most iconic thing possible in her confession: “It’s Aeon Flux!” Gay people deserve everything.

When the gals sit back down to paint, they begin discussing queerness and doing drag. Morphine reveals that her parents aren’t aware of her drag, despite her living with them. They probably know, or at least have an inkling, but don’t say anything to her. An out of sight, out of mind situation that isn’t really fair to Morphine, but she seems used to it (which doesn’t make it better). With this week’s emotional debrief complete, the premiere switches gears and throws us to the Main Stage for Drag Race’s MTV’s Spring Break Talent Show. Derrick Barry is hosting the talent show, which hilarious as Derrick famously had one of the worst talent shows ever in season five of All Stars when she unsuccessfully attempted numerous impressions in five minutes. 

Moving on, the talent show begins. Morphine lip syncs to a Rosalía song, which is fine but doesn’t really showcase her personality in any way other than highlighting her Latina roots. Amanda Tori proves to be satisfied, exclaiming that she “ate that.” Dawn gives Willow Pill-energy in her talent show by bringing a strangeness that will stay with audiences. The other girls even seem to be impressed with her performance in this one. Q has the most entertaining talent show with a puppet ballet performance complete with exaggerated facial expressions that sends Ru into hysterics. I assume Ru’s laugh, for these queens, brings a high and a dopamine rush unbeknownst to any of us normal folks. Mirage’s heel clacking is sexy and her floor work is impressive, calling herself the “Swiffer of Vegas.” Xunami Muse looks pretty during her performance but doesn’t bring much personality to her performance, so hopefully she will bring a little more in future episodes. Sapphira’s performance is both hilarious and almost beautiful, sliding into a split as her operatic voice fills every corner of the room. She slams her vagina into the stage while hitting notes, which I’ll remember for the rest of the year. 

The runway to allow the queens a chance to showcase themselves sees Mirage walking down in a few towels like she lost her bathing suit and had to quickly cover up, then doing a “reveal” into an actual bathing suit.  What needs to really be said is that Amanda Tori’s make-up looks as bad as Heidi N Closet’s in season twelve’s premiere episode. Nicki Minaj would lose her mind if faced with the colored contouring happening on Amanda’s face. It’s a shame when a Queen has to learn about her make-up skills in the landscape of the show, but hopefully Amanda can rally and turn this into a learning experience (see also: the aforementioned Heidi, Marcia Marcia Marcia, etc). It happens! The best thing she can do is grow in the moment, which is something all the Queens need to push themselves to do when in this competition. At this point, it’s clear that the judges are interested in a growth story across the season, so starting at the beginning is a great way to keep favor with the judging panel. 

The Queens then begin competing in The Circle — wait, this is actually the Rate A Queen segment on the show. Interesting! The screen the Queens look at to cast their votes certainly looks like Netflix’s hit reality series as the ladies judge one another both competitively and personally, as this was always going to be. The queens seem unsure at the beginning, but grow confidence towards the end of their decisions. All of them are fed the line “and that’s the tea” to end their choices, which could have been fine had we only had to see one or two say it, but seeing all of them say it has a gratingly impersonal effect. Sapphira and Q take their place as the top two queens after the vote, ready to lip sync against one another to Beyonce’s “Break My Soul.”

Sapphira’s strategy in the lip sync is interesting as she takes a reserved approach the first thirty seconds before sliding across the stage into a split. Q looks like a literal fly buzzing around the stage thanks to the antennas on her head, making me think of what she’d look like dancing on a vice presidential candidate’s head during an important debate. The two do fine, nothing special, and Ru announces Sapphira as the winner. If nothing else, Sapphira’s energy is admirable and provides an exciting end to the episode, even if Drag Race audiences have seen better. We’ll see next week what the other seven Queens are capable of and, hopefully, Britney Sp–Derrick Barry will return for any reason possible. 

Photo: MTV