RuPaul’s Drag Race Recap S16E11: Throwing Tantrums and Titties

We return to Drag Race this week after last week’s top two queens battled it out for the win, sending no one home in the process. The Queens are excited when they hit the Werkroom about the non-elimination, but Morphine is upset she didn’t win the lip sync against Sapphira. The ladies jump on Plane’s placement in the last challenge which sets her off and causes her to come for Dawn, who is only becoming more amused with every word that comes out of Plane’s mouth. Plane has spent the entire season attempting to be the villain, but good villains don’t know they are, which is why Dawn is the true villain of season 16. She causes chaos and her confessionals are shady, it’s pure fun watching her!

The next day in the Werkroom, the competitors play “Spill the Tea,” a game that sees the Queens answering questions in an attempt to see what everyone thinks of each other. If you vote in the majority, you receive points. It reminded me of games played on Big Brother, another glaring reminder that the season was pushed forward without the help of its writers for mini-challenges and the main stage challenges. Sapphira wins the challenge and $3400, with the rest of the Queens keeping any cash they’ve accumulated in the challenge. Ru then tells them they will be preparing a Drag Awareness Employee Seminar. Now, what did I just get done talking about? Another challenge where the Queens will be preparing everything on their own, which is not an issue! I’m just pointing out that this season has seen the competitors pulling their own weight for the show unlike any other season before.

Mhi’ya and Dawn are paired together, Dawn being excited about a presentation because she feels, as someone with an engineering degree, she can deliver. Talking to Mhi’ya, however, proves fruitless because she doesn’t have any suggestions on the direction they should take. Sapphira, Morphine, and Nymphia are on a team as well, Morphine admitting almost immediately that she isn’t quite sure what a seminar is. We get a beautiful moment of the producer asking her to say what she thinks it is in a confessional, and she gets it right! She shakily explains that it’s something behind a podium speaking, which isn’t incorrect. Plane Jane and Q are together, which could end up working in their favor because they’re both irreverent and could do well together. On the other hand, it could totally backfire if they get too arrogant. We get some more shade from Dawn’s confessional about Q, saying she can at least deliver the jokes Plane writes for them.

Joel Kim Booster comes to see the competitors while they get ready for their challenge. Not to get too bogged down on this, but where did Booster get the top he’s wearing in the Werkroom? An investigation might be launched into figuring this out because Pride is only months away!  “I try to approach everything with a deluded sense of confidence,” Plane admits to Booster and Michelle Visage, explaining almost everything we have seen from her this entire season. Mhi’ya discusses hosting gigs, which is surprising to her fellow Miami Queen, Morphine, whose face says it all about what she thinks of this. This is no shade to Mhi’ya because she’s an incredible performer, but I don’t necessarily see her as a strong host for a drag show mostly because of her quiet personality and inability to get a joke across. She’s funny, but that setting specifically makes me weary that she’ll be able to do this challenge. We all know she’s a lip sync assassin, though, so we’ll see what happens once they hit the stage. The Queens then find out that the audience will be filled with corporate employees who are bored and only at the seminar for the free snacks. Will they even be able to hear Mhi’ya? 

It’s time to paint! Nymphia admits the difficulty of the challenge to Mhi’ya, hoping she can surprise herself with how she performs. I can appreciate that Nymphia is actually nervous for this one and isn’t trying to seem like she gets it. Nymphia is a great performer and having a lack of confidence sometimes is humanizing. Q is preparing a look to honor the queer people that were lost to the AIDS epidemic before admitting that she’s been HIV positive for the last two years. For anyone reading this and hearing Q’s struggles with the things that have been said to her regarding her status, understand that not only is HIV completely treatable, but undetectable status means it is un-transmittable. It’s dehumanizing for HIV positive individuals to be treated like this by the very people who should be defending and protecting them. Queer men with HIV being treated like that by other queer men is embarrassing to the entire LGTBQ+ community, a reminder that internalized homophobia rears its head in the worst possible moments. Seeing Q cry while remembering the things that have happened to her regarding her status broke my heart, as I’ve seen more than just her have this issue. It’s glaring to have to defend queer people in their own community, but it’s important to de-stigmatize this one and for all. 

Plane and Q are up first during the challenge, immediately placing a high bar on the rest of the competitors. I will be thinking about Plane calling Benjamin Franklin’s “BJ Bottoms” for the rest of the year. The jokes are quick and succinct, the two getting big laughs from the crowd for every one. Plane and Q set the standard for the challenge, so I know the competitors after them must be nervous. Dawn and Mhi’ya are up next and a downgrade from the act before them. They have jokes, but most of them don’t land. Perhaps Mhi’ya is one who can host on Grindr, but she proves here she certainly isn’t adept at hosting a drag show. Once again, it isn’t that she isn’t funny, she just doesn’t possess the ability to deliver jokes in this kind of setting. The two seem like they were on two different wavelengths for their seminar and it never comes together. The last three Queens, Sapphira, Morphine, and Nymphia, begin with a joke from Sapphira that I’m almost positive I heard Helena Bonham Carter tell in season 5 of The Crown. Morphine interrupts Nymphia during it once in a way that isn’t identifiably part of a joke, so it comes across as a mishap. Morphine embarrassingly admits to the crowd she’s flopping before we move on to the runway, the theme being “Flashback: DragCon 1980.”

• Plane Jane is wearing a drag queen power suit that would send glass painters into a frenzy
• Q’s Keith Haring dress is a beautiful tribute to all that were lost to the AIDS epidemic
• Dawn comes out in my least favorite look from her out of the entire season but perhaps my favorite wig she’s worn
• On the other hand, Mhi’ya comes out in what might be my favorite look from her thus far this season
• Sapphira comes out in something that looks like Jenna Lyons designed it specifically for her
• Morphine’s look is choppy with a wig she wasn’t planning on wearing but had to because of her original one breaking
• Another Keith Haring-inspired look but from Nymphia, but also a riff on Grace Jones in Vamp, who also made me happy by not wearing yellow this week

“It was great working with you, sister,” Plane says to Q on the main stage without weaponizing the last word as she usually does. Plane’s usual enunciation of sister sends me into a frenzy because it’s loaded with hatefulness, but she meant it this time! Q and Plane are praised before Dawn and Mhi’ya are told about their performance. It’s not good and they know it, but they need to hear it. Nymphia and Sapphira are told how well they did while Morphine receives constructive criticism for her performance in the seminar, Joel Kim Booster throwing out helpful and insightful critiques to assist her in bettering her humor for next time. Booster clearly has love for the show and drag queens in general, his adoration for their art coming through in every sentence to the ladies. Never mean, only helpful and witty, Booster is the best kind of Drag Race guest judge. Sapphira wins the challenge, making her the first three-time winner of the season. We are moments away from a face crack from Q, who looks furious about not winning. “I’m happy for you, but I’m gaggged,” she whispers to Sapphira at the back of the stage. Unsurprisingly, Morphine and Mhi’ya find themselves in the bottom. Congratulations to audiences everywhere for the lip sync that should follow this announcement.

The two lip sync to “Dim All The Lights” by Donna Summer and immediately jump into the emotion of the song. Mhi’ya brings ballroom shade to the lip sync by tossing part of her outfit over Morphine during the song, which incites an entire situation on stage that sees Morphine throwing a tit at Mhi’ya. The two begin a round of gymnastics with each other before the song abruptly ends. Did that not seem like a short lip sync? I was confused when it ended because it felt like thirty seconds, which is always disappointing when one remembers how long the lip syncs on Canada’s Drag Race are. In the end, Morphine sends Mhi’ya home and effectively ends her run as the lip sync assassin of the season (though she still remains one after sending several competitors home).