Drag Race 14 - Elimination order prediction (unspoiled)
Season 14 is....good, so far??? After the shitshow of season 13 I was not expecting much, but it’s been a blast so far even with the twists and ‘off the rails’ RuPaul.
I didn’t do a full prediction at the start because I was hesitant to see how the Big Twist would work, but three episodes in I’m good to go. I should note that I haven’t seen any spoilers, I’ve dutifully avoided because personally, guessing is more fun! So let’s hit it, below the cut.
14th place of course goes to Miss ‘it’s chocolate’ herself. Being the first meme of the season isn’t going to do too badly for her, maybe!
13th due to a fairly finished-seeming storyline and because the judges haven’t appreciated anything she’s given yet, I’m predicting Orion Story to be our Joey Jay of the season.
12th Deja Skye also hasn’t been super appreciated so far and has lipsynced once, so they know what she can bring. Set her up against a dancier queen (Jasmine, maybe?) and she might struggle.
11th Maddy Morphosis. Season 14′s major stunt casting might have run her storyline into the ground two episodes from now and her runways have been hit and miss so far, while her lipsync likely won’t save her again.
10th Alyssa Hunter. They’ve cut her out of confessionals a lot and I can almost see production having a vested interest in letting Alyssa Edwards stay as the only famous Alyssa alum. If we have Snatch Game by then I can see her being dragged for doing something ‘less mainstream’ ie. non mainline USA
9th Jasmine Kennedie. There’s been talk of her being something of a villain or delusional and I can see her possibly lipsyncing a few times by now, although personally she’s been one of my favourites so far and I think she’s been dramatically underappreciated.
8th Jorgeous. She’s very pretty but hasn’t given much beyond that so far. I hope she comes out of her shell, but if she doesn’t, she’s not going to pass midway I think.
7th Lady Camden. I think she might be - or production might try to make her be - something of a Katya this season, but I’m torn on if the audience will play ball. So far I personally find her a little irritating, but she’s undoubtedly polished and could pull off a lipsync elim if she found herself in danger, I reckon.
6th Daya Betty. I think she will also be the golden ticket queen and the comeback queen of the season. She’s had a lot of screentime by episode 3 and has been a central workroom figure. While I personally don’t enjoy what she’s been serving, she might have hidden depths if she can just avoid lipsyncing. It would also make sense to give the golden ticket to a lackluster lipsyncer imo.
5th Bosco. I think she’ll just miss out on the top 4, probably to a lipsync against a frontrunner like Angeria or Kornbread.
TOP 4 Angeria VanMichaels, Kornbread, Willow Pill and Kerri Colby. I think in terms of run, Kornbread and Angeria will dominate like Gigi and Jaida did between them, or like Brooke and Silky in S11. Willow Pill will pick up maybe two wins and Ru’s love for her might keep her out of lipsyncing altogether. I see Kerri perhaps winning a makeover and having a story-based journey for the season, probably. But she is probably the member of the top 4 I am least certain of. In her place I could see any of Lady Camden, Bosco or Daya Betty.
Excited to see how these play out from tomorrow’s episode on!
Back for another season! So far we've correctly predicted the winner of DRCAN2, but called UK3's winner as the first out, UK2's first out as the winner, and Tina Burner as a top 2 fan favourite. So safe to say we're on mixed success!
Detailed predix post to follow...but for now...
Endgame: Bosco, Angeria, Kornbread, Kerri, Lady Camden, Alyssa
Midtable: Willow, June, Maddy, Deja
Early out: Daya, Jorgeous, Jasmine, Orion
The twist: My prediction: long-lasting immunity...or a return for the first time since S7 in a regular season!
The general sense I had watching this season was that RuPaul actively didn't want to either a) be there, or b) to have to watch and judge UK drag. That is, drag that follows historically British style, culture, personas, and popular references and meta. So the challenges didn't lean towards it, the UK celebrity choices in Snatch Game were changed by Ru ‘correcting’ the queens’ original picks, hardly any of the challenges leaned toward specifically UK references, and in the ones that did, the queens that interpreted things in a particularly UK way were punished.
In terms of UK-style drag, Kitty's roast really laid bare how Krystal didn't offer much in that regard, due to her struggles with comedy, hosting, acting, singing, sewing, and basically anything besides lipsyncing, makeup, modelling and acrobatic dance routines. That, for whatever reason, was what RuPaul wanted in a winner, as well as a sense that the person had some kind of unresolved drama that perhaps RuPaul the producer thought would make more compelling tv. Unfortunately, none of that really resonates with a British audience. So this season largely felt like a huge mismatch between what production/Ru valued, what they thought the audience would positively respond to, and what the British audience actually responded positively to.
I think the season would have benefited from a bit of flexibility within the challenges. They've done lipsyncing and makeup-oriented challenges before as main challenges. At least picking one of those in place of some of the challenges they went for would have elevated Krystal as a worthy competitor. Or, letting her lipsync in the bottom 2 would have cemented her place as somebody fighting to stay in. Giving her two wins at the start and then letting her coast until it was Vanity's 4th lipsync is probably the worst possible way they could have sold the least-British drag queen to a British audience.
The ironic thing about RPDR UK is that three seasons in we have zero evidence that Ru actually likes British drag. It seems that he finds British people and certain accents inherently funny (Lawrence, Scarlett, Baga), and otherwise awards the most polished pageant-style queen out of the cast every single season.
Meanwhile, the fans tend to root for the people that exemplify the local culture best. There’s rarely the crossover needed for a satisfying conclusion to the season.
The treatment of Veronica, Charity, Choriza and River could easily be its own post. But this last episode (E07) has left me thinking that honestly, I think the edit and the production has screwed over Krystal and Scarlett.
A lot of what comes out of their mouths in confessionals and the workroom sounds scripted or prompted. Krystal apologising to the judges for River and Choriza's lipsync? Pull the other one. Someone asked her to say that to make out it was worse than it was in my opinion. Same for Scarlett's constant stank-face in the background shots.
As for Scarlett's argument that she was the best because she made Ru laugh most, that also feels like the result of someone saying so to her when they've got her on her own and her just repeating it back to the others.
To be honest I'd not be surprised if the reason Ella, Vanity and to an extent Kitty are being shown as 'boring' is because they refuse to rise to producer prompts. This episode they clearly wanted Kitty to talk about having low self-esteem regarding her body, but she refused, and was it Vanity who said that no-one had ever trolled her? And Ella responded to the prompt with a joke about people online flirting with her - production felt like it was obviously fishing for an online bullying angle which they could no doubt then tie into homophobia/racism/body-shaming, once again pushing the Divina de Campo-esque ‘Megan this is disgusting’ narrative that anyone making a comment on social media is essentially the child of Satan.
Meanwhile in the background Krystal and Scarlett are being pushed to say blatantly unnatural things like 'without Drag Race I wouldn't have any self esteem' and 'I'm so busy with my career in drag I've never been able to stop to have sex' - come on, those sound like Hello magazine headlines. Is that really what you want when half the charm of S1 and S2 were the authentic werkroom conversations about e.g. gender identity, funny moments like A’Whora sneaking around or Baga peeking through the clothes rail, and genuine mature moments like Tia and A’Whora’s conversation about perceptions and growth?
⦾ Choriza May won the personality contest & was a personal top 3 in the looks too
⦾ “Hate me cos I’m an immigrant” was EVERYTHING & sadly is pretty much the state of a lot of the UK nowadays rip
⦾ Veronica Green has um...not really had a glowup
⦾ I don’t agree with Krystal winning. 2nd outfit was good but her 1st was just a Borat bikini with a harness on top
⦾ but is it Victoria Scooown or Victoria Scon?
⦾ Vanity Milan and River Medway are flying the flag for our POC dolls and both are absolutely adorable & super talented. Long may they stay in the competition
⦾ Kitty and Charity being bitchy was Not It for me. I’d hoped to like Charity but those confessionals were giving me pre-character development Violet
⦾ Yay for totally uncritically bringing back Little Britain?
⦾ That mini challenge was how you do a covid restriction mandate well. They need to sell a spinoff card game or something
I said I wouldn’t do a full preview article, but I feel like I need to do SOMEthing, so here's a short writeup of my thoughts pre- tomorrow’s debut.
I’m not quite sure how I’m feeling about the season in general. Excited, firstly. But UK3 has big shoes to fill and I’m presently a little doubtful over whether it will. I know there were rumours that production was less than perfect and some queens had complaints as it was going along. And additionally, this season’s promo doesn’t fill me with confidence - it’s all but impossible to tell for example what the Category Is in every photoshoot I’ve seen so far, before you even get to whatever that trailer was!
But anyway, here’s what I’ve thought up so far:
· The first four queens to lipsync will be Krystal Versace, Elektra Fence, River Medway and Veronica Green
· There will be a double shantay during the season
· Elektra Fence and Scarlett Harlett will be lipsync assassins and lipsync at least twice each
· There will be a top 4 again
· Veronica won’t win the Rusical again this time round, or maybe there won’t be one
· Someone will still not be able to sew
· We’ll have four or five really great mirror moments
· WOW will try and create another Dramatic Ru Moment like “I don’t want to see any fucking H&M”
· The winner will pick up less than three wins this time around to diversify from S1 and S2
That’s about all I have so far! Who’s excited for the premiere?
Hello darlings! We’re back with some predictions in advance of Canada’s Drag Race season 2.
I had planned to do something similar for DRUK3 but unfortunately I did come across some rumours which would influence my predictions, so I probably won’t do a post for that until it starts airing and I can see if the rumours pan out.
Anyway, on to the predictions for DRCAN2!
This looks like a really great cast firstly that is so diverse and exciting in terms of different drag approaches. We’ve got some new archetypes here and people that are really trying something more unique which makes predicting placements that bit harder - before you even think they might throw a twist our way! But I’ve pulled together some initial predictions for how I see the dolls doing, based on their gorgeous candy-themed Meet The Queens intros... after the cut!
Starting off with my predictions for our early outs.
From the Meet the Queens, I’m predicting the first three eliminated queens to be: Kendall Gender, Adriana, and Oceane Aqua-Black, possibly in that order.
All three queens talked mostly about their approach to the competition and their lipsyncing skill and that they were just there to have fun, which suggested to me that they might have had to focus on those qualities during the competition. I would additionally predict that Oceane seems to be a prime candidate for this season’s Miss Congeniality.
Next out I predict Stephanie Prince in 9th. I think she’ll find herself lipsyncing but will be able to save herself for a few episodes until she goes her 2nd or 3rd time in the bottom.
My 8th place prediction is Gia Metric. She looks like a really strong contender who might put a foot wrong somewhere in the competition and be a shock elimination.
Next out I predict Kimora Amour. She seems like a really competent competitor who should do well in a lot of challenges, but I’m not sure how she would lipsync if she fell into the bottom 2 and I can see an unsuitable song being difficult for her.
In 6th place I think Pythia. She has the ‘weird’ archetype nailed down, but will she be able to diversify her drag if the challenge calls for it? I hope she makes it to a makeover because I think she’d nail it.
I predict our 5th-placer will be Eve 6000. She seems like a really good all-rounder so I think this is a fair prediction for her.
Which brings us to the top 4 which I think will be comprised of Beth, Synthia Kiss, Suki Doll and Icesis Couture. For me, Beth and Icesis had the most impactful Meet the Queens interviews. Icesis seems primed to be a fan fave along the lines of Jimbo and BenDeLaCreme, while Beth seemed to be another good all-rounder with a strong individual sense of her drag. I also include Suki Doll here because she was the only queen who talked about being an actress, so maybe she’ll clean up the acting challenges, and any queen with multiple wins is likely to go far. Finally, Synthia seemed like the most traditionally glamorous of any of the queens, and Drag Race tends to reward that by letting runways pull up a challenge performance that may have been weaker, so I can see this helping Synthia out.
And of the top 4, my first call for the winner is...
Icesis Couture
It was hard to tell from the MTQ what her particular strengths would be, but her drag looked polished and she has a similar likeable and infectious energy to Priyanka, the winner of season 1, so I can see that serving her well if she’s able to do well on the challenges too.
What do you think? Please don’t send me spoilers or rumours! Looking forward to watching the season come October!
WHAT IF: Season 13 had the All Stars 6 Game Within A Game twist?
We all know how season 13 originally went with a controversial early double shantay between Symone and Kandy Muse in episode 8.
Let’s change that and see how the season goes with a returning queen twist instead....
So, to start we’ll assume the first seven episodes go as they did in the original show. That is:
In episode 1 all queens lipsync to stay in the competition, and as a result are split into the Winners’ group - Symone, Kandy, Tina, Olivia, Gottmik, and Lala, later joined by Elliott with 2 Ts. The Porkchops group comprises Rose, Denali, Utica, Tamisha, Kahmora, and Joey Jay representing the gays.
Episode 2 and 3 are performance challenges respectively won by Symone and Denali, with Olivia Lux and Rose taking the runner-up placements.
Episode 4′s acting challenge is won by Symone with Kahmora eliminated. Gottmik wins episode 5′s Ball with Joey eliminated. Olivia Lux wins episode 6′s Disco-mentary AND episode 7′s Improv challenge, with Tamisha and then Lala eliminated.
Then we come to episode 8′s Rusical. Rose wins and Symone and Kandy fall into the bottom 2, at which point, Kandy Muse is not saved and is eliminated. While packing in the werkroom the TV turns on by itself and Ru calls “Kandy, I can’t let you go yet. This season, there’s a game within a game...”
Meanwhile, the remaining queens proceed to episode 9, Snatch Game. As in the original season, this is won by Gottmik, with Denali and Rose placing High. Tina and Symone are pronounced Safe, with Olivia Low and Elliott facing Utica in the B2. Utica, as originally, wins the lipsync to Fascinated and sends Elliott ‘home’ - which lasts until she receives a werkroom call from Mama Ru.
The next episode chronologically is the Makeover challenge, however, that requires an even number of queens. For that reason, the next episode is the Game Within a Game reveal of the lipsync tournament between the now six eliminated queens, with the remaining seven in the competition given a bye this episode.
First to lipsync is Kahmora Hall, facing the 2nd eliminated queen, Joey Jay. Joey handily wins this lipsync and holds on to her 12th place. Kahmora sashays away again.
The second lipsync pits Joey against Tamisha Iman. Joey is able to win this lipsync too, pushing Tamisha down to 12th. Joey however loses the next lipsync to Lala Ri, who originally eliminated her.
The fourth lipsync pits Lala against Kandy Muse. I think at this point, Lala was losing steam in the competition, and wouldn’t have the fighting spirit that Kandy does - so Kandy wins this lipsync.
The final lipsync is between Kandy and Elliott, and is something of a grudge match. Allegedly, the queens didn’t get on in the werkroom. I see for storyline reasons and probably a spirited performance too, Kandy winning this lipsync and becoming the returning queen to the competition. The new order for the eliminated queens below her is thus: 9th Elliott, 10th Lala, 11th Joey, 12th Tamisha, 13th Kahmora.
The next episode is the Makeover, and features the return of Kandy. I expect this episode to go just as it did in the original season, with Symone and Utica winning, Gottmik and Kandy placing High, and Denali being eliminated in a bottom 2 with Olivia Lux.
Then comes the Commerical episode, won as before by Rose and Symone, with Kandy placing High. Gottmik places Low and Utica eliminates Tina in the B2 lipsync. Kandy then wins the following Roast episode (13) while Symone eliminates Utica in the bottom 2.
Despite how the rest of the season hasn’t been affected so much by the twist, things are going to change for a second time in the final episode. This is the top 5 acting challenge where the queens play a parody of themselves. This is the same top 5 as in the original season - Rose, Symone, Kandy, Olivia and Gottmik. Rose handily wins the episode with Symone and Gottmik placing High, leaving Olivia and Kandy in the bottom 2.
However, Kandy is now the returning queen. She has one win to Olivia’s two, and three bottom 2 placements to Olivia’s two. As well as this, in this version of events, Olivia has had a Safe to break up her five consecutive bottom 3 placements in the original season, and has as a result a bit more fire to her. For that reason, I see Olivia being the victor in this lipsync and moving on to the top 4 with Kandy eliminated here in 5th.
The top 4 episode continues as in the original season, with all four queens lipsyncing and going through to the grand finale as Safe. Finally, we have the grand finale with Lipsync for the Crown and...
Once again this is something of a sure outcome. Rose and Gottmik as the weaker lipsyncers will place 3rd and 4th, leaving a top 2 of Symone and Olivia which - like in the original season - is a rematch! Olivia’s record in the competition pales against Symone’s domination and four wins though, and so as originally, Symone is the victor of season 13. Olivia makes it all the way to 2nd though despite faltering in the second half of the competition!
And the track record for this season would look like this:
[Image description: a table showing the full placements of all queens per episode of this fantasy season of Drag Race season 13]
What other ideas do you want to see for What Ifs? Let me know in the comments or request! xo
Drag Race Down Under is finally over! Finale Review spoilers:
Well, the right person finally won. It was touch and go there for a while, and even this finale seemed to be edited leading towards a Scarlet win (with Ru and the narrative at every stage explicitly excusing her and brushing exactly ‘what she did’ under the rug), but ultimately I imagine the producers backed off following the overwhelmingly negative fan response.
Thankfully, in my view, Kita did what I hoped she would and performed on this episode like Monet did in the AS4 finale. She gave great pageant answers to the questions put to her by Ru and Michelle and gave them everything they wanted - I suspect helped by her previous experience of reality tv production. Kita - and Elektra - handed the producers a narrative to justify her crowning on the offchance that they would choose to, and fortunately, due to the fan response to them, and to everyone else, I suspect - they went for it.
The storyline production on this season was terrible. Not knowing anything about any of the queens' backstories all season was bad enough. Trying to cram 3x as much as any normal episode in in the finale with both a psychobabble interview with Michelle and Ru and 'what would you say to little you' within the same 50 minutes with also a maxi challenge, full runway and finale lipsync was just wild and as an overcorrection just came too late.
Beyond the fan response, I really think Kita showed her professionalism and cleverness this episode. Paying tribute to Courtney's S6 wings was a good touch that showed her knowledge of the show's history. She came prepared with a gag for the final lipsync, something none of the others did. And throughout the season, she did make sure to show versatility - something that all the rest of the top 4 didn't nail as much.
I think Scarlet really failed on that front this episode and completely misjudged the tone of that final lipsync, and Karen... this really wasn't her format to shine. They were very kind to her final effort but it really wasn't it, was it?
As for Art I still don't know what they were going for with her. She performed well enough this episode that she probably could have challenged for the win on the girlgroup episode - aka the only episode she missed of the season. Her deleted tweet suggests (unintentionally) that possibly production tried to give her multiple chances to not get eliminated. But why not just do a double shantay in that case? I guess the Queens Down Under song was limited to four verses, and they had committed to doing it third? But surely they could have switched challenge order given that the song was a Ru song and didn’t need any guest to come in for it?
Ultimately, the season was a bit of a mess, but the queens were by and large, fun, interesting (especially post-show in interviews, lives etc. where they finally were able to give themselves some backstory) and charismatic. Was DRDU a great expression of Aussie and NZ culture and what sets its drag apart? Not really. But at least it did give a platform to 10 queens and some good guest stars from that part of the world to raise their profile and reach, and provided a valuable talking point - even if unintentionally - for some social issues that still plague our society and communities, even in spaces thought to be ultra progressive such as the LGBTQ+ community.
Congratulations, Kita Mean! Here’s hoping for a better season 2 - perhaps with Kita hosting?!
Drag Race Down Under: did the producers REALLY think we would stan Scarlet?
Several episodes now,but most notably episode 7, have seemed to really lean into 'poor Scarlet being hard done by by those nasty Kiwi girls' at multiple points. I think at this stage most of us are resistant watchers &/ coming in and taking our own interpretation of events. But what the show portrayed to us was essentially:
Kita winning the mini challenge and using it to behind Scarlet's back screw Scarlet out of the placement that she wanted
Elektra and Kita conspiring together to disadvantage Scarlet (implied: the deserving front-runner)
Elektra alleging all season that if it came down to it, she could out-dance/out-perform Scarlet but being proved wrong, and it being hammered home by all the judges that she is just worse all round at drag than Scarlet. While the cast when asked who deserves to go home suspiciously don't bring up Karen's poor track record, Art's prior elimination or Scarlet's racism
Elektra and Kita getting 'what they deserved' for trying to disadvantage Scarlet by then appearing in the B2 together while Scarlet won
To me watching, as someone for whom Elektra and Kita are both very sympathetic, the narrative seemed to be setting itself up to be Elektra and Kita overcoming an overconfident rival. But the judging and the overall result - as well as the framing week on week - suggests that that wasn't the intended interpretation at all!
And that's only the start of how the Kiwi girls have been portrayed as villains 'breaking in' to Ru's originally conceived Drag Race Australia.
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