This week’s episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race is a show staple. For the Mini Challenge the library was open (Xunami Muse, deservedly, won) and for the Maxi Challenge it was time for Snatch Game. As everyone always describes it, this is the challenge that separates the wheat from the chaff, the serious contenders from the girls just waiting to go home. And that it did … sort of.
There is typical Werk Room hemming and hawing over impersonation choices: RuPaul seems wary of Nymphia Wind who sticks with her choice of primatologist Jane Goodall and successfully convinces Mhi’ya Iman LePaige to reconsider her pick of rapper Trina. The game play itself makes it pretty clear where everyone lands. Sapphira Cristal knocks it out of the park as James Brown, arguably getting the best laughs for her quick response to RuPaul clocking her for wearing the same character shoes she’d worn for another challenge. But it’s once again Plane Jane as “Madonna of the Balkans” Jelena Karleusa who pulls off the challenge with the ease and polish that makes Snatch Game great.
Plane grasped the character enough to clue people in to who she was and did so nimbly enough to improvise at will, dropping laugh lines at every opportunity. She does this not only with RuPaul but even with the other contestants, wrapping both Nymphia as Jane and Morphine Love Dion as notorious scammer Anna Delvey into her ploy. It’s very well done. As beloved Drag Race alum Katya recently said: “Plane Jane is fierce because she’s fierce. Boop, boop, be doop.”
On the other side of the coin, Morphine, Nymphia, and Xunami (as the “Gold Tooth Fairy”) all bomb, which is a bit sad. There was true potential in both Xunami and Morphine’s choices. But ultimately, as many queens have found, Snatch Game is not an easy challenge. If we’re being real here, it didn’t feel like Dawn’s Meghan McCain or Q’s Amelia Earhart fared much better. Were either of them actually doing vocal impersonations?
The standouts of the dance themed runway were Sapphira and Nymphia — my god, Nymphia. RuPaul asks Plane if she wants to use her Immunity Potion after quite a number of the girls were cozying up to her in the Werk Room, asking if she would give it to them. In the end, she does not. Which begs the question:
With only two more episodes she can use the potion, what is the plan?
Let’s really be honest here. The likelihood that Plane is going to land in the bottom is low. Sure, it could happen! But the judges could also bring back Shangela mid-season. Plane really seems to have the game figured out in such a way that she’s adequately prepared for whatever might come at her.
So if she gives it away, who might she save? There was one-time speculation that she could use it to save Amanda Tori Meating to kick off a redemption arc — that ship has sailed. She also doesn’t really seem like the type, in general, to save another queen for sentimental reasons. (Remember how she played Rate-a-Queen?) So in all likelihood, Plane is going to be using her Immunity Potion offensively.
After her elimination, Megami tweeted that Plane could have used the potion in order to save Megami and force Mhi’ya and Morphine to lip sync against one another, eliminating a stronger competitor. And while that’s theoretically a good idea, the fact that the potion is used before queens are announced as safe (or even critiqued), it’s certainly not that cut and dry.
Maybe in two weeks she can do something like that, when there’s six girls on the runway, if Plane is pretty clear about the three tops and the three bottoms, she could theoretically save one of the three bottoms and force one of the tops to the bottom — but the move would be pretty ineffectual. That top would not be put in the lip sync. So, short of landing in the bottom herself, Plane is likely to use the potion to win a Maxi Challenge.
In the event that Plane Jane realizes that she is not only top three, but likely top two, she could preemptively use her potion to push her closest competitor to safe. And if she plays her cards right, she’ll be $5,000 richer for the choice. At this point … it’s the only thing that makes sense.
Back on the runway, it is Plane Jane who wins this week, beating out a deservedly high-placed Sapphira and a “most improved” Mhi’ya. In the bottom, its Nymphia (saved by the refreshing runway look) alongside Morphine and Xunami, the latter of whom are forced to lip sync.
In the end, Xunami is the latest Muse to be sent home.
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