From the moment the RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15 cast was announced, we could read what was going to happen better than Loosey LaDuca. One of the most talented and famed queens to have never been on the show, Miss Continental winner Sasha Colby, had finally deigned to appear, the year after her drag daughter Kerri placed ninth. Week by week, fate turned closer to reality as Colby racked up challenge wins, and eventually made history as Drag Race’s first trans winner (outside of All Stars).
But the season still took some unexpected twists on its way there. We survived the lobotomized drag of Sugar and Spice, witnessed the rise and fall of Loosey LaDuca, saw a star born in Mistress Isabelle Brooks — and to top it off, got one of the most instantly iconic lip sync in years, the late-season Lip-Sync for Your Life between early standout Anetra and perennially safe Marcia Marcia Marcia. Both had bottomed out in a comedy challenge, and both had sickening reputations as performers to live up to. And oh, did they — to what song other than Doja Cat’s “Boss Bitch.†It’s rare that we get a Drag Race lip sync for the entire duration of a song with no cuts, but this one had to run in full because it had everything: splits, bends, drops, leaps, plenty of duck-walking, and moves that we’d somehow never seen before, 15 seasons into this franchise. It was a gag all the way to the end, when RuPaul didn’t fall back on a double-shantay save and decided to eliminate Marcia. (Everyone who watched season 14 breathed a sign of relief.) Anetra became the season’s Lip-Sync Assassin (and runner-up), with Michelle Visage even telling her later that it was her “favorite lip sync of all time.†As we brace for whatever season 16 has in store for us, let’s send off 2023 by reliving, moment by moment, the Drag Race slay that no one saw coming.
Are you ready, henny?
We really should’ve known from this head tilt that Anetra had it.
Marica and Anetra start out playing to their strengths: silly faces and slay runway walks.
Oh, and yeah, walking that fucking duck.
Leave it to a Vegas queen to strip for us.
How could Marcia top that? By actually doing what Doja Cat says and backbending till she touches her toes.
Leading to the moment that made a lip-sync for the ages: the “Free Willy,†as coined by Salina Estitties (’memba her?!).
We weren’t just gagging — we were choking.
It’s all such a feast for the eyes, even RuPaul doesn’t know where to look.
But things are just heating up.
Like, what do you even call that?! All we know is we want more of it …
… and Anetra just. keeps. giving.
At this point, Marcia needs eyes back on her, and this shimmy just won’t cut it.
So hey, why not take a page from the Anetra playbook?
Anetra just has to laugh.
Rrrrrr aaaaahah!
We finally arrive at what looks like a hallmark of a classic Drag Race lip sync: the double splits. Or, it looks that way, until Anetra goes for the death drop instead.
And owns it.
But Marcia says, if she’s going down, she’s going down kickin’.
And we end on the faces of two women who knew they just did that.
