This week on RuPaul’s Drag Race, we meet Plane Jane. She comes into the Werk Room with a mission — villainy — then promptly steals the episode by accomplishing it. She reads the other queens at every chance she gets then votes strategically, not fairly, in the Rate-a-Queen segment. It’s a clear ploy, perhaps even a contrived one, but certainly not an unworthy one. In the process, she helps Drag Race create one of its most well-produced premieres in a long time.
This week’s episode is a mini-saga, with both a fallen hero and a villain, and it sets up storylines for the season ahead with wild abandon. It does this by essentially giving itself over to two queens, with the others mostly functioning as side characters ready to be filled in at a later date. But I’m not in the business of fairness, I’m in the business of watching compelling TV, and if some queens are ready to walk into the Werk Room and snatch the eye of the camera with all their might, then who am I to deny it?
Jane’s gambit is an interesting one — and it is an intentional gambit, even if how she’s acting is a version of her real personality. Nobody walks onto Drag Race not knowing that if she spews out rudeness, that rudeness will be televised. If she keeps it up, Jane cuts her chances at actually winning the crown down to near zero. Violet Chachki is the only queen since King Tyra (neé Tyra Sanchez) who’s won the show while being something resembling a villain, and her edit was a “growth†story line, not the story of a villain. However, by being this much of a Charisma-Uniqueness-Nerve-Talent right out of the gate, Jane’s play secures herself screentime and a story, and, I’d imagine, gets the producers on her side; they’re not going to eliminate the biggest catalyst for conflict right out of the gate.
Also risky is that, to ensure her villainy is compelling, she needs to be an actual threat. Roxxxy Andrews on season five was compelling specifically because she raised the stakes by being a world-class drag queen. In order to have a viable arc, Jane needs to not only relish being mean, which technically anyone can do (although she does it with particular vigor), but also win the challenge. Essentially: If she flopped, she’d just be a cocky girl who the show could eliminate for the quick high of a downfall arc. If she ate, she’d be locked in for the season.
Fortunately for the show, she won, and the season is looking better for it.
But to be a perfect episode, we also need a hero, and ideally one whom Jane can antagonize in some way. The show finds that in Nymphia Wind. Nymphia is, from my vantage point, the most exciting queen of the season. She’s a total original and a wackadoo, a hyperstylish and hyperstylized queen with killer skills and a massive personality. I mentioned last week that, at the premiere party, Sapphira and one other queen were particularly good at grabbing the audience’s attention and exhibited an innate star quality. The other was Nymphia, and that star quality immediately comes into view on the show as well. For the first part of the episode, I assumed that, following Sapphira’s domination in the premiere, that would also be the case for Nymphia. That isn’t what happens.
The producers shape Nymphia’s arc smartly, and she helps them out by being sickening. She walks into the Werk Room in what is clearly the most exciting entrance outfit of the season, a fact underlined by the fact that she walks in last, then promptly slips on her banana peel before getting up and revealing a very stupid banana penis costume. In this week’s photo-shoot challenge, set at the DMV, she excels at making Ru laugh and ultimately wins, garnering a front-runner position. In the talent show, I’ll make no bones about it: She eats. It’s probably my fave of the season. Nymphia does a water-sleeve dance that is totally original in the context of Drag Race, and through makeup, she makes it into not only a beautiful dance but fascinating drag.
I’m not sure how the math works out, but the story that the show tells is that, by strategically playing her way through the Rate-a-Queen portion of the challenge, Jane knocks Nymphia out of the top spot. I was, to be honest, heartbroken. But even I, Nymphia stan No. 1, can acknowledge that it’s great storytelling — from the viewer’s vantage point, Jane halts a potential runaway success in its tracks, pushing herself into the winning position for the episode and delaying Nymphia’s success for a bit. I have no doubt, honestly, that Ru sees star power in Nymphia and will reward it later on, but I was sad to see her not earn that coveted first-episode win. And yet, the shot of her face when she isn’t in the top two of the week is as strong a moment of catharsis as we’ve gotten yet. That is one hurt diva.
All this to say, this is a great episode of TV. There’s setup and payoff that, in turn, leads to more setup. The people who need to play their roles are playing them to the hilt. If last week was for introducing seven interesting characters, this week was for introducing a story.
But we should talk about the other queens, none of whom are bad contenders or characters, even if their impact is a little lessened for having to share the room with Jane and Nymphia. Running down each queen’s episode in order of entrance:
The first queen to enter the Werk Room is Hershii LiqCour-Jeté. She’s got a lot of infectious energy, and her personality shines. She lacks a little to a lot of polish (though she’s no Amanda. Amanda, I miss you), but she largely makes up for it with energy. Her talent-show number is a rap set in the jungle for no discernible reason (great!), but she wears a pretty frumpy safari outfit that she has to continually smooth out. Still, the rap, which was written by her sister Kornbread, is good and well delivered. Choosing to do a number about a signature move (in this case, a hair flip) is always smart, and she certainly does flip her hair. On the Ruveal-themed runway, Hershii’s look is, unfortunately, a coat-into-a-dress reveal that she discards immediately. Michelle is right to call out the hem length. Next week is a ball, and I’m a bit worried for her.
The next queen to walk in is Plasma, who broke my heart all episode. She’s a 24-year-old who makes herself look 70, and a classic Drag Race theater queen — ambitious, energetic, seemingly talented, and about to get rampaged emotionally. You can just smell it. Her talent is a cabaret number that reminds me of that clip from Victorious where Ariana Grande has to act in a scene, juggle, and sing a song in 90 seconds. The instinct to show off every skill you have is a fine one, but when (1) your song is sung standing still, (2) your impressions are all impressions we’ve seen before on the show, and (3) your striptease ends with you still fully clothed, it’s not going to be thrilling. Her tomato pincushion runway look is cute, though, and I expect she’ll sail through the rest of the early days of the season on performance polish, which she clearly has. Plus, she gives good confessional.
Geneva Karr is our next girl, and she’s a bundle of fun. She’s extremely excited to be the first Mexican-born queen on the show, and she’s representing well. She’s effervescent and talented, and she looks great. Her talent-show number begins with comedy and ends fierce, which is a perfect calculation. I love that the song’s lyrics are just the same phrase repeated over and over. How silly! She ends up in the top two, which is nice. Her runway is immediately one of the best for being the only girl who doesn’t discard a top part of the outfit and instead turns the first outfit into a second with no fallout, going from mariachi to a dress. Her ebullience might mask it, but make no mistake — this girl is here to win.
Plane Jane shows up next, commencing her domination of the screentime. I’ve already talked about her to death, but I’ll say this: She’s polished every step of the way. Her slutty mob-wife entrance is great, her Burger Finger talent number is so exactly what Ru wants to see that it feels calculated (that’s fine), and her final runway look doesn’t make any sense but is stupid and slutty and deceptively polished. There’s not much else to say except watch out, girls.
The next introduction goes to Megami. I like her entrance look a lot, which is good because otherwise, she has a pretty rough go of it in this episode. I’m going to try to be dainty here: Her talent number is a political statement about protecting queer art that, while the heart is certainly in the right place, doesn’t have much to it. Jane’s most cutting read of the episode (of her many, many reads this episode) is when she asks if Megami does enough to show off the queer art that she’s saying we should be protecting. Sometimes it’s better to show, not tell. Her Ruveal runway is beautiful, but eyes on your hands are part of the outfit, not a reveal.
Mhi’ya Iman Le’Paige enters declaring that she has even more flips than she has apostrophes in her name. Jane immediately notes that her entrance outfit’s corset makes her look thicker than she is, which is objectively not the point of a corset. Jane’s reads are better when they’re warranted and, unfortunately, this one is. Mhi’ya’s best moment of the episode is when she falls asleep during the photo-shoot challenge, wakes up, then immediately does a split. I love this show. Her talent number is flipping good, but certainly not super-original. Her runway is another coat, this time into a bathing suit (for when it’s warm!) that is immediately discarded, and even she notes in Untucked that it was not up to her standards.
Finally, it’s Nymphia, whom I’ve also talked to death. I have this to add — she’s my winner pick.
After all is said and done, the queens vote. Nymphia and Jane are contrasted when Nymphia gives a confessional saying she’s waiting to play strategically, and Jane says, “Fuck that.†So Geneva and Jane (and notably not my beloved Nymphia, who, again, earns that reaction shot) face off to guest judge Becky G’s “Shower.†Jane’s tit immediately pops out, and her putting it back in is the highlight of the lip sync. She then wins and gets the immunity that she can use at any point in the season, making her not only a talented villain but a talented villain with power. It should be fun to watch play out.
And also on Untucked …
• Untucked is fine. Jane is playing it well, not telling any of the other girls that she’s playing strategically.
• I don’t believe that Becky G has ever seen an episode of the show. Instead, she comes into the Werk Room, shouts the word “representation†approximately 50 times, then leaves. That seems fine.
• I’m not convinced that, mathematically, Jane’s ranking caused Nymphia to not make it into the top spot. It’s entirely possible that the other girls largely ranked Ms. Wind third over the top two; we’d have to see all the totals. Still, the story is what matters and the story is that Jane caused it, and that story is compelling.
• Jane’s whole shtick is assisted by the fact that she looks and dresses out of drag like the meanest twink at the Boston Conservatory musical-theater program. Seriously, is it a Boston thing? Because, as someone who knows too many BoCo twinks, that is precisely her vibe.
• No guts no glory after meeting all the queens: Top four are Sapphira, Dawn, Nymphia, and Plane Jane. I could see Jane being eliminated at top five (does Geneva or Q take her place?), but Ru really does appear to love her.
On that note, I can’t wait for Sapphira to meet Jane. Based on what she said in last week’s Untucked, she’s not going to take that shit sitting down.
• Plasma broke my heart in her Rate-a-Queen segment when she said, “Making Ru laugh is gonna prove more difficult than I expected.†Worried for this girl. Not in the competition, just, like, as a person.
• Trauma Makeup Corner: Not much trauma this week, but we do learn that Hershii is a father.
• From the peanut gallery: My friend and Drag Race encyclopedia Noam noted that, from what he’s seen (including the episode preview they posted), Plane Jane “feels a lil’ like she’s punching down instead of up,†which is “part of why her gratuitous-ness is a bit off-putting.†Thank you, Noam!