This article contains spoilers for RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 17.
Once again, RuPaul has pulled out a great season of Drag Race. Season 17 truly had everything I look for: phenomenal drag, plenty of drama and, of course, charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent.
From the beginning of the season, I was locked in. I have never watched an entire season as the episodes have come out before, but this semester I have been looking forward to every Friday just because I knew there would be a new episode to enjoy. Throughout the season, my favorite queens were definitely Onya Nurve, Sam Star and Suzie Toot — maybe it was intuition that Onya and Sam made it to the finale.
The finale has been critiqued heavily online because of the lip sync battle between Jewels Sparkles and Onya Nurve, which I truly think is unfair. Honestly, I was blown away by Jewels’s performance, and I do agree that she absolutely won the lip sync — however, Onya absolutely dominated throughout the season, and she 100% deserved the win. Although it has been the format for the entire series, the lip sync for the crown is a little bit old to me, partially because I think there is so much more to winning an entire season of Drag Race than one performance. So, yes, Jewels certainly won the lip sync, but Onya won the entire season, and I was thrilled that she got that recognition, especially after Sapphira Cristal’s loss in the finale last season after dominating the entire time.
Throughout the season, I absolutely loved the challenges, the lip syncs and everything else — a notable performance to me was the Rusical, which is always one of my favorite challenges. However, the season 17 cast did not disappoint with the makeover challenge with the queens and their parents and the Lip Sync Lalaparuza Smackdown. As someone who never particularly cares for Lalaparuza episodes, this season’s cast did such a great job and were so entertaining. After being, in my opinion, wrongfully eliminated in the episode before, Suzie Toot really surprised me and earned that win.
Additionally, I do not typically watch “Untucked” as closely as I have this season, but when I did, it was always great drama. I have always been a proponent of the idea that, to quote Lashawn Beyond from season four, “This isn’t RuPaul’s best friend race.” While it is always great to see the queens being supportive when necessary, especially since drag has been under so much attack lately, I love seeing drag queens being a little bit catty with each other when it is all in good fun and competitiveness.
Overall, this season delivered everything I have come to expect from a great season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” I finally agreed with the winner, almost all of the challenges were well-executed and it was just very entertaining reality television.
The Goods
- Finally, the winner was chosen based on track record, versus just a great performance in the finale.
- Good variety of sewing, dancing and comedy challenges.
- The queens brought it in the runway category this entire season, especially Lexie Love and Sam Star.
The Bads
- I wish there had been a Girl Group challenge and/or lyric writing challenge.
- The judging was a bit inconsistent throughout the season, with strange knocks at the cast coming in seemingly just to add more plot.
- I wish there were some older queens — the young queens were great, but the oldest one being 34-years-old shows a lack of casting and drag diversity.
