MTV photo
Audio By Carbonatix
Editor’s note: This episode recap contains spoilers.
Perhaps the greatest test of RuPaul’s Drag Race, the Snatch Game claimed the first queen from South Florida this week. After a few seasons of lackluster editions, RuPaul altered the Snatch Game format to reference Love Island. The result upped the ante for improvisation, leading to the elimination of one local contestant.
After sweeping last week’s talent show, Athena Dion, Mia Starr, and Juicy Love Dion found themselves in a panic this week, with only two making it through.
While the format twist was unpredictable, each queen came into the season knowing Snatch Game was inevitable — they even had to submit characters as part of their auditions. But despite the forewarning, Athena, Starr, and Juicy were strangely unattached to their chosen characters. Athena’s closeted Charlie Chaplin was deemed overly complicated by RuPaul, who urged her to stick to her Greek origins. Starr, on the other hand, could not identify the origin of her proposed Big Ang, leading to an ill-conceived Bloody Mary character. For her part, Juicy ran through a litany of Latina characters — America Ferrera, Gloria Estefan, Sofia Vergara, Becky G — before landing quizzically on JoJo Siwa.
While preparation for all three was a mess, Athena rose to the occasion as Great, the fictionalized first wife of Aristotle Onassis. Anchored in a specific cultural heritage, the performance was broad and commanding, both of which are key to this challenge. Juicy imbued her Siwa with a characteristic and uncomfortable intensity, but it was far from a good Snatch Game performance. Juicy played it smartly, relying on her physicality to propel her through the performance. She understood the ancient Drag Race proverb spoken by Detox on All Stars 2, “I ain’t sayin’ I’m the best, but I ain’t the worst.”
Unfortunately, the worst was clearly Starr. At one point, in the confessional, Athena thanked Starr for bombing so badly that she made everyone else look better by comparison. While she blamed the “Florida education system,” Starr failed to volley with RuPaul or find any punchline to her interactions. Aside from occasionally shaking her breastplate, she was lifeless on the stage.
If not for Juicy’s touching runway tribute to Celia Cruz, the lip sync for your life might have been a rematch against Starr. Instead, it was a battle between Starr and Kenya Pleaser. The result may prove to be one of the franchise’s great upsets or even lead to charges of “riga morris.” Based on her past performance and track record, it felt like Starr would be the sure winner. Her one win next to Kenya’s third bottom-two placement made the lip sync feel like a formality. Furthermore, Kenya’s penchant for forgetting words, juxtaposed with Starr’s precise choreography, would have suggested no contest. But in the end, it was Starr who went home.
Starr’s run ended earlier than she and South Florida hoped, but she made a huge impact on the competition during her time there. After a decade-long break from drag, Starr entered the Werkroom as a star and strutted from background dancer to the spotlight.
