*Warning: Contains Spoilers*
Welcome back readers to another ranking of the contestants of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 10. Firstly, I’d just like to RuPologise for not finishing my reviews of episodes 2 & 3 by the time the following episode aired, so I have a lot to recap.
So far season 10 has exceeded my expectations, after a tired edition of All Stars and a couple of mediocre main seasons. All of the queens who entered the werkroom are extremely talented and it is genuinely difficult to see each of them sashay away because we can see what they are capable of. So far we have seen Vanessa “Miss Vanjie” Mateo, Kalorie Karbdashian-Williams and Yuhua Hamasaki leave the competition and this week saw the fourth queen leave the competition.
After a wonderfully random mini-challenge (photobombing celebrities), the main challenge was set: the Ball Challenge. Traditionally towards the end of the season, I feel that this was a good move by the show in order to break up the multiple acting and performance challenges. Each queen had to create three looks for a runway based around global warming: Alaskan Winter Realness (a swimsuit), Miami Summer Realness (a fur ensemble) and Mars Eleganza Extravaganza (space couture, again).
Here is my ranking of the queens of season 10 based on the first four episodes:
1) Miz Cracker
Continuing on from the opening episode, Miz Cracker has gone from strength to strength as one of the few queens who can combine both comedy and fashion. She has come close to the challenge win for the second time in four episodes and I hope that it means she is going to win a challenge soon and not fall into the role that the likes of Pandora Boxx and Thorgy Thor have been in.
2) Blair St. Clair
Probably my favourite queen so far in the competition. I continue to be impressed with how she has been able to create such a well-rounded and consistent character with both her personality and runway presentations, as well as being a kind and generous individual in the werkroom. She is flying under the radar ever so slightly and that could help or hinder her in the long run. For now, she is one of the front runners.
3) Mayhem Miller
Despite landing herself in the bottom 2 last week, Mayhem is near the stop of my rankings based on the fact that she has shown skill and sensational lip-syncing abilities. She is very determined to succeed and though that means she is not here to make friends, as we see with Monique at the top of the episode, that determination can take someone far. Was very close to being in the top this week in my opinion, with her Mars Eleganza looking especially good.
4) Asia O’Hara
This may be a controversial placing seeing as Asia nearly lip-synced for her life this week but bear with me. In my review for the first episode I didn’t think much of Asia and thought she faded into the background. With her scene-stealing role and look last week and her maternal nature coming to the foreground in this episode, this experienced queen is showing the viewers many different sides to her character and that should take her far. Maybe an early contender for Miss Congeniality as well?
5) Aquaria
Aquaria hasn’t really moved up in my rankings despite winning this week’s challenge because it almost felt expected that this would happen. Her three looks were very clean and expertly designed and she deserved the win. Somehow I knew that she would slay this challenge when it was announced. Now I want to see whether she can up her performance game in the next few weeks and break free from the mould of just being a “look queen”.
6) The Vixen
The lowest placed of the four challenge winners but that is not down to a lack of trying. Her futuristic swimsuit was probably the best of the episode along with Aquaria and Blair but the other two looks were just decent. She has been safe in every other episode and she did wonder in Untucked what that meant for her standing in the competition. I’m glad that she is not toning herself down for TV either; she is up there with the realest of the queens this season, and that will help her stand out as the season progresses.
7) Monet X Change
Monet was easily the worst in the challenge this week, foreshadowed by Asia O’Hara looking horrified as she cut up an expensive material without any real cut-out or shape and Miz Cracker plainly stating that Monet didn’t need to look fabulous in shows as the crowds ate her up. After a sensational lip-sync, I expect that this is the wake up call that Monet needed and that she will only improve from this point onwards.
8) Kameron Michaels
Even though she slayed the runway for the second week in a row, I really worry about Kameron’s continued presence in this competition. Though her looks are great, for some reason she is not being featured much in the werkroom or the confessions. She has an edit of an also-ran to this point and this, combined with her poor acting skills last week, mean she could be on borrowed time.
9) Eureka
At this point Eureka is giving me more of a Cynthia Lee Fontaine return than a Shangela return. There was nothing wrong with her looks at all, with her Martian executive woman outfit being the pick of the bunch. In Untucked I saw a side to her that I didn’t like, how she went after The Vixen just to get a reaction out of her and test her. Eureka likes to be the loud one of the group and that has already started to grate on the other queens. With such a talented group of queens, can she rise to the top?
10) Monique Heart
Every episode Monique is arguing that she should have done better than her position in the episode, but here she deserved to be just safe. The problem I have is that she has a big personality but can’t make it count in the challenges. As only one of two remaining queens to not have placed well in an episode (along with Monet X Change), I worry about how much time she has left to make it count.
11) Dusty Ray Bottoms
Ah, Dusty. Contrary to many people fawning over Kameron Michaels, I found boy Dusty to be the “trade” of season 10. But she could never go all the way with her wacky character, in the same way that someone like Miz Cracker can. With such a talented bunch of queens this season, Dusty couldn’t stand out as much and was blown away by Monet X Change in the lip-sync despite a good performance.
What are your thoughts on this season of RuPaul’s Drag Race?
Did you think that the right queen went home?
You can let me know your thoughts in the comments section below!
The Blogging DJ 