Heading into the 12th episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 18, six girls remained in the fight for the crown. In the “Toast to Alyssa Edwards,” Kenya Pleaser‘s charisma was not enough to save her from a fourth bottom placement, and she became the third victim of “lip sync assassin” Juicy Love Dion. While Darlene Mitchell scored her first maxi challenge win, Jane Don’t extended her series-record 10 consecutive weeks with a top placement.
This week, the rodeo comes to town when six queer cowboys enter the Werk Room to transform into the newest drag family members of the queens. Actress and comedian Danielle Pinnock served as guest judge alongside series panelists RuPaul Charles, Michelle Faceand Law Roach.
The queens still competing for the crown on Season 18 are: Darlene Mitchell, Discord Addams, Jane Don’t, Juicy Love Dion, Myki Meeksand What Coco.
Read on for our recap of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 18, Episode 12, titled “Mammas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Drag Queens” which aired Friday, March 20 on MTV.
“We are all looking like the nastiest county fair you have ever seen and I feel right at home.” — Darlene Mitchell
Saddling up for a Western-themed week in the Werk Room, the queens first put on their best “Lady Cowboy” quick drag to compete in a blow-up horse race. It was a photo finish between Nini and Discord, but Discord managed to cross the line first to score her second mini challenge win. Next, RuPaul brought in the “posse of queer cowboys” Colton, Greg, Michael, Jason, Terry, and Chris to serve as the canvases for the staple “drag family resemblance” makeover challenge. As the winner of the mini challenge, Discord was able to select her partner and assign the pairs for each of the other queens. She chose Colton for herself and then created partnerships of Jane and Terry, Myki and Michael, Darlene and Chris, Nini and Jason, and Juicy and Greg.
During the first meets with their rodeo boys, Darlene was relieved to learn that Chris was willing to go with her “two trashy girls in Vegas” theme for them and Discord thought she picked “the perfect canvas” for herself because of similar facial features. Though Jane thought Discord gave her the most difficult transformation with the oldest guy among them, the revelation that Terry also has a mullet exemplified how quickly she was able to bond with him. Jason confessed to Nini complicated feelings about his own femininity and so it excited Nini to be able to usher him through “pulling the mask down.” Juicy’s challenge was to adjust the garments she brought for this challenge to fit a man unexpectedly larger than her own shape.
“What a real drag queen does is shave her armpits and shave her chest. Unless you’re Nini Coco.” — Juicy Love Dion
RuPaul had a lot of questions for the cowboys when he dropped by to check-in on the pairs, learning from Chris that a steer is a cow without nuts, from Colton that pole-bending involves hearing a bull’s heartbeat through his butthole, and that Michael has already been in drag as Miss International Gay Rodeo 2000. When it came to the ideas for the challenge itself, Ru warned Discord that her Clueless theme was entering dangerous territory with the need to show a strong resemblance as drag sisters.
During their time assembling into drag, the queens learned more about the complicated relationship to gender expression that the cowboys deal with. Michael explained to Myki that he stopped his own passion for drag because he found it hard to balance his out-of-drag identity with it. Jason told Nini the story of a fellow soldier in the military, Barry Winchellwho brought his trans life partner to a picnic and then was beaten to death by other soldiers for it. Part of that story was having to hide Jason’s true self and mourning of a friend out of self-protection within an oppressive, hyper-masculine system. The stories shared across the room cemented for the queens how meaningful the makeover challenge is to the drag community.
“It just didn’t make any f–king sense and I hated it.” — Law Roach
After walking in the “Drag Family Resemblance” category on the runway together, each of the pairs received critiques from the judges. Nini and Patsy Coco confused the panel with their “is it a bee or a caterpillar” bug costumes, but Danielle was happy with how “snatched” Patsy looked as another curvy girl. The looks from Myki and Morgan Meeks struck a chord with both Michelle and Danielle because of how Jersey their animal print glam was. Michelle told Juicy and Loosey Love Dion that they “made complete sense” in all of their style choices and with an understanding that you don’t have to be “matchy matchy” to pair well. By comparison, the styling for Jane and Maybe Don’t did not speak to each other well enough for Michelle, but Law and Danielle thought they looked like twins regardless. Despite a “cutesy act” from Discord and Harmony Addamsthe judges thought they “didn’t make any f–king sense” and were harsh about the lack of resemblance in all of the choices. Darlene and Bonnie Mitchell were Law’s favorite because they were “two happy hookers” and Danielle called it “such a storytelling moment.”
Because they had the most clearly defined resemblance, Myki and Morgan were declared this week’s winning family while Juicy and Darlene styled the other two top pairings. That left Jane in the bottom for the first time (and breaking the herstorical streak), but she was saved from the bottom two placement which was reserved for Discord and Nini instead. In their Lip Sync for Your Life to Ariana Grande‘s ballad “We can’t be friends (wait for your love),” both queens seemed out of their preferred element, but Discord obviously not knowing to lyrics to parts of the song made all the difference in Ru’s final decision. Two-time challenge winner Nini earned the right to stay, while it was Discord’s time to “sashay away.”
