Ron Does Stuff

I’m going to be honest here. I’ve had a busy week and it’s been difficult for me to blog since I have to do my actual job that gets me money. So it’s been a struggle to put out stuff but I really wanna do this since I’ve been following the whole season and all.

We finally had our final four in the last episode — Eva Blunt, Leexa Fox, Horacio Potasio, and Jenary Bloom. As expected, the queens are sad to see Elektra go and Leexa in particular is looking to win it all for Elektra to honor everything they went through to get to where they are now.

The next day, the top four queens are feeling pretty good about their journey, which I think is expected from anybody who makes it this far in any of the Drag Race franchises. You’ve slogged through a ton of challenges and it’s gotta feel like your work has been validated.

Now I already know that Leexa Fox is going to win as evidenced by the YouTube video I put at the top of the post and also because it was all over my Twitter algorithm. What I’m watching this for now is how they’re going to justify it, especially since she only has one pin compared to Jenary’s three. They’re already laying the ground work for it with the discussion being about the pins helping get them to the finale but in the finale they’re all going to be starting from scratch.

Taiga and Lolita enter the Werk Room to tell the queens that their final Maxi Challenge is a talent show, which as Eva Blunt points out is different from how the other franchises do it.

We get the usual interview for the final episode and Eva is up first, then Jenary, then Horacio Potasio, then Leexa Fox. We find out that Eva grew up in a very religious environment, but she’s one of the happier stories because the sheer beauty of her relationship with her partner won her parents over.

Jenary had a harder time with it, since her mother thought that doing drag wasn’t something that Jenary would pursue full time. But just like Filipino parents, the moment Jenary started making that money everything was ~forgiven~. Or at least partially, because it doesn’t seem like her mother is okay with her transitioning just yet.

Horacio’s parents, on the other hand, only found out she did drag right before she got on the show. For Horacio, it’s about proving her parents’ misconceptions wrong.

Leexa, meanwhile, has a family story more like Eva’s. She shares that they’ve helped her a lot through tough times, especially during her break up with her partner before filming started.

We also find out that Eva had multiple surgeries because of a problem with her intestines and I don’t know if healthcare is subsidized in Mexico but if that had happened here? Bye drag career.

Jenary also revisits the story of her assault and at least this time around it’s stitched so much better into the episode than the previous episode, where it seemed to come out of nowhere just so we could get a “moment”. In fact, it felt like that moment was engineered so we could have this moment in the final episode now.

When we get to Horacio you can kinda see that she’s not going to win because her storyline, her arc is a little thin. Yes, she learned to trust herself more and so on and so forth, but that’s the baseline storyline for all the queens in the top four. You need to have more.

And you get to see how Leexa is being lifted up as she’s being praised for having the career she has had at such a young age. Or maybe I’m only seeing it that way because I know she’s going to win.

The next day we get a cute zodiac thing with Regina Voce as Walter Mercado before we finally head off to the final challenge. Jenary kicks it off with a song that starts out with what sounds like Bebe Zahara Benet’s All Stars verse but not as good.

Horacio does a heartfelt dance number and I have to constantly remind myself that perhaps she is not a classically trained dancer so maybe I should look at it differently. It’s an okay performance!

Eva is up next and I thought it was only okay as it started out. Yeah, she’s a great performer, but so are the other girls. But then she brought out the whip and I was like OH OKAY. And then she snaps that mannequin’s head off. I just wish that she had done it full-on Michelle Pfeiffer style.

Leexa does a beautiful rendition of a Mexican song that unfortunately, I do not have enough cultural context to fully appreciate. But it was a good performance!

Then we get to the runway and bitch. That Eva Blunt face dress? It doesn’t immediately hit you once she walks on the runway but when you zoom into it, it is so cunty. Were does really her faces? How’d she preserve them?

Horacio’s look is great too, but it has the unfortunate task of coming after Eva’s spectacular gown. It looks okay in comparison. I’m still thinking about it evenas jenary’s walking the runway. I’m still thinking about it even as Leexa walks the runway. Eva’s gown was the clear winner for me.

After that lovefest of a critique session, the final four head back to the Werk Room to meet the eliminated queens, where it is still a love fest. It’s a nice chill atmosphere for a finale!

And in usual Drag Race finale fashion, the judges just point out the highs and lows of all top four finalists. Gotta say, they’re not making a great case for Leexa winning the crown but maybe there’s a spectacular lip sync ahead.

To be fair, the production really did its best to make every queen look good. Probably the shadiest thing they did was show some fumbles in Eva and Jenary’s lip sync, which I guess justifies them not being the top two if there’s a top two. The production wants a repeat of that double shantay performance!

There’s no top two and Leexa Fox wins! That’s it for the season!