RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16 Episode 10

The start of this episode is one of the season’s best because of, well, Miami. After a double winner’s elimination, tensions and uncertainties are at an all-time high. Morphine and Mhi’ya, the Miami queens, are particularly concerned. Mhi’ya, because while being an epic lip-synch assassin, understands that being at the bottom several times is not a good sign overall. Morphine and Dawn are desperate to distinguish themselves with a win. Despite their concerns, Mhi’ya and Morphine maintain a confidence that asserts they are not giving up.

While the two share a similar mood, the start of the episode exposes that their shared hometown does not guarantee a strong sisterhood. After some light verbal sparring, the other queens declare the “Miami girls are not friends,” with Dawn putting a sharper point on it all, asking, “Is this what you do in Miami? That’s a lot.”

Write, Sing, Dance

Like Miami, there is a lot in this episode, so the queens skip a mini-challenge and jump into the maxi-challenge. Unlike the start of this episode, the remainder is one of those overly manufactured and predetermined results. Every season in a presidential election year, Season 4, Season 8, Season 12, and now Season 16 include a political-themed challenge. There was a debate in Season 4 and 12 and a political commercial in Season 8. Unfortunately, this episode is cross-branded with the Werq the World Tour, so it becomes a verse-writing and dance challenge. The queens need to write an original verse to the song “Power.”

One of the issues is that, like three challenges before, two talent show episodes, this is now the second verse-writing challenge of the season. The lack of different challenges might have to do with the writers’ strike, and to be fair, the queens have consistently entertained, notwithstanding the repetitive challenges. In addition to writing their verses, they will also record with Leland and learn choreography with Jamal Sims, both frequent guests on RuPaul’s Drag Race.

As the queens break off to start writing, Sapphira and Dawn have the most specific direction in mind. Sapphira wants to evoke elements from “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the Black National Anthem, which is political but also about equality and community. Dawn takes a nontraditional approach by focusing on self-help as the first step to helping the world. Someone with absolutely no direction is Nymphia, who confesses that Megami wrote her verse during the girl group challenge.

As the queens record, even those lacking singing ability are in good hands as Leland is always a generous producer. Morphine and Mhi’ya use their home state for inspiration to fight against anti-drug and anti-LGBTQ legislation in Florida. When we finally hear Plane Jane’s lyrics, it feels like her brand of “burger finger” stupidity and overt sexuality might be a poor match for an inspirational political anthem. Many of the queens excel during the recording process, with the notable exception of Q, who might overestimate her singing ability, and Nymphia, who remains extremely unfocused.

After their sessions with Leland, the queens move on to choreography with the extremely professional Jamal Simms. Like Leland, Simms is an incredible teacher and really guides each queen to success. However, this week, there is a definite sense of balance between the performance queens like Sapphira, Morphine, and Mhi’ya and the more design queens like Dawn, Q, and Nymphia. The former queens pick up the choreography fairly quickly, while the others flounder. Interestingly, Plane Jane seems to show her first signs of weakness with her moves and lyrics.

Werq the World Power

The performance itself felt more like a commercial for the spectacle of the Werq the World Tour. Moving cameras, quick editing, and flashing lights make evaluating any queen’s performance difficult. Although it seems like the performance queens Sapphira, Morphine, and Mhi’ya deliver comfortable and confident performances. Nymphia, per usual, ends up delivering in the final moment, making one wonder if everything leading up to it was an act. Dawn and Plane Jane were serviceable but just paled in comparison when they were dancing to their respective partners.

The most curious performance belonged to Q. She sold her performance, but like in the rusical, there is a suspicious lack of choreography, and she never had to perform in unison with Sapphira, which feels like a gift to Q. Instead, all the queens return for the final segment of the number.

True Colors Runway

Considering the complexity of the production challenge, the runway is relatively simple. Each queen conveys a look based on a color. Mhi’ya delivers one of her strongest looks in a glamorous textured red gown. Nymphia chooses yellow with a banana theme, which is almost getting too predictable despite being wonderfully made. Plane Jane embraced a pageant look with a green and nude dress, but as is often the case, the harsh studio lights betray the nude illusion. Sapphira’s royal blue look again begs the question of how the hell did she pack her suitcase for this season. It’s a grand and stellar look. It almost feels like sabotage to send another blue look next, but Dawn’s navy-blue creation is so unique and quintessentially Dawn that it stands out. Q’s lavender look is all about the hat and the texture, but the queens seemed more entranced by her performance look. Finally, Morphine closed the runway in a breathtaking royal purple gown punctuated in all the right places with sparkle and feathers.

Potion Problems

Besides the amusing Miami-on-Miami hate, the episode’s real drama was Plane Jane’s immunity potion, which is set to expire. The queens have been discussing it for weeks, but she has held onto it, as is her right to do. The idea of anyone using it on someone else before the last possible moment seems laughable in a competition program. Dawn even proposes the “evil” idea of promising it to Nymphia and not doing it at the last minute. Plane Jane takes the opposite course and offers the position to Nymphia, who struggles throughout the challenge. However, the irony is that as far as the final product is concerned, the judges seemed more impressed with Nymphia than with Plane Jane. Perhaps Plane Jane was delusional about her performance, though it does not feel like she is going to be up for elimination, or perhaps she thought of it as redemption for what she did to Nymphia during rate-a-queen. During the judges’ critiques, it gets clearer and clearer that the entire exercise was a little pointless. Each season, the production company of the show has to deliver a certain number of episodes to MTV; thus, there was always going to be a non-elimination episode (if not more than one).

A Speculative Lip-Synch

The screeners received each week show a lip-synch, but not who is the winning or eliminated queen. However, thus far, each article has predicted correctly. This week, the screener cuts off with Sapphira and Morphine as the only remaining queens. Any viewer of Drag Race understands that this is a “Lip-Synch for the Win” as opposed to a “Lip-Synch for Your Life.” Thus, the rest is speculative. First, hopefully, Sapphira and Morphine were able to change their looks because both runway ensembles are too beautiful to go through a lip-synch. Or, at the very least, hopefully, the song selected this week is a ballad of some sort. A guess might be Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors.” Either queen would deservedly be the winner of the episode. With only one win so far, Sapphira has been so consistently great all season that a second win feels inevitable and correct. However, there is a hometown bias that Morphine earns her first win of the season for delivering on all aspects this week and her colorful confessional commentaries all season.