With RuPaul’s Drag Race bringing back their Rate-a-Queen system for season 17, Billboard decided to rate each of the new queens every week based on their performance. Below, we take a look at the roast challenge to see which queens delivered the best jabs. Spoilers ahead for episode 10.
Even seasoned comedians will tell you that the format of a roast is inherently hard. But RuPaul’s Drag Race has never shied away from giving their queens a tough challenge. So, in the infamous words of Farrah Moan: “Let’s get this roast a-cookin’!”
On last week’s episode (aired Friday, March 7), RuPaul invited the eight remaining queens of the season to perform in the show’s inaugural Villains Roast. Bringing back recent alums Kandy Muse, Mistress Isabelle Brooks and Plane Jane as the guests of dishonor on the show’s format, Ru tasked the queens with writing up their rudest (and funniest) material to lampoon the villains of seasons past.
You would expect comedy killers like Onya Nurve and Suzie Toot to be the shining stars of this episode, but Lana Ja’Rae and Lydia Butthole Kollins proved that, even at this late stage of the competition, big swings can pay off. Both queens skewered the villains dais with ease, surprising both the judges and the audience at home with their quick-witted jokes on the main stage, where Lydia ultimately took home the win.
Yet even in an episode where two previously faltering queens proved themselves, all eyes were fixed on the drama of the week between Jewels Sparkles, Arrietty and Lexi Love. After Jewels gave both of the queens starting positions in the performance lineup that they didn’t appreciate, both Lexi and Arrietty took two different approaches to their performances. Lexi, ever the victim of her inner saboteur, spent the entirety of this episode wrapped up in her head, failing to deliver on her jokes on the main stage.
Arrietty, meanwhile, leaned hard into her derailment by stealing Jewels’ jokes, effectively dragging her former friend down with her into the bottom two. In a fiery Lip Sync For Your Life to “YA YA” off Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, Jewels stormed the stage, channeling all her fury into her stellar performance and leaving Arrietty as the latest queen to get the chop.
Below, Billboard takes a look back at episode 10 and ranks where our remaining contestants lie based on this episode and the season as a whole:
ELIMINATED: Arrietty
Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV
When you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes, and Arrietty played a very stupid game in her final week. It’s one thing to be upset about your placement in a comedy lineup on Drag Race (more on that in a bit). It’s another thing entirely to willfully sabotage your fellow competitor out of little more than spite. Arrietty’s behavior on episode 10 was childish, rude and just downright dumb — she became so wrapped up in her own self-imposed narrative about bombing in yet another comedy challenge that she attempted to cheat in order to survive.
The problem, of course, was that even with the jokes she stole from Jewels, Arrietty is not a good comedic performer. Her timing was off, she stumbled over her words and she even failed to pull off the lines that she didn’t write. As any of the guest queens on this episode would tell you, it’s one thing to be the “villain of the season” — it’s another thing entirely to be a bad sport.
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 3
Track Record:
Wins: 1
High Placements: 2
Safe Placements: 2
Low Placements: 2
Bottom Placements: 2
Lexi Love
Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV
At a certain point, we need to call a spade a spade. Lexi Love is an immensely talented drag performer, and there have been multiple times in this competition where she has flaunted just how good of a drag performer she is. Lexi Love is also her own worst enemy, as she proved during her roast — despite having a few solid jokes written and ready to go, the queen completely fell apart under the pressure of following Suzie Toot’s performance.
Yet once again, the queen did not wind up in the bottom, despite a disastrous performance in the main challenge. I think Lexi is a star, and has had multiple opportunities to really shine in this competition. But if she can’t learn how to get out of her own way ASAP, then she could very likely be the next girl escorted out of the competition.
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 2
Track Record:
Wins: 1
High Placements: 1
Safe Placements: 5
Low Placements: 1
Jewels Sparkles
Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV
Jewels had a bad week, that much is for certain — even without all of the backstage shenanigans, the queen’s performance in the roast was well below the high standard she has set for herself in this competition. But two things boosted Jewels above Lexi in our ranking this week. First, the sabotage; Jewels is not entirely to blame for her poor performance in the roast! Had Arrietty decided not to use Jewels’ material in her set, there’s a good chance that Ms. Sparkles wouldn’t have crumbled as badly as she did during the challenge.
And then, there’s the lip sync; Jewels ate Arrietty up in their “YA YA” performance. Her performance felt effortless as she (literally) punted Arrietty’s crown from view. Sure, Jewels had a bad week — but I don’t see her going anywhere at this stage of the competition.
Last Week’s Placement: No. 1
Track Record:
Wins: 1
High Placements: 3
Safe Placements: 4
Bottom Placements: 1
Suzie Toot
Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV
Quite simply, there’s not a lot to say about Suzie Toot this week. Her performance in the roast was fine, if not a little underwhelming based on what we’ve seen from her already on this season. Her look on the runway felt very in line with the Suzie Toot brand. At this rate, unless she massively screws up down the line, she’s essentially a lock for the finale.
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 5
Track Record:
Wins: 2
High Placements: 2
Safe Placements: 5
Onya Nurve
Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV
After a rough performance last week, I assumed that Onya Nurve would absolutely dominate during the roast challenge. After all, this queen has proven time and time again that, of the season 17 crew both remaining and eliminated, she is far and away the funniest.
So imagine my light disappointment when Onya just did fine in the roast. She got a couple good jabs in — her Tasmanian Devil dig at Kandy in particular landed about as well as it could have — but she ultimately failed to live up to her own myth. While I don’t expect to see her go anywhere but the finale from this point on (how could she not be in the finale?), it still stings to see Onya fail to strike a Nurve this week.
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 6
Track Record:
Wins: 2
High Placements: 3
Safe Placements: 2
Low Placements: 1
Lana Ja’Rae
Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV
As Onya Nurve put it best: “YES, LANA! YOU BETTER TELL THOSE JOKES, LANA!” At long last, in a season where it has felt like we were watching Lana Ja’Rae sleepwalk through the competition, we got to watch this queen wake up and deliver the funniest roast set of the night.
Every single one of her jokes — from her “disappointment” introduction, to her cracks at Sam’s ancestors to the jokes that “white themselves” about Plane Jane — killed, and Lana proved herself as a force to be reckoned with. Yes, her runway look was a little too casual for the main stage of Drag Race, and no, one good week doesn’t make up for two months of sub-par performances, but make no mistake: Lana Ja’Rae is finally here, and I, for one, am very happy to have her.
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 7
Track Record:
High Placements: 1
Safe Placements: 6
Bottom Placements: 2
Sam Star
Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV
Seriously, can anything stop the runaway train that is Sam Star? Week after week, this season’s pageant queen continues to prove herself not only as an exceedingly polished queen, but as one of the most immensely talented performers on the show. She’s versatile, she’s stylish, and she is funny.
Her roast contained some of the best jokes of the night (her play off Lana’s outro with the “longtime family friend” line is the stuff of legend), and her look on the runway felt fresh and extremely stylish. We get why she didn’t get the win this week, but that doesn’t change the fact that Sam Star is starting to run away with the rest of the competition.
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 4
Track Record:
Wins: 2
High Placements: 3
Safe Placements: 3
Low Placements: 1
Lydia B Kollins
Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV
Killing the roast challenge is a good way to know that you’re doing well on Drag Race — and Lydia Butthole Kollins, at long last, proved that she deserves to be exactly where she is. Each of her meticulously crafted jokes were shocking and hilarious (I laughed out loud when she called Kandy Muse “Jenny from the Blob”), while her runway presentation looked like an elevated, high-fashion version of the macabre stylings she has been featuring all season long. Her win this week, especially after sending the other half of her showmance home in the episode prior, was about as well-deserved as it gets.
