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 iconic Snatch Game to see which queens nailed their celebrity impressions. Spoilers ahead for episode 7.
Even in a time when chaos reigns, some things are constants: the sky is blue; the grass is green; and the queens on RuPaul’s Drag Race will have to perform in the Snatch Game.
On Friday’s episode (aired Feb. 14) of Drag Race, the iconic challenge finally arrived as the 11 remaining queens were asked to deliver their best celebrity impersonations in the Match Game riff. Some queens — namely Suzie Toot — were confident in their abilities to deliver on the task at hand. Others rightly feared the expectations of the show’s longest-standing challenge.
Before we go any further, let’s make one thing clear — of all the Drag Race challenges, Snatch Game is famously the hardest. Not only do you need to create a semi-accurate recreation of a beloved star, but you also need to stay in that character for an extended period of time, with no script, making RuPaul laugh while there is no audience there to let you know how you’re doing. As Jinkx Monsoon, a two-time Snatch Game winner, told Billboard after season 14’s disastrous iteration of the challenge: “It’s one of situations where two things can be true at once – yes, Snatch Game happens every season, but also it’s either in your skill set or it’s not, and I don’t think it should really be held against queens for whom this is not their thing.”
With that being said … this was not a successful Snatch Game. While a few queens managed to get their laughs here (more on them later), most of the contestants were either forgettable or catastrophically bad. The two worst performers of the bunch, Crystal Envy and Lana Ja’Rae, wound up in the bottom — but with a lot of these performances, any number of the other girls could have easily wound up in their shoes.
Yet when it came time for a lip sync to Selena Gomez’s “Hands to Myself,” both Crystal and Lana turned it back on, delivering one of the most high-octane face-offs of the season. Ultimately, the judges decided to give Lana another shot in the competition, sending former frontrunner Crystal Envy home.
Below, Billboard takes a look back at episode 7 and ranks where our remaining contestants lie based on this episode and the season as a whole:
ELIMINATED: Crystal Envy
Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV
Season 17 is nothing short of chaos. Over the last few weeks, Crystal Envy has shown up as a force to be reckoned with in this competition, nailing her looks and her performances. But it just goes to show that momentum means nothing in the face of a bombed challenge. Crystal’s interpretation of Nicole Richie as a flat, boring, disinterested rich girl is the last thing you want to show on the Snatch Game stage — she missed joke opportunities, let her competitors walk all over her lines and failed to give the over-the-top performance Ru was looking for.
I’m still shocked the judges let her go after that photo-finish lip sync with Lana and her untamed werewolf look — but the results are what they are. At least Crystal can leave the show knowing that we were all just as surprised as she was about her elimination.
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 3
Track Record:
High Placements: 3
Safe Placements: 2
Bottom Placements: 1
Lana Ja’Rae
Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV
I was praying that Lana would have an Arrietty-esque “rising from the ashes” moment this week — after falling apart in the ball challenge, this queen desperately needed a win in order to stay competitive on Drag Race. But alas, Lana buckled under the immense weight of the Snatch Game. Her choice to do Rosa Parks wasn’t necessarily a bad one — as Symone proved with her Harriett Tubman in season 13, playing a historical figure in this challenge can allow for some genuinely hilarious moments.
The problem was that Lana didn’t follow the Snatch Game’s only rule: make RuPaul laugh. She didn’t come prepared with enough jokes, with enough charisma, with enough of a fresh perspective to make the Civil Rights icon a character we wanted to see more of. Instead, we got a mostly humorless, flailing performance that rightly sent her to the bottom. Even her absolutely stellar runway presentation couldn’t save her from lip synching. If a second trip to the edge of elimination isn’t enough to wake this queen up, then I’m not sure what else possibly can.
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 11
Track Record:
Safe Placements: 4
Bottom Placements: 2
Arrietty
Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV
The chaotic track record of Arrietty continues to confound me — every time it feels like I understand how this queen is performing, she turns around and reverses direction. Two weeks after her near-elimination, and one week after her triumphant win in the ball challenge, Arrietty found herself back amongst the bottom after her infantilizing performance as Cupid.
Much like in the SNL-themed challenge, Arrietty’s performance was almost entirely one-note — as soon as she declared “I’m just a baby,” there was nowhere else her Cupid could fly to. Thankfully for her, a phenomenal runway presentation complete with an additional set of prosthetic arms saved her from lip synching this week. Now the only question is: Which version of Arrietty are we going to get next week?
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 1
Track Record:
Wins: 1
High Placements: 1
Safe Placements: 1
Low Placements: 2
Bottom Placements: 1
Acacia Forgot
Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV
Off the bat, let’s get this out of the way — Acacia did not necessarily do a bad job this week. Her runway presentation was good, and her performance in the Snatch Game benefitted from the actually bad performances around her. But this is a recurring problem with Ms. Forgot this season; if you’re going to forget about someone’s performance this week, it’s Acacia’s. Week after week, I keep waiting for Acacia to come out of her shell, and week after week, she keeps fading into the background. To choose an outsized, objectively ridiculous celebrity like Trisha Paytas and then ultimately do nothing with her in the Snatch Game is the definition of a wasted opportunity.
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 10
Track Record:
Safe Placements: 4
Low Placements: 1
Bottom Placements: 1
Suzie Toot
Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Suzie Toot has been riding high in this competition from the outset, and her performance in the Snatch Game finally revealed the chink in her armor. Ellen Greene is a genuinely good choice for the Snatch Game, with her iconic voice and campy persona. The problem is, Suzie failed to mine her character for actual jokes: Her performance may have been extremely accurate to the Little Shop of Horror actress, but Snatch Game is about building a caricature out of a beloved celebrity. Had her medieval runway look not been as stellar as it was, Suzie could have very easily found herself in the bottom this week.
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 5
Track Record:
Wins: 2
High Placements: 1
Safe Placements: 3
Kori King
Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV
When Kori announced that she would be performing as Mob Wives’ Big Ang in the Snatch Game, I rolled my eyes. Here was a queen who was already not doing particularly well in the competition attempting to play a character that season 7’s Pearl already crushed as in the annual challenge. It felt like Kori was being set up for failure here.
Yet, when it came time for the Snatch Game, Kori managed to deliver — she nailed the reality star’s raspy voice, her glib persona and her gaudy look. Sure, her jokes weren’t quite as good as Pearl’s, but she got a few good laughs in. Had her runway look been something a little more audacious, Kori could have found her way into the conversation for the top three this week.
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 9
Track Record:
Safe Placements: 4
Low Placements: 1
Bottom Placements: 1
Lexi Love
Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV
Did Lexi Love absolutely bomb Snatch Game? Yes, she did. Did she regularly break character and fail to sound anything like Gilbert Gottfried? Yes, she did. Was she still, inexplicably, supremely entertaining to watch? Yes, she was. Similar to Jaida Essence Hall’s performance as Prince on All Stars 7‘s Snatch Game, Lexi somehow managed to make the judges laugh (albeit for the wrong reasons) in the Snatch Game, which earned her plenty of goodwill from a panel already primed to love her. It’s not the fairest critique, but it is true — Lexi Love just has that X factor that keeps her chugging along in this competition. It’s not a question of if, but rather when she will join the Two Win Club of season 17.
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 6
Track Record:
Wins: 1
Safe Placements: 4
Low Placements: 1
Lydia B Kollins
Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV
How Lydia turned the late, great David Lynch into a genuinely impressive Snatch Game character is still beyond me — but I’m not mad about it. After weeks of wanting to see more from the perennial member of season 17’s Too Safe Crew, Lydia impressed with her off-the-wall performance as the iconic filmmaker, channelling something akin to Katya’s Björk from All Stars 2 in making the most bats–t choices possible to sell the character. When you factor in Lydia’s creepy-but-glamorous runway look, it’s easy to see why the queen performed as well as she did this week.
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 8
Track Record:
Safe Placements: 5
Bottom Placements: 1
Sam Star
Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV
Week after week, Sam Star continues to prove herself as a seasoned professional on the Drag Race main stage. Her performance as QVC star and pageant coach Kim Gravel was technically excellent, with Star grabbing at every opportunity to interject with a canned one-liner. Her plastic surgery-inspired runway look, meanwhile, gave the judges just enough of the edge that they’ve been hoping to see from her. It’s clear that Sam is a multi-faceted incredibly talented drag queen who knows exactly how to wow the judges. It’s also clear that her safe, polished drag is only going to carry her so far this season, as Michelle warned her on the runway. Can Sam rise to the occassion? If her history on this season has taught us anything, it’s that the answer is a resounding “yes.”
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 2
Track Record:
Wins: 1
High Placements: 2
Safe Placements: 2
Low Placements: 1
Jewels Sparkles
Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV
After too many weeks receiving the same “safe” placements, it’s nice to see Jewels Sparkles find her shine. The queen took a big swing in the Snatch Game when she opted to play Bigfoot, but the risk was clearly worth the reward — Sparkles’ s–t-talking cryptid was a genuine delight to watch throughout this entire challenge, as she effortlessly volleyed jokes back and forth with RuPaul while dressed in a stunning recreation of Sasquatch’s iconic silhouette. If there’s any challenge a safe queen would want to excel in, it’s Snatch Game, and Jewels’ performance earned her a one-way ticket to the top of the judges’ estimations this week.
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 7
Track Record:
High Placements: 2
Safe Placements: 4
Onya Nurve
Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV
There is no stopping Onya Nurve. In a Snatch Game where most of the other performers were floundering to find their characters, Onya was locked in to her Eddie Murphy impression from the moment the game started. Every joke she offered up landed, every interjection she offered stole the other queens’ thunder, and every ounce of this queen’s natural charisma shone through this top-tier performance. Then, the Ohio queen showed off on the runway, with her airbrushed, nail-inspired look immediately standing out from the rest of the contestants. Onya did everything Suzie Toot thought she was doing this week and then some — and at this rate, I don’t know if anything can slow down her light-speed race to the finale.
