RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 came in hot with a packed two-hour special and a guest judge announcement that set the queens’ kitties on fire!
The show’s first half-hour introduced fans to the first eight queens of 16 competing for the title of Next Drag Superstar and a $200,000 grand prize purse.
Irene “The Alien” Dubois from Seattle, WA, opened The Werkroom, followed by Luxx Noir London from New Jersey; dance queen Aura Mayari from Nashville, TN; Marcia Marcia Marcia, the college-educated queen from New York; stunt queen Anetra from Las Vegas, NV; Furry Fox queen Malaysia Babydoll Foxx the first Miami queen in Rupaul’s Drag Race history; Princess Poppy from San Francisco, CA, and 20-year drag veteran and drag mother, Sasha Colby from Los Angeles, CA.
The competing queens barely got a chance to meet when Ariana Grande casually dropped in to announce she would be the premiere guest judge this week, leaving the queens gagged before the first mini-challenge.
The first of the night’s mini-challenges was a re-creation of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 1 challenge with a sexy and soaking wet carwash photoshoot.
The 12-year career queen, Irene Dubois, pulled ahead, winning the challenge and $2,500 in cash while the other seven contestants were left soaking wet.
The biggest challenge for the first eight queens was yet to come when they discovered they had to work together to choreograph their first on-stage performance challenge. The baby queens, Marcia Marcia Marcia and Aura Mayari have a lot to prove as performance queens, and they are not about to be upstaged by each other, making for a long and confusing night of rehearsals.
Meanwhile, back in the Werkroom, fans are introduced to the second set of the 16 queens: Salina EsTitties from Los Angeles, CA; Amethyst from West Hartford, CT; Jax, the athletic queen from Queens, NY; Loosey LaDuca from Ansonia, CT; Mistress Isabelle Brooks from Houston, TX; Robin Fierce, another queen from Hartford, CT, having us wonder if there is a queen left in Connecticut.
The TikTok twins, Sugar and Spice from Los Angeles, CA, followed Robin Fierce, rounding up the count to eight queens. We soon find out Sugar and Spice have never performed on-stage and are still looking for their drag community.
The second half mini-challenge was blowing wigs back quite literally in a wind-blown photo shoot. While the veteran queens were testing how far wig glue has come since RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 2 wind-in-the-hair photoshoot challenge, the Spice of Sugar and Spice TikTok twin duo wasn’t even trying to get her wig blown back, inexplicably opting for a shower cap instead.
In the end, the 12-year veteran Loosey Laduca won the first mini-challenge for the second set of queens collecting her $2,500 reward.
The queens of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 finally meet
The first eight queens thought they had their rehearsal together when RuPaul dropped in to introduce the remaining eight bringing the real competition to 16 queens. The talent extravaganza was about to get twice as hard for this competition challenge.
Already we can see the snarkiest of both groups, Irene Dubois and Mistress Isabelle Brooks, know each other, and the energy is catty and conflicting for the drag crew. The shade is nothing new in the drag world, but the baby queens thought the girls were ready to throw down, showing how new they are to the catty catwalk.
The girls have seconds to go until the talent challenge, and Sugar and Spice are lost, running around like two chicks with no heads.
It’s time for Momma RuPaul, looking stunning and blingy as ever, to introduce this week’s judges: RuPaul’s sidekick Michelle Visage, Ross Mathews, and guest judge Ariana Grande.
Malaysia Babydoll Foxx was out first and fiercely represented one of the three big girls in the competition, giving the extra body with a little rap show. Two girls gave glamour with rhinestones, and Misstress Isabelle Brooks was the ultimate Rhinestone Cowgirl, while Salina EsTitties went with a more urban denim look in the big girl mix.
The big girls were running circles around the competition, but no one had us more thrown than Irene Dubois, who literally showed the judges how to make ice water as her talent. Next to Loosey Laduca’s mediocre song medley and stiff movements, Irene gave the evening the most cringy “what is this mess?” feel.
Some performers were able to deliver on campy, though. Marcia Marcia Marcia pulled off a theatrical performance with props, choreography, and a large portrait of the series judge, Ross Mathews.
The show’s athletes, Jax and Anetra, showed their high-octane talent by Jax skipping rope with her hair, followed by triple back-flips, and Anetra duck walking with some Taekwondo.
Who won the first challenge, and who will go home?
Marcia Marcia Marcia’s well-executed talent piece and preppy style had the judges taking notice. Still, Anetra’s stunts and walking-the-duck walk made her the $5,000 challenge winner.
Loosey LaDuca got a second chance to prove she has better sense than her first performance showed the judges. Amethyst and Irene Dubois were forced to lip-sync for their lives.
Watch Irene Dubois and Amethyst lip sync for their lives to Ariana Grande’s 7 Rings below.
Unfortunately for Irene Dubois, the energy wasn’t there when she needed to bring it with everything she had. Amethyst, the baby queen, sans proper padding, was dipping and dunking all over the decade-long drag veteran.
In this premiere episode, Irene Dubois was the first queen to join the screen and the first queen to go in Season 15.
RuPaul’s Drag Race airs on Fridays at 8/7c on MTV.