SPOILER ALERT: This article contains details about the episode 12 of RuPaul’s Drag Race

The queens enter the Werk Room and they are mourning the departure of Marcia, gagging over Anetra’s sickening iconic lip sync, and celebrating Luxx and Loosey’s double win.

Salina is clearly determined to win and thinks she and Mistress should have been the double win.

Really?

Nonetheless, Salina says she doesn’t really need any wins under her belt and if she ends up in the top, she can “talk her way” to the crown. 

This is the point where we check in on what “era” these queens are currently in, which seems to be a running theme this season. Salina says she is in her “Top Era” and Mistress claims she is in her “Angel Era” while the queens love to see Loosey enter her “Rotted Bitch Era”.

As the finish line comes into focus, the queens are a little shook. It doesn’t matter your track record, anyone can be in the bottom at any given moment – and Sasha says she never wants to be in that position ever again.

The next day in the Werk Room, Mistress continues this “era” talk and says she is ending her “Congenial Era” and entering her “Chaotic Era”. Wait a minute. I thought she said she was in her “Angel Era”. All these eras are making me confused.

“Mistress has more eras than Cher or Madonna,” Salina points out in a confessional.

RuPaul walks in and ru-veals this week’s maxi-challenge: it’s the Rusical challenge! The queens will sing, dance and show us what they are made of in a production of Wigloose: The Rusical. The musical focuses on a small town where drag has been outlawed.

“Imagine that,” Ru says sarcastically.

This is clearly a spoof of the ‘80s classic Footloose but it’s also reflecting our currently reality.  It may be a funny Rusical, but it is doing one of many things that drag does: art as a form of protest.  As legislation against drag performances and anti-trans bills continue to pop up around the country, Drag Race continues to be a safe haven for the queer community and a lightning rod of advocacy.

On top of that, Drag Race, MTV, and World of Wonder donated to the ACLU’s “Drag Defense Fund” in support of the organization’s LGBTQ work.

Back to the malarkey in the Werk Room.

The queens listen to the music from Wigloose so that they can choose their roles. The characters are as follows:

• Heaven Bacon – A teenage drag queen who comes into the small town to shake things up
• Mama Bacon – Heaven’s wise drag mother
• Preacher Teacher – The narrow-minded town leader
• Carl: Preacher Teacher’s obedient husband
• Christian and Tuck: Two closted drag teens that live in the small town

Mistress is the only queen in the group who doesn’t have musical theater experience while Loosey is determined to show that she is a STAR. Mistress chooses Preacher Teacher, Anetra agrees to play Mama Bacon and Sasha feels that the role of Carl will be a good challenge for her.

Then comes the role of Heaven. Everyone wants to be her – well, Luxx and Loosey want to be her. It turns into another “Metal” situation from earlier in the season.

Loosey wants to be Heaven SO BAD. Mistress and Luxx roll their eyes because they think Loosey wants to be Heaven because it’s the lead role.  However, Loosey claims that it’s because the character is a lot like her. Mistress advocates for Luxx to play Heaven and Loosey to play the role of Tuck.

It’s getting tense. Again. And Loosey is very much feeling attacked by Mistress. Again. They have words and Loosey is unraveling. Loosey gives up and says “Fine, I’ll be Tuck” out of frustration.

Luxx steps in and agrees to switch with Loosey because she doesn’t need the lead role to shine.

Now that is a backhanded compromise if I ever heard one.

Loosey admits that she has to slay this role because she fought so hard for it. We think the same exact thing.

During Ru’s walkthrough, we get to know Sasha a little more as the Rusical hits close to home because she relates to the story in terms of her relationship with her mother and the church. When she came out, her mother didn’t support her and she hasn’t talked to her since.

Meanwhile, Loosey is getting ready to crack because Mistress and Luxx think she is fake. Salina talks her off the ledge as Loosey breaks down in tears, but is determined to show them that she is the STAR she thinks she is.

We hear more about Anetra’s journey about becoming a drag queen and how it saved her life while Salina is all over the place about her place in the competition which causes Ru to say, “Let’s just breathe…”

“You made it to the top 6 for being you… shine!” she encourages Salina.

The placement of these stories are very intenetional, showing the power of drag and how it can help people and save lives… literally.

It’s time for the queens to learn choreography from Miguel Zarate. Loosey makes sure we know she is a trained dancer and can pick up choreography fast. She’s doing the moves, but as Miguel says, she is too “rigid.” As Sasha says in her confessional, “It’s giving…it’s white!”

We all know Anetra can dance, but she is too much in her head when it comes to the choreography. Luxx does well with her choreo, but learn that her beautiful coat still has a security tag on it. She promises it wasn’t stolen.

Next up: Salina. She is trained in musical theater but is not happy when she learns that her character is a country kid – -but she’s good at it. Mistress’s choreo skills are… not that great. She’s a slow learner and the struggle is real – but she is confident that she will turn it out.

As the queens get ready for runway day, Mistress continues to push Loosey’s buttons.It all comes from love, but Loosey definitely does not see it that way. Still, it’s funny to watch.

The conversation goes to the banning of drag performances and drag story time across the country. Being from Texas, Mistress points out that they do have family friendly shows, but also they have the more rowdy shows that are restricted to younger audiences, obviously. As Mistress says, people have a crazy misconception as to what drag is.

Loosey mentions that the backlash from the community is because certain people think drag queens will have a negative influence on kids. “Then you have people protesting drag story hours and being extremely violent but someone dressed as a princess telling a story about a mermaid is offensive to them,” she says, adding that these kinds of protest are designed to divert our attention from bigger issues.

In her confessional, Luxx says that just by queer people going out into the world and showing resilience is a driving force of change. “I’m in my politician era,” she declares.

It’s time for the mainstage!

Ru walks out on to the runway serving slutty Fifth Element merged with ’60s retro space realness. This week’s judges include Michelle Visage, Ross Mathews and guest Orville Peck.

The metaphorical curtain raises for the world premiere of Wigloose: The Rusical! and Loosey is delivering a very impressive performance Heaven and Mistress commands the stage with her number.

Loosey, Salina and Luxx serve a fantastic “Let’s Hear It For The Boy”-esque number that is boiling over with ‘80s sissy energy. Loosey keeps that energy going with a full company number that takes on a 80’s infused Kenny Loggins journey.

It’s time for the big finale and the queens are in full drag as their characters get ready for a Drag Ball, which begins with Anetra’s big ballad number – and she performs the hell out of it.

As they ramp up for closing number, Sasha has her solo as Carl and she eats that stage up. The queens then start the high-energy titular song reminiscent of Hairspray The Musical’s “You Can’t Stop The Beat” and each and every one of those dolls on stage are giving it their all.

Seriously, this could be the best Rusical in the herstory of Drag Race.

Now it’s time for the runway (The episode is far from being done. These are 90-minute episodes now, remember?). The category is: “Everybody say glove!”

• Loosey: A ‘50s glamorous swamp queen lewk. It’s cute.
• Anetra: Showing body-ody-ody while shooting lasers out of her gloves. I felt like the gloves would look better in the dark.
• Mistress: She is goregeous in this vintage Balenciaga-esque yellow gown with jewels dripping from her gloves.
• Luxx: Emo Hot Topic drag with a clever take on casts as gloves. It tells a story and I live.
• Salina: These oversized gloves are drag at its best. One of my fave lewks from Salina.
• Sasha: I am gagged with this lewk fashioned out of baseball mits and gloves. It’s a home run.

 

It’s time for the critiques and since there are only six queens left, they are either in the top or the bottom. However, Ross agrees with me as he calls Wigloose the best of the best. Michelle chimes and tells all the queens that they were at Broadway-level professionalism.

“The work you put into this – it shows!” Ru adds. “Which makes our job really difficult.”

Loosey gets good critiques for her performance, but it doesn’t seem like the judges are gagging, but they liked what Loosey served this week. Anetra, on the other hand, gets a spectacular review as Michelle calls her moment in the Rusical as one that will stay with her for a long time.

Mistress also gets lots of praise for her performance as Preacher Teacher while Orville is in love with her runway lewk – as he is with Luxx’s.

It’s clear the judges are also in love with Luxx and her gayness. That said, Ru brings up the “Battle of Heaven” Luxx had with Loosey in regards to the role in Wigloose.

“I would like to clear this up,” Luxx announces. “I had the role first and then I gave it to her, but that is in the past and I had a great time!”

Loosey’s reaction is giving “WTF?”

Salina is getting good reviews for her performance, specifically for her boy drag in the musical. Her lewk, however, gets mixed reviews — but I enjoyed it.

During Sasha’s critiques, Ross asks her why she chose the role of Carl. “I felt that I really wanted to show a trans woman not afraid to go for the laugh,” she said. Sasha also admits that she connected with Carl because he was reminiscent of her father. She gets praised for her performance and lewk. It’s definitely a “glovely” night for Sasha.

It is now that moment in the season when Ru asks the queens who should go home and why. (Cue the ominious music)

Loosey thinks Salina should go home based on track record. Salina is offended, obviously. Anetra also thinks that Salina should go home. Again, Salina is not happy.

“I’m tired of being at the Sasha Colby meet and greet and that is my biggest competition, so sorry auntie!” Mistress states.

I’m screaming but Sasha isn’t hurt by it all. She knows the game.

Now it is time for Luxx’s dissertation on the queens. She analyzes each and every one of them like she is running against these queens for office and in a way, she is. After her analysis that should have included a Power Point presentation, she chooses Loosey to go home, citing her “generic” drag. This is well-played.

Salina, who makes it known that she feels some type of way about Anetra and Loosey for saying her name, chooses Loosey to go home.

“Since you can’t send them all home, I would send Loosey or Luxx home because they have two wins and they are tapping on my ass and I need the competition gone!” Sasha plainly says.

This is getting spicy.

During the judges’ deliberations, Michelle loves what Loosey puts out there, but feels that she is all business and no fun. They are blown away by Anetra’s performance as they are with Mistress’s, so it feels like they are safe.

The judges poke fun at Luxx’s individual analysis but love that she did it. “I kind of want to add her to my legal team,” says Orville. Despite this, they feel like she has star quality which tells us she is safe.

The judges think Salina thrived in the Rusical, but the lewk needed work. On the flip side, they have nothing but positive notes for Sasha.

When the queens return to the mainstage, it is ru-vealed that  Mistress, Luxx, and Sasha are safe. This leaves Loosey, Anetra and Salina. Out of the three, it is obvious who the winner is: Anetra.

This gives Anetra her second maxi-challenge win and leaves Loosey and Salina in the bottom two. They must lip sync for their life to Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” like they are in an episode of Stranger Things.

The lip sync performance is definitely a far cry from last week’s epic Anetra/Marcia battle, but it is more about emotion rather than high-energy twirling and dipping.

The song ends. Loosey and Salina await their fate.

“Ladies, I made my decision,” Ru announces. “Loosey Laduca, shantay you stay.”

“Salina EsTitties, thanks for the mammaries… now sashay away,” Ru says.