The Yassification of Cerberus.

We’re here! It’s the finale! It’s only been 84 years.

Bring Back My Girls

As ever, the finale kicked off with the queens getting to walk their last and biggest runway in elimination order which of course means we start with June Jambalaya

of course she looks beautiful, she’s had some *amazing* looks that she never got to show on the show – I think my favourite was her Heart On look. This very much feels like it’s from the same family as Lady Camden’s fauxnale gown – but I think my favourite part of it was that she walked down the entire runway holding the skirt out to show that she has finally mastered the art of wrangling a skirt.

It will never fail to surprise me that Alyssa Hunter was somehow the second boot of the series which is arguably worse because at least June got to live on as the It’s Chocolate Meme

this was a little subdued for Alyssa, I mean as subdued as the dress that makes you look like the bride of Bertie Bassett can be

I hope they have a beautiful, liquorice flavoured future together.

Of course Kornbread’s ankle was eliminated next, and I don’t know why she chose to come as both Beauty and the Beast for a runway that is kind of meant to solidify your ~brand~ but it was certainly an impressive look

and I think I was mostly just impressed that the prosthetic work held up under the questionable stage lighting that was not doing a lot of people any favours

and even more impressively that it held up while she profusely cried after Willow was announced as one of the top 2

but the sight of this beautiful, lionine princess leaking tears was *very* funny to me – honestly a highlight of the episode which was somewhat lacking in highlights.

Orion was next and wearing a gown that reminded me far too much of Alexis Michelle’s rainbow look from The Gayest Ball Ever for me to get fully on board with

but I do think she looked really, REALLY pretty – she has a very cute and quite unique drag face

I don’t entirely know *why* she had the dragon – I had suspected that this might have been an unused look that she just desperately needed to use because she paid through the nose for it but then I saw on Instagram that she made the dragon, who is called Steven, herself! I kind of wish she had played him up more but she literally had like 10 seconds and NO interview. The reunion might have been the better opportunity and she could have saved the secretary from the SunnyD headquarters look for another time

I love that she literally just said “we’re going to be sitting here for HOURS, I am going to be comfortable.”

Maddy was next and making sure heterosexual culture was well represented

I know she was meant to be doing Elvis but my mind immediately just reads this as Evel Knievel. Still wish she had done sexy Colonel Sanders.

And then, in what I would argue might be the best look of the night, Kerri Colby came out as the embodiment of the Tranos meme

I LOVE it when a queen has a look that references something they did during the season and I think this is particularly well done because it’s not like she did full Thanos cosplay – I do not need whale-chinned, purple Kerri Colby. And I think her counting the Infinity Stones might have got the biggest cheer aside from Willow’s crowning

and if nothing else at least confirmed her a spot in an All Stars sometime soon.

Following Kerri was her strongest trans acolyte, Jasmine Kennedie who just looked GORGEOUS – this softer makeup really suits her and she was giving me the full 90s Brooke Shields fantasy

but as much as she’s developed her makeup, her outfit was a little bit The Most Questionable Bordello in Texas

a feather trimmed skirt can either land you in Old Hollywood Glamour or Struggling Midwest Whorehouse and it’s very rarely the former.

And then we have DeJa Skye…

oof, imagine standing on stage dressed in a look from Miss Congeniality and then not winning Miss Congeniality and instead losing it to someone doing high concept Beauty and the Beast cosplay? I have never felt sadder for a queen.

The last of our Officially Eliminated Queens™ was Jorgeous who was certainly embracing the Vegas setting with her showgirl outfit

I think this is pretty great – I wish she maybe had gone a little more Victor/Victoria with it – but that’s not really Jorgeous’s bag which is much more Just Wear a Dance Costume Because At least I’m Ready For The Lipsync, and this Busby Berkley routine outfit at least feels like the best that that could be.

And then it was on to our top 5, who came out in alphabetical order (although it might as well have been elimination order) so we start with Angeria who was certainly going BIG

you can’t really not be impressed by this, or at least by her shoulder strength. I’m not sure I love the blonde wig with it as I think it’s a little stark but I suppose it at least draws your eyes to her face.

I did feel a little bad for Bosco who had a very similar silhouette to Angeria except much smaller and after the grandiosity of Angeria’s Carnivale on steroids look, Bosco was only managing to serve Spiro

I just don’t think much of this goes together and it was a little unfortunate that her wings seemed to be slightly broken, or at least one of them was listing away. I also just find the horns to be really out of place – especially with the Jessica Chastain wig? Had she just been completely bald with the horns? I think it would have at least been slightly edgier.

Daya was next and as far as the really Vegas, showgirly outfits go, I think hers was my favourite?

it does feel a lot like the outfit she wore for the Moulin Ru Rusical – in that they were both pinkish and had top hats

and given that the general theme of the night was Repeat Your Stunts, I am retroactively surprised that she didn’t take off the top hat to reveal a second smaller top hat beneath it as she did in her talent show.

And then we had Lady Camden who was beginning her own narrative of making the weirdest decisions

Why is she dressed like a fairytale carriage that’s had a really gnarly accident? I don’t know other than the fact she really just wanted to do the pony-play look and needed to make it at least *somewhat* Vegas inspired

it’s an impressive outfit and really quite beautifully made, although from behind it does look like some sort of bewheeled tarantula

but for some reason it’s just a look that didn’t excite me? And it probably would have on a runway in which the theme was something fairytale related – I just don’t really get this for *this* occasion.

And lastly we have Willow doing… SOMETHING

quite what this is, I don’t know – it’s part pirate, part Vegas casino girl, part mantis. It’s a lot of things, with no real clear focus but somehow Willow gets away with just looking like the antagonist in a really cool anime who just happens to be the best character.

A Final Runway Look Ranking

1. Tranos Snapped
2. Jasmine Kennedie’s New Mug
3. Angeria Peacocks Us All
4. June Jambalaya’s Well-wrangled Skirt
5. Daya Betty’s Moulin Ru EvoRUtion
6. Orion Story’s Magic Dragon
7. Willow Pill, The Showgirl Dreadnaught
8. Beauty and The Beast (1987-1990)
9. Lady Camden’s 4 Horse Pile Up
10. The Best Little Bra and Panties in Texas
11. Bertie Bassett’s Loving Wife
12. Evel Knievel in Disguise
13. Sad Spiro Cosplay
14. Jasmine Kennedie’s Outfit
15. DeJa Skye Just Made Me Really Sad

A Showgirl Showdown

Due to the fact there was a top 5 the Lipsync Wheel of Death was out of commission for this finale and they were doing more of a season 7 + 8 style finale in which each of the queens got to do a solo performance to an original song – which I do prefer, however, I wish it had been more in the vain of the Season 12 finale in which each of the queens got to use an actual song for their performance rather than these weird bootleg radio jingles of actual songs that vaguely alluded to their time on the show. Can you imagine Daya Betty doing her performance to Christine Aguilera’s Fighter? Because it would have been even more of a serve.

Angeria got the worst of it all because it didn’t sound as much like a knock-off pop song so much as it felt like a knockoff of her talent show performance – it was a distinctly weird choice, but I did like her drip effect bodysuit

so it wasn’t a total wash and her performance was as charismatic as an Angeria performance is always going to be, although whoever choreographed the part where she jogged in place when the song said “and now I’m up and running” deserves jail

she also didn’t really get any stunts in her performance – and no, shrugging a coat off is NOT a stunt no matter how fabulous the coat is! I suppose that wasn’t really Angeria’s game on the show but they could have done something to have more of a WOW moment because all of the others did.

Bosco went after Angeria and I really loved this performance for the most part – I do think it was a performance that worked only from one very specific camera angle, which was straight on

because as soon as they cut to the high angle looking down from the side, which they did a lot of, it didn’t read quite as well

so I’m not sure if this was a performance that really worked for this occasion – in a smaller, more intimate burlesque theatre where everyone is sat at velvet covered tables with a glass of merlot? Absolute magic. But it did finally feel like we were getting to see “The Demon Queen of Seattle” – not least of all because she looked like the Momo Meme asking to see the manager

and I kind of wish she had made more of the headpiece that moved and gently flapped the feathers

especially because she posted a video of the guy who made it and how much work went into it, it just didn’t feel worth it to have it be one and done trick at the beginning and then do NOTHING else with it?

My biggest issue with the performance as a whole, other than Bosco’s tongue-work throughout, was that you kind of knew where it was going the moment she came out as this angelic seraph that began having her wings torn off – you knew she was going to come out in some sort of demon costume, and while I love the screaming tits on the corset

watching her try to walk in the boot covers that clearly stopped her knees from bending was VERY funny

but over all, I think this was a great last performance for Bosco, I’m glad they didn’t force her into doing a repeat of her talent show performance and get her to slowly unwrap herself like a chocolate bar to reveal some sort of gold outfit underneath – and you know they definitely storyboarded that one.

Daya was next, and I’ll be honest I think Daya ate this whole reunion like it was an incapacitated insect and a $1000 dare. Obviously this was all filmed after the Reunion episode and Daya Betty had realised she had upset both RuPaul’s Best Shot at an Emmy and RuPaul’s Drag Protege so there was absolutely NO chance of her winning the crown, so she was just kind of leaning into that and having a great time – her VT was a delight, from the continuation of the Crystal Methyd Saga

to her screaming at a pair of fighting flamingos

I was having a great time with Daya this week.

As for Daya’s performance, it was the first of the very obvious knock-offs – I mean they hadn’t even bothered to change the title, it was *just* Fighter by Christina Aguilera, right down to the visuals

I’m sure that if the Copyright allows it, it will inevitably show up on YouTube as Daya Betty’s Solo Performance but it’s Christina eventually.

And Daya Betty really snapped with this costume, which is of course by Joshuan Aponté who basically did all of Mo Heart’s Vs The World outfits and Alyssa Hunter’s unaired wardrobe, so of course it had moving parts and when those tendrils went up, I was kind of gagged

She looks like some sort of man-made abomination from a Jurassic World movie – part dilophosaurus, part sea anemone. I just wish the lights had been dimmed because I think it would have been really hypnotic, but if there’s one thing you don’t do, it’s ask the Drag Race lighting technicians to dim a stage light.
Also the wig! And the fact she looked like a Stranger Things dragonfly

it’s the cheeky finale fun that I like, and I think it was as well a done reference as Kerri Colby’s self-actualised Tranos meme.

Following Daya was, in my eyes at least, going to be a tough ask and I think maybe that’s why I didn’t love Lady Camden’s performance, which was set to a bootleg of Bohemian Rhapsody that was also somehow Tubthumper by Chumbawamba? It was a confused pop culture melange but at least she did the Center Stage reveal that everyone has been begging her to do since her talent show routine despite the song being exclusively about falling down – but she was saving her pratfall repeat for later…

and it went so smoothly so I just wish she hadn’t ruined it by revealing into a not great outfit and wig

something about those colours just looks a little washed out and sad and then the shoes… they were not dance heels so they made her look really awkward

again… she’s a good mover and she can dance AMAZINGLY and then she’ll occasionally whip out something like this that has the same energy as the dance at the end of Little Miss Sunshine and I don’t know how much of it is ironic. It’s a journey with Lady Camden and I’m not sure where I am with her, I really like her, I think she’s been a lot of fun this season, I’m just not sure her drag is resonating with me personally.

And lastly it was Willow Pill who was naturally dressed like a puke green doily

it is very much a Season 10 finale outfit in that it could be used to smuggle snacks into the theatre

but it also wouldn’t have surprised me if Willow just wore this and there wasn’t a reveal – I was a little surprised that said reveal was two extra heads

mostly because I was surprised she went with a look that was so similar to Yvie’s final lipsync look but it’s quite sweet considering they’re drag sisters

not that they’re directly the same and obviously it was still enough of her own thing because of course she capped it all off with a 4th crotch head

that one really got me.

As for her song, they were all billed as being inspired by their time on the show and Willow’s was just called “I Hate People” which isn’t really the vibe I got from her this season but she turned the lipsync, particularly the part where the music started stuttering, I thought her movements just timed with it PERFECTLY

and it’s some nerve to have just your face showing for a lipsync because there’s NOTHING to distract from it so she had to be bang on the lyrics the entire time.

Willow making it to the final 2 was inevitable and I’m glad she still brought a really great performance because she could absolutely have coasted through this round and saved it all for the final lipsync. As for who she was facing off against, if we based it purely off of the Showgirl Showdown routines, in my opinion it should have been Daya Betty, I really do think that her performance is an all time great. But of course, you do have to, at least a little bit, take into account the progress through the season and with that taken into consideration, I do think Lady Camden thoroughly deserved to get through to face off against Willow.

Before we get to the final lipsync though, they had to announce the new Miss Congeniality which meant that the current reigning Miss Congeniality, Lala Ri, was back and dressed like a very fancy garden gate for some reason

I think my only complaint is that I wish the bodysuit had been gold – I find the silver to be a little clashing, especially in that mesh pattern.
And of course the Season 14 Miss Congeniality was Kornbread

I think there was more suspense over who would win Miss Congeniality to be honest and if fans had had the vote I really think Kerri or Lady Camden would probably have won it – but you never know, perhaps Alyssa Hunter would have had the biggest bot army, the doors The Vixen slammed firmly shut.
But Kornbread wasn’t the only one winning because all of the queens were each given £2000 as well, which will at least pay for maybe half of their wigs, and I think my favourite part of the entire episode was Jasmine Kennedie, clearly a few cocktails to the wind, screaming “I FINALLY WON SOMETHING!” in background

I’m glad she’s happy.

Gimme, Gimme, Gimme a Crown

As they prepared to crown their new Queen, Symone was back to see out the end of her reign

there was A LOT of quite unnecessary discourse about this look because *some* people felt it was really lazy of Symone to not come back in a full fuck-off gown but… that was just never Symone’s thing, I don’t know if she actually ever wore a gown on her season, except for the obligatory one in the fauxnale and the Black and White Georgian bandana one in the actual finale, which was my favourite look from Season 13

Symone’s thing was always very exaggerated street style and these stone encrusted JNCO Jeans with the wet-effect tank top very much fits that and I was here for it.

The final lipsync was to Cher’s Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) because the show is still trying to court Cher as a guest judge and seemingly failing miserably – they’ve been trying for God know show mnay years now. And of course Willow and Camden had changed for the lipsync with Lady Camden certainly making a choice

I think white was a really good idea for the lipsync because the background was extremely dark so you could at least always seem Lady Camden. I’m not sure I love the outfit as a whole, there’s something a little Bootleg Snow White about it – and I don’t think it’s ever a particularly good idea to wear a crown *before* they’ve made a decision – did Ginger Minj teach you NOTHING?

I would have maybe preferred it if she had used the white to sort of play up the ermine trim you see on royal clothing, if you’re going to wear a pretend crown, you might as well go all out and dress up as sexy Queen Elizabeth. But Camden’s little white dress and golden Wonder Woman boots (which at least made sense with the reveal) was always going to somewhat pale in comparison when she was stood next to Willow Pill dressed as Honey, I Shrunk Gomez Addams

as much as it’s obviously a reveal, I love the silliness of it and I love that it’s clearly an advancement of Willow’s design challenge outfit

which she was excited to make and was very disappointed that she hadn’t made it quite as well as she would have liked – and then of course she took it off to reveal…. BIG PANTS like she was the parents in Cow and Chicken

I lost my mind – it’s so cute, it’s so stupid – my only wish was that the outfit that she then revealed to had been a play on the heart print underwear, but I suppose she might have been nervous of doing that considering her Heart On runway look was kind of exactly that – but the bodysuit she revealed to was perfectly serviceable

and while Willow went fully silly with the whole thing, Camden was a much better fit with the vibe of the song and I found her to be very captivating in the first few seconds of the song – which wasn’t hard because Willow was just gently shimmying around in her giant suit. I did get a little worried when she started running around with her tiny tea towel though

I was just wondering why and then it became abundantly obvious, because she needed something to make her fall a little more dramatic…

my charitable guess as to why she wanted to repeat this stunt was that, obviously the fans loved it, but I also think she knew Willow was going to win this no matter what, and with her being runner-up it’s an almost certainty that she’ll be back for All Stars (or the new host of Drag Race UK… apparently you only need to come in 11th place for a hosting gig, it’s Orion Story’s Drag Race now!) so she’s saving the rest of her arsenal for that. The reveal also didn’t go as smoothly because you could see the crown had got caught in her hair just before the camera cut away to Willow for *quite* a while

and also there’s the issue of the revealed outfit…

love the flame bodysuit, love the gold boots with it (I wish perhaps there was more of a correlation between the first outfit and this one) but this Amber Heard in Aquaman wig is a CRIME

BURN IT! BURN THE WIG! It just takes it into Tina Burner territory, which nobody wants. Not even Tina Burner.

I do think this was a stronger lipsync for outfits than actual performances – it was a lot of strutting and bopping around the stage, which is expected for a more spontaneous and less rehearsed lipsync – but I did love Willow bunny hopping along in her giant pink pants

and the ending when they both did some sort of stunt down the runway – it was like two fabulous superheroes entering a fray

I thought it was a really neat way to end and I got the feeling that they both agreed beforehand that that was what they were going to do which is cute.

But only one of them could be crowned and yes, it was always going to be Willow Pill

from the moment she dunked that spaghetti in the bath, that’s how this season was going to end – Kornbread’s ankle or not.

I enjoyed this season, I LOVED the cast, it did go on for about 4 episodes too long but I think the queens were charismatic enough to not make it feel like too much of a slog. And I hope you’ve enjoyed these recaps and that they’ve added a little something to show for you, I’ve loved writing them, I know they were sometimes a little delayed but I got them all done! And yes, I am planning on doing All Stars 7 (why it’s not called All Winners, I don’t know) and if you’re needing something to read in between then, I have started the Drag Race Espana fashion recaps – I’m slowly catching up to the show!

And so, we have OUR WINNER!

TOP: Alyssa, Angeria, Bosco, Daya, Deja.
MID: Jasmine, Jorgeous, (logo), June, Kerri.
BOT: Kornbread, Camden, Maddy, Orion, WILLOW.

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