Many recent seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race have featured a cast reunion as the penultimate episode of the season. Not for Season 16! This time, RuPaul gathered her queens together to lip-sync rather than spill the tea. Battling for a whopping $50,000 cash prize and the title of “Queen of She Already Done Had Hers,” the eleven eliminated queens came back for redemption and their chance to impress fans and mother Ru. The episode was a highly engaging and exciting showcase of what drag queens excel at out in the wild. While fans love to see the queens fight and rehash drama from the season during the reunion, this may be the stronger format for the franchise. As previous seasons of the reality series have had a LaLaPaRuZa as a challenge within the season that led to an elimination, the stakes of battling for a cash prize is much stronger and more exciting to watch. To your golden hopper Bruno! Let’s see who’s lip-syncing!
Having been filmed during the writers’ and actors’ strike last summer, RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16 has a bit of a different feeling as far as what fans have witnessed. Unlike previous seasons, the reunion and live finale were not filmed for many months following the initial taping. Instead, the show opted to film both events during the main taping process. Perhaps due to the uncertainty of how long the strikes would last, they filmed it all and put it in the can just in case the strikes were prolonged, preventing them from having the ability to film it per usual. Many international seasons of Drag Race have been fond of filming a reunion episode before the finale. The struggle is when nothing has been televised for public consumption, it often feels forced. The drama has not quite settled in. There was never enough time to react and reflect on the events of the season. Taking a page from the Bravo Cinematic Universe, the flagship program of RuPaul’s Drag Race typically opted to allow the fandom to share their opinions on social media as the show aired, allowing Ru and the queens to respond to the hot takes closer to real time. With a filming change for Season 16, the queens were reunited, but not for drama. They came back to perform. And thank RuPaul, it was the right decision.
Drag Queens Shine When They Showcase Their Real-Life Skills
At the end of the day, RuPaul’s Drag Race is a reality television competition show. While it does showcase the art that the contestants make a living with, they are tasked to endure challenges that are better fitted for television rather than displaying what they do at the clubs. But inherent to the art of drag, each episode ends with the primary skill drag queens are most known for: lip-syncing. Some drag scenes internationally do not focus primarily on lip-syncing on the club circuit, namely the United Kingdom, but here in America, the art of lip-syncing is drag artists’ bread and butter. It’s how the queens make their tips. Drag Race has had an assortment of lip-syncing challenges throughout its sixteen seasons, but the concept of a Lip Sync LaLaPaRuZa was first introduced in Season 14 as a punishment. After Ru was dismayed at the horrid Snatch Game, she put every remaining queen, except for Deja Skye, in the bottom and tasked them to compete in a bracket-style smack down for safety. In this edition of the challenge, winning a lip sync would allow the queen their safety, as the loser was forced into another lip sync in the following round. It was a grueling challenge that felt more like detention in high school rather than a typical Drag Race challenge. Regardless of the controversial result, the success of this concept was brought back for Season 15. But once again, it was used to determine which queen would be eliminated. And once again, the result was met with controversy. With both editions occurring in the middle of the season, the stakes were high as they were fighting for their lives. For Season 16, introducing it as a celebration allowed the queens to let loose and entertain the live audience and the viewers at home.
RuPaul’s Drag Race has evolved greatly since it became a mainstream program. While many aspiring Ru girls have found a following by posting stunning visuals on their social media, many others have made their name through the art of lip sync. When they get to the show, it’s truly their main way to save themselves from elimination. With Season 16’s reunion replacement, the 11 eliminated queens gave the greatest advertisement for going to your local club and supporting local drag. All nine lip syncs got the audience roaring with excitement as queens did what they do best. Being able to fight for a cash prize through performance brings a distinctly unique aura to the season. During a typical Drag Race reunion episode, the queens who get the spotlight are the ones who make a dramatic impact on the season. Allowing the eliminated queens to have the opportunity to take the spotlight through performance truly does showcase their talent in a manner that makes fans want to go out and see them live when they visit their hometown. Even if they end up being eliminated in one of the first five lip syncs in the Lip Sync LaLaPaRuZa, they brought their artistry to the stage and guaranteed the camera was on them. Lip-syncing is the truest opportunity to see the queens do what they do.
The Lip Sync LaLaPaRuZa is Better As a Fight for a Prize Than an Elimination
According to IMDB, the Lip Sync LaLaPaRuZa episode was the highest rated episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16. And there is a great reason for that. This episode was a celebration of queer art. As an inherently LGBTQ+ centric program, RuPaul’s Drag Race highlights a queer art form. This is what this episode showed. The fandom was delightfully entertained by the action on screen as there was no negative energy because, at the end of the day, the queens were having fun! With the atmosphere being vibrant and positive, Drag Race has discovered the perfect placement for the Lip Sync LaLaPaRuZa. It needs to happen as the penultimate episode to celebrate the queens of the season. It should not be an elimination challenge. Sure, both provided excitement, but this was the true recipe for success. It was the epitome of drag. The stakes are completely different when the queens are lip-syncing for a cash prize rather than their literal life in the game. The joy of lip-syncing is better suited for the reunion slot rather than an in-season challenge.
During RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 14 and Season 15, the insertion of the LaLaPaRuZa was essentially a way to eliminate a queen that Ru was ready to part with. With track record an unofficial determining factor for eliminations on Drag Race, many fans were perplexed by the results of both season’s results. Both queens who sashayed away happened to be lower on the totem pole, but their prowess as lip-sync assassins complicated the shock of their departure. Jasmine Kennedie of Season 14 and Jax of Season 15 were both knocked out during the LaLaPaRuZa within the season when, had it been in the reunion slot, they likely would have been the champions of the night. Both entered Drag Race as high-energy dancing queens from New York City, known to slay the house down, so for them to lose multiple lip syncs didn’t quite fit the narrative viewers were watching. In the case of Season 16, Morphine Love Dion had already proven her worth in her multiple lip sync appearances during the season, so her victory was respectfully warranted. Fans are excited to celebrate Morphine’s win, and that’s the way it should be!
At the end of the day, the Llp Sync LaLaPaRuZa was perfect for the reunion slot on Drag Race. It allowed many of the queens the chance for redemption and to prove to mother Ru that there is much more in their arsenal. The queens and fans alike were gagged to see a queen like Megami lip sync her way into the final battle. Because of the format of this bracket challenge, Megami got the chance to showcase her skills in each round. Had she not gotten this last chance opportunity, Megami’s legacy on the show would be drastically different. The only thing that can improve the Lip Sync LaLaPaRuZa is to borrow an element from Canada’s Drag Race Season 4 where the queens, when their name was picked, selected the song of their choice, and then the next queen could either pick a different song or the opponent in their desired song. But hey, we’re already moving in a brilliant direction. Congratulations to Morphine on winning $50,000! And congratulations to RuPaul and the entire RuPaul’s Drag Race for continually entertaining the masses!
RuPaul’s Drag Race airs on Fridays at 8:00 pm on MTV. Previous seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race are available to stream on Paramount+.