Athena Dion is the undisputed main character of the season—and she just proved that you don’t need to be the best at the challenge to win Drag Race.
Photo: MTV
We need to talk about Athena Dion. Athena is the undisputed main character of the season (check those Reddit confessional counters if you don’t believe me), and the single best reality-TV performer of the entire cast. There are a million reasons why she’s engaging to watch: She’s passionate about her family, extremely petty, and holds an incredibly strong grudge. She’s wily, playing the game of Drag Race at a level that most of these queens can only dream of, and has no qualms about using any advantage she may have to get what she wants. Athena also has the added benefit of being a remarkable narrator who clearly states her objectives, speaks cleanly and energetically, and seems earnestly excited by everything the show has to offer. She has defined relationships with over half the cast (Mia, Juicy, Darlene, Jane, Kenya, Vita, Nini, and Briar, by my count), which far outpaces anybody else. For reality-TV producers, absolutely nobody else on this cast would come close to being as useful as Athena Dion. The show obviously loves her.
Here’s something else that’s true: I do not think she has rated beyond “competent” at a single challenge this season, including this week’s, which she wins.
That’s an interesting conundrum. Athena is not bad at Drag Race so much as she is “just serviceable.” Her outfits are always okay, she’s moderately funny, and she moves well enough. But to extract the full value out of her as a character, the show needs her to be a legit contender. That means she needs a win, and this week makes sense. Athena wins the “Rate-a-Queen” talent show not because she deserves it on talent, but because she deserves it as a reality-TV personality (which is a different kind of talent). Rate-a-Queen requires exactly what Athena can give: a competent performance and successful politicking. It’s worth noting that the two queens with the most utterly okay performances this week end up at the very bottom and the very top largely due to their capabilities as competitors outside the actual talent portion. Athena whips votes; Myki doesn’t bother. The show gave Athena the opportunity to utilize her specific skill set to secure a win, and she did. Okay, so they also gave her a lip-sync win on a punk song despite the fact that she moves like a mime who’s had too much sugar? Sure. That’s what this plot requires.
Okay, backing up, let’s run through the episode with everybody else in mind, too.
We open on Juicy and Mia celebrating their joint win. Clearly, both know that they just inscribed themselves in Drag Race history and performed the kind of number that makes your booking fees go to the moon. When the Dions’ group tour inevitably makes its way across the world, I assume it will include Juicy and Mia doing this number together, and they will make approximately $8 million off of it each night.
Then, without much fuss, group two starts to prepare for their talent show. While the other girls glue down their brows, the group-one girls get together and Ciara tries to convince them to vote Discord in the bottom. While the group one girls’ constant strategy discussion, led by Ciara, annoys the performers, it is immediately evident that it will not fully pan out in the way the spooky queen wants. Ciara does not have the cultural sway within this community that she would need in order to get her preferred target, Discord, in the bottom. In fact, because Discord is more popular than Ciara, it seems like Ciara inadvertently activates the layers of protection that the punk queen has built up, with both Vita and Juicy moving in to help.
Otherwise, the biggest throughline of this episode is Jane’s annoyance at the concept of the challenge. She came to be judged by RuPaul and the judges, who will understand her campy, cabaret-inspired number, and is worried that the girls might not get it. I’m sympathetic to this, but I also wonder how much Jane will realize after this episode that she set herself up to lose the lip sync. It is a great irony for the producers to make it so the girls give Jane a top spot, and then have RuPaul, who Jane says “gets her,” be the one to reject her.
Kenya gets a healthy serving of plot this week, too, although it’s not the good kind. Michelle comes into the Werk Room to talk to the girls and stir shit up. While talking with the performers, she specifically calls out Kenya for not knowing the words to her lip sync, presumably referring to her performance of the Kylie Minogue track she did versus Briar. This immediately sends Kenya into a tailspin that, on some level, is unfair. Is it right for Michelle to single a girl out right before she has to perform? On the other hand, the game of Drag Race is to be backed up into a wall and come back fiercer, and more than one queen gets unfairly backed into a wall this week.
Myki, our last performer, barely ekes out any screentime. She talks about her talent show and is really funny riffing with Jane on how much she looks like Björk. (For what it’s worth, my top three songs for a Björk Drag Race lip sync would be: “I Miss You,” “Bachelorette,” and “Pagan Poetry”; they’d probably only ever do “It’s Oh So Quiet.”) It seems like Myki has not yet realized she’s on a TV show.
On the runway, the category is an outfit that moves when you do. Myki looks adorable in a plasticky rainbow fantasy. Hair is great, makeup is great, mukluks are great, bikini is just okay. Athena does a sapphire evil-eye look that is super-duper polished. Not my thing, not bad. Kenya’s butterfly look is not as extravagant as some of the others, but this is my favorite hair and makeup on her yet. Jane’s look is pretty stunning, with a great sense of color. Who else could make dull blues and greens look so fabulous? Discord’s outfit is a “commentary on CEOs.” She looks good, but it’s a real risk to go so masculine when you walk like Discord.
Mia’s look is cute, but it barely fits the category, and she needs to wear wigs big enough to balance out her body. Darlene’s look is positively ridiculous … I love it entirely. Seems a little more “Trash” than “Darlene,” and I’m into that. Vita’s Whitney Houston-inspired look is just not very exciting. Nini looks amazing. The neons all look great together, the vaginal shape is awesome, and her makeup is fun. Don’t love the headpiece. Juicy’s look is too similar to Sasha Colby’s famous chicken from season 15. Sasha, obviously, did it better. Ciara’s look is not good at all. It’s never a good sign when a spooky girl tries to do glamor and loses all her polish. With high femme drag like this, it makes no sense not be padded and barely have a waist. The bare legs with skinned knees will haunt me. The lips don’t track with the rest of the look.
The first performer of the night is Myki, who is totally and completely fine. Good, even. She does a macabre burlesque number as the Bride of Frankenstein that she probably could have taken a bit further. The moment when she pulls off a finger with her teeth is definitely the highlight, but then it stagnates rather than getting grosser. The big finish is a small finish. Still, I’d rank this number my second favorite of the night.
Next is Athena. Okay. So. I did not like this at all. As evidenced in the “Q-Pop Girl Groups,” Athena has little to no musicality. When she makes tracks, she writes in the most basic rhythms possible. At one point the lyrics go: “Athena. Goddess. Olympus. Wow.” Combined with a very graphic, tacky look, she comes off like a children’s entertainer rather than a fabulous drag queen. However, it is not bad enough that her friends — like Juicy, Mia, and Darlene — feel that they are doing something wrong by placing her near the top. That’s all she needed to do.
Kenya’s performance is not that good. She really does drop her lip sync multiple times, as Michelle warns her not to do. The polish isn’t there. The flag twirling is not that thrilling. Her hair is too small. It’s just not calibrated for TV — in a nightclub, I’m sure everybody would go crazy.
Jane is awesome. She does a Bette Midler–esque number, where the first joke is funny enough but mostly hack. Then, she tells two other jokes with increasing levels of dirtiness that are made funnier by the fact that she started so vanilla. It’s kind of like somebody made Alaska’s Mae West — who famously said, “Why don’t you come up and fuck me in the ass sometime?” — into a full number. Really great stuff. Jane is very good at the talent side of Drag Race.
Finally, it’s Discord, who does a pop-punk parody of typical Drag Race numbers. I liked this idea better when it was on Drag Race U.K. and performed by Elle Vosque. This is fine. I don’t know why they acted like she was playing the instruments live. It’s the hookiest song of anything we saw over both weeks, though, and that counts for something.
The girls rate the queens, and Jane and Athena end up on top. This is how it was always meant to be. They lip sync to “Jerkin’” by guest judge Amy Taylor’s band Amyl and the Sniffers. This show will not lie to me and say Athena won this lip sync. She moves like a marionette being operated by Geppetto on cocaine. That sounds more fun than it is. Jane isn’t revelatory or anything, but she has real musicality and embodies the song better. The multiple confessionals included that are telling me how good a job Athena is doing are proof enough that the show knows it’s pulling some bullshit. Still, it’s probably good to make Jane sweat a little after weeks of over-comfortability, and it’s great to ensure that Athena has a win. Now she can make top five or so without anyone batting an eye.
The bottom queens are revealed to be Ciara and Myki. Myki being in the bottom is obviously also bullshit. It’s a big week for incorrect placements, which was always the promise of Rate-a-Queen. Still, on another level this was the opportunity that Myki has been waiting for: She is pushed against a wall and forced to break through. Does she do it? Eh! Myki is fine in the lip sync to Britney Spears’s “Toxic.” She definitely wins it! Her spins are good. She looks sexy. But is she setting the world on fire? No. Ciara is just not my type of queen. She goes home. It’s sad, but she was a big personality while she was there, and I’m sure she gained a lot of fans who connected with what she does.
• The week-one girls strategize a lot, which makes the week-two girls angry. Ultimately, nobody was gunning to send Myki home other than Vita, who is protecting her girl, Discord. Myki was a victim of a lack of passion. Girl needs some real allies. Girl also needs to do something notable.
• Loved guest judge Amy Taylor. When she called Kenya’s outfit “relaxing” I laughed out loud.
• The biggest loser of the week is actually Nini, who clearly should have gone during this talent show.
• Cannot believe that Nini and Vita not picking Athena for the girl groups is still coming up. This is what I mean when I say she’s amazing at reality TV.
• Trauma Makeup Corner: Nothing of note this week other than the trauma Michelle inflicted upon Kenya.
• Gay thoughts from gay people: I asked my co-worker Rebecca Alter’s thoughts on Jane Don’t, who remains our de facto front-runner, but who she thinks lost that lip sync for real. “I enjoyed the face crack of her not winning the lip sync — dashed hubris is always exciting,” she said. “I’m not even a hater, I want to root for her as a front-runner, but if her money was where her mouth is, that lip sync could have been such a layup for Jane. She didn’t bring the requisite energy, or creativity, or committed punkiness, to face off against Athena’s insane throwing-spaghetti-at-the-wall approach to that lip sync. Also, I did not think her RDR Live performance was that good, despite Sarah Sherman saying, ‘Wow, I could take some lessons from you!’ Hormona Lisa would have done the same thing and better, and wearing a bob.”
• Predicted top four: Jane, Juicy, and Nini seem safe for me. Vita is getting weaker by the day, though there’s a path for her. Athena probably can’t make it that far, plus the show would love to have Juicy or Mia send her home. Mia has trouble with proportions, but hasn’t been called out for them. Kenya and Discord have no shot. For what it’s worth, if either Myki or Darlene could step it up, there’s still a path for them, which is why I’m being hard on Myki. As of now, it’s probably … Mia?
