Heading into the sixth episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 18, Juicy Love Dion and Mia Starr were hot off the heels of an iconic double win lip sync following their dance-heavy performances in Part 1 of the “Rate-A-Queen Talent Show.” Despite forming an alliance to protect her, Ciara Myst was rated lowest by her sisters and is poised to fight for her life in the Lip Sync for Your Life against Part 2’s least impressive.
This week, Athena Dion, Discord Addams, Jane Don’t, Kenya Pleaser, and Myki Meeks are in the hot seat to have their talents rated and ranked by the Part 1 girls. Musician Amy Taylor serves as guest judge alongside series panelists RuPaul Charles, Michelle Visage, and Ross Mathews.
The queens still competing for the crown on Season 18 are: Athena Dion, Ciara Myst, Darlene Mitchell, Discord Addams, Jane Don’t, Juicy Love Dion, Kenya Pleaser, Mia Starr, Myki Meeks, Nini Coco, and Vita VonTesse Starr.
Read on for our recap of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 18, Episode 6, titled “The Rate-A-Queen Talent Show, Part 2,” which aired Friday, Feb. 6 on MTV.
Juicy Love DionMTV
“Family is family, and family comes first, but girl …”
— Juicy Love Dion
Wanting to play the game “smart” and “strategic,” Ciara pulled her Part 1 girls into a “conspiracy” chat to consider how they’ll be assessing the Part 2 performances. Juicy and Mia were upfront that out of family obligation they’d be rating Athena on the high end, but Ciara was concerned with going up against someone she can beat in the lip sync. Sniffing out that no one has a strong alliance with her and that she’d be an easy matchup in a performance, Ciara named Discord as her ideal opponent. Discord’s name didn’t sit well with Vita or Juicy, who later gave Discord a heads up to “turn it no matter what.”
Feeling insecure about her own position within the larger group and sensing their opportunity to strike at a strong contender, Jane believed that she’d be the target to rate in the bottom. Jane’s worrying failed to strike a chord among the girls as promises continued to be made elsewhere. Nini committed to working with Ciara to further her objective, Mia pledged her support to Athena, and Vita told Discord she’d help save her from the bottom.
Kenya PleaserMTV
“She has ruffled my feathers. She has rattled my snake.”
— Kenya Pleaser
Ahead of the talent show, Michelle stopped by to check in with a heart-to-heart among all the queens. She told Mia and Juicy they “really gave it” in Part 1, supported Ciara’s effort to be authentic in her spoken word, and suggested the judges thought Nini should have been in the top. Michelle also cautioned Jane to not “catastrophize” herself from the pressure of staying at the top, called out Kenya for not knowing the words to lip syncs, and advised Discord to “loosen it up” with her runway walk without fully changing it because Ru finds it funny.
During the runway category “Shake, Shake, Shake,” featuring looks that move, Kenya felt confident in a small black number with bouncing orange butterflies, but the standouts were Mia with a cape made out of videotape, Darlene in a broad oversized gold tinsel look, and Juicy in a plastic shard reference to Bob Mackie. And in the talent show, Myki opened with a humorous Bride of Frankenstein vaudeville act, Athena performed a Greek-inspired original track about partying, Kenya failed to match her lips to her own original lyrics in a dance number, Jane went the cabaret route with a song about her big mouth, and Discord closed with a rock song about how she wasn’t going to perform “another drag song.”
Jane Don’tMTV
“We’re lip-syncing a punk song and she’s dressed as Donald Duck.”
— Jane Don’t
While the judges weren’t offering critiques directly to the queens, their consensus was that Jane and Myki deserved top spots and Kenya was a clear bottom, but they were split on Athena’s performance. In Rate-A-Queen, Juicy stuck to her word and placed Athena at the top while Mia deferred to her pact to place Kenya at the top, moving Athena down to her second spot. Vita also reversed course on her promises, putting Discord in fourth out of five.
Once the rankings were scored, it was revealed that the top two were Jane and Athena. In their Lip Sync for the Win to “Jerkin” by Amyl & the Sniffers, neither queen was dressed for a punk song in their glittery bodysuits, but Athena was better at embodying the “raw, edgy and a little bit punk” energy of the track and so she, in great shock to Jane, earned a decisive solo win.
In a surprising flip of the judges’ evaluation, Myki was the queen that averaged at the bottom of the second group and became vulnerable in the Lip Sync for Your Life against Ciara. In their own head-to-head to “Toxic” by Britney Spears, Ciara played the expected comical interpretation of the song while Myki was able to leverage her Bride of Frankenstein makeup and lingerie to produce a sexy monster number. Based on their output for the week, Ru assessed that Myki deserved to remain in the competition while it was time for Ciara to “sashay away.”