‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ season 15 episode 11 recap: ‘Two Queens, One Joke’
“RuPaul’s Drag Race” season 15 continued on March 10 with the next step in the competition toward discovering “America’s next drag superstar.” Last week, the queens wore their journalism hats in celebrity interviews with Charo, Love Connie, and Frankie Grande. The one-on-ones got the best of Malaysia Babydoll Foxx and Salina EsTitties who fell to the bottom two with Malaysia being asked to “sashay away.”
This week, the final seven work take the stage in comedy duos in front of a live audience. Seated at the judges’ dais for episode 11 titled “Two Queens, One Joke” was Emmy winning host RuPaul Charles, longtime bestie Michelle Visage, judge Ts Madison, and comedy actress Ali Wong.
The seven queens still in the competition are: Anetra, Loosey LaDuca, Luxx Noir London, Marcia Marcia Marcia, Mistress Isabelle Brooks, Salina EsTitties, and Sasha Colby.
Check out our full recap of episode 11 below:
Following Malaysia’s elimination, Salina reflected on her third turn in the Lip Sync for Your Life and the fact that the first two were the result of design challenges while this was a different ball game. The week also marked a leading third maxi challenge win for Sasha Colby. Once again, Luxx Noir London and Loosey LaDuca took the result to heart because they felt close to the top and are frustrated that they were not selected as winners. Luxx and Loosey were still wound up the next morning, engaging in a fight over who was second place to Sasha. Luxx told Loosey she should have included a baby bump in her Beyoncé look and Loosey challenged Luxx’s own interpretation of representing a “Beyoncé body.”
For the fourth mini challenge of the season, Ru had the queens get into “quick voguing drag” for a ball culture dance off. The performances from Sasha and Anetra were a highlight and once again Marcia Marcia Marcia surprised the group with her ability to keep up with the best dancers. This time, Anetra got the best of Sasha and was selected by Ru as the winner.
As the mini challenge winner, Anetra got a leading seat in the preparation for a stand up comedy challenge by being in the position to determine the order. Ru explained that the queens would be randomly divided into comedy duos and then perform their set in front of a live audience: Loosey + Luxx, Sasha + Anetra, Marcia + Mistress Isabelle Brooks, and then Salina singled out on her own. Salina was left with the choice to remain solo or to replace any other queen in one of the pairs. Salina decided to work with Mistress instead, which put Marcia in the solo seat.
Before sitting down for brainstorms and writing, Anetra delivered her decision to have Marcia open as the host, Loosey + Luxx next, Sasha + Anetra third, and then Salina + Mistress closing it out. Mistress thinks that Anetra was strategic with her decisions, claiming that putting her at the end was to give her a difficult position. Luxx was surprisingly relieved to be working with Loosey because she trusted that they would tell each other when something isn’t funny and it would be a fruitful working relationship for them. At Anetra and Sasha’s table, Anetra struggled to get ideas on paper due to the onset of an ocular migraine which worried Sasha for their ability to perform together.
Later, the budding comediennes workshopped their ideas on stage with Michelle and Ali. Michelle was concerned for Marcia that her ideas weren’t that funny, Ali had a hard time hearing Luxx’s punchlines because of how quick she was speaking, and they both thought Salina and Mistress had good ideas, but were in danger of being too long-winded. Anetra was able to overcome her migraine, but her decision to center her jokes around it flopped in front of Michelle and Ali so it was clear that she’d need to head in a different direction.
On elimination day, Marcia was obviously nervous about being the only queen to have to perform on stage alone, but she also saw it as an opportunity to shine on her own. Luxx and Loosey seemingly added to the stress by egging on the risky position she was in, which was not missed by Sasha and Mistress from across the room. Mistress and Salina swapped stories about growing up surrounded by Latina women who, as Mistress said, “like to cut up.” Their experiences informed a large part of their approach to comedy as well as where their support, or lack of support, comes from. For Mistress, she realized late in her teenage years that she can stand on her own with or without her mom’s support.
The “Bubly Comedy Festival” opened with Marcia attempting self-deprecating jokes that didn’t always land and a dry set overall. Luckily, Luxx and Loosey brought the energy right up after her with a brilliant display of conversational comedy. They played up Loosey’s Whiteness in their set and weaved in small digs that didn’t ever come across as mean. Anetra and Sasha went with a stoner queen vibe for their set, but some “canned bits” were hit and miss. Salina and Mistress closed with their storytelling with an emphasis on their big personalities and over-the-top energy.
For the runway, the queens walked in the “Rip Her to Shreds” category. Marcia wore a distressed pageant queen winner look, Loosey took on a Victorian vampire queen concept, Luxx recreated an iconic Ru punk look from the 80s, Sasha tore up denim taking inspiration from early 2000s pop music, Anetra wore a shredded catsuit that she said was inspired by lotus flowers, Salina told the story of immigrant women crossing the border with her dress, and Mistress went with a burnt “Material Girl” pink dress Marilyn look.
During critiques, Michelle told Marcia that most of her jokes fell flat and Ali said she “mostly” had good stage presence, but she missed some jokes. Michelle also pointed out to Marcia that her look is almost exactly what Loosey did last week. On the flip side, Michelle appreciated that Loosey did something completely different on the runway than she’s done before and Ts thought Loosey’s jokes on Whiteness were some of the funniest of the night. The judges appreciated Luxx’s ability to work so well with Loosey and Ru got emotional over how perfect her homage to a look from almost 40 years ago was. The judges loved Sasha’s runway look, but Ts made it clear that she did not live up to her legend status on the comedy stage. Michelle thought Anetra had moments where she was lost and said Sasha was doing “more of the heavy lifting.” Ru gave Anetra the advice to use the confidence she has on the runway in all aspects of her life. Michelle liked that Salina took the notes from their dry run by trimming the story down, but Ali said she could have reimagined her runway look to be more impactful than she did. The judges loved Mistress on the runway, and while they thought she also improved in the challenge from what they saw in rehearsal.
After further deliberation, Ru announced that this week’s winners were both Luxx and Loosey! That decision put a second maxi challenge win in both of their hands, closing their gap to Sasha’s three. Mistress and Salina were given safety as the middle of the pack, while Sasha, Anetra and Marcia all placed in the bottom three. Ultimately, Sasha was spared, leaving the other two to compete in the LSFYL to “Boss Bitch” by Doja Cat. In one of the most exciting battles of the season, both Marcia and Anetra delivered from a choreo standpoint. Anetra went full-throttle into her arsenal of splits, dips and dives while Marcia relied heavily on some fierce strutting from one side of the stage to the other and a couple well-timed moments. Despite the strong battle, Ru declared Anetra the winner and gave Marcia the “sashay away” for elimination.
NEXT WEEK: It’s singing and dancing time in “Wigloose: The Rusical!” while tensions between Mistress and Loosey escalate.
Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?
SIGN UP for Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions