Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission. The difference is that Survivor is primarily played among the players, with the storylines crafted through editing.
On Drag Race , the strategy is not just to win the show by winning challenges, but to craft a winning storyline for yourself while competing. Sound familiar? It made the audience root for her much, much harder. And I was kind of like, You guys! This is how Suzie wins! But truthfully, part of the fun this season is that the girls are surprisingly un-savvy. Drag Race has, especially in its teen years, been accused of becoming a bit too Best Friends Race-y.
It feels, to be blunt, reminiscent of the earlier seasons, where the girls acted like drag queens and the storylines flowed freely.
Only this season, it might flow straight toward a Suzie win. Good work, show. Arrietty, meanwhile, is pissed she was in the bottom last week. The challenge this week is RDR: Live! The benefits are that it gives every queen a chance to do at least something in the challenge without it feeling too repetitive, and it does the work of explaining to the audience which queens have at least basic comedic and presentational abilities.
On the other hand, the sketches are universally bad and usually a slog to sit through. Notably, Onya and Suzie have no issues taking the parts that will most obviously impress the judges. The vast majority of the girls are not getting critiqued by the judges and are not getting directed in the challenges. With that lack of attention, how, exactly, are they supposed to get any better? I am of two minds about this. Suzie is definitely being annoying. They want competent readings of jokes, and if you wanted a showier part then, well, you should have picked one.
