RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 11 Reunited: Now with Kahanna, Mercedes & Ra’Jah

On this season of Drag Race, we’ve seen more drama than we have of previous seasons, with Queens fighting over wigs, memes, feelings, truth, lies, justice, catchphrases, photographs, social media, transphobia, racism, freepasses and flat out being annoying. What will the show choose to focus on? Will the show finally acknowledge its race problem? Will the Queens make up?

Find out below. We’ll split it up by Queen.

Soju

Oh Soju. Why didn’t you stay on Youtube? Soju’s screentime this episode is dedicated to her barely being in the show. None of the drama Soju indicated she would be bringing was shown to us at this reunion. So, that was a bit of a bust. There’s not much to say.

Kahanna

Poor Kahanna attempts the Reading Challenge with some bizarre convoluted “jokes” and terrible delivery. Not even quite “so bad, it’s good” like her mother Coco’s All Stars 2 reads… Kahanna also attempts some bizarre drama with Mercedes Iman Diamond who looks bewildered. Apparently Kahanna took mortal offence of Mercedes posting their lip sync online. Mercedes took it down on Kahanna’s request thinking it was due to time delay, but posted it again a few weeks later. We’re Team Mercedes here. Of course if you are in a tv show, it makes sense to post clips of it. Opulence, you are everything. Mercedes handles it well and just brushes it off.

Honey Davenport

Honey receives a total one second of extra time than her entire appearance on this season bringing her grand total up to four seconds of screentime.

Mercedes Iman Diamond

Aside from the random Kahanna drama, Mercedes talks about her family and how some of them have come to accept drama. It’s one of the nicer moments from the show and really shows that Mercedes deserved a lot better on the show. 

Ariel Verbsace

We still don’t know what Wiggate is and we still don’t care. Ariel comes off as someone who is shit stirring behind backs but cracks when actually faced with confrontation. Her segment is of minimal interest, though Ra’Jah hilariously tumbleweed-throws the missing wig back to Ariel.

Scarlet Envy

Scarlet’s segment revolves around Brooke Lynn Hytes saying some rather nasty stuff at a viewing party – namely that everyone hated Scarlet and were happy she was eliminated. Brooke apologizes that she should have not spoken for everyone but that Scarlet really was feeling her oats hard. We suspect Scarlet really was more annoying in real life than the camera showed. All viewers should be aware of how the editing can really change perspectives.

Ra’Jah D. O’Hara

Ra’Jah is this year’s Vixen which means she gets blamed for nearly everything and RuPaul tries to box her into a corner for television drama. It is not pleasant to see, but Ra’Jah handles it incredibly well when she’s basically being told she’s an evil bitch with no heart. Ra’Jah honestly talks about how she was stressed and in her own head and learnt a lot seeing herself on the show. Ra’Jah seems better adjusted and we’re happy for her. There is an odd moment where Yvie cries that Ra’Jah got personal with the insults on the cameras, despite Yvie doing so to Ra’Jah’s face. But, we’ll get to that.

Plastique Tiara

Plastique stuns in the best outfit of the night in traditional Vietnamese attire. She perhaps has the best run of the night, she grandly forgives her foes like Ra’Jah talking about how she didn’t fight back with Ra’Jah because she could see how much Ra’Jah was hurting. The issue of Plastique’s accent is addressed, but whatever the case, it’s Plastique’s life and voice, let her live it.

Shuga Cain

This season continues to gaslight us into wondering whether Shuga Cain actually exists at all. Zero screentime aside from everyone making fun of her ugly Troll look (her other amazing looks are not mentioned). Shuga’s argument moment from the promotions is not featured in this episode. Hmm…

Nina West

The show continues its love for Nina West and there’s no drama here. Nina’s rather uncomfortable tweet where she took an unconsented photo of a random Asian person on a plane and tagged it as Manila and the fanning of the flames of Silky-hate by liking everything saying she was robbed and not speaking up is a bit suspicious.

Vanessa Vanjie Mateo

#Branjie gets a fair bit of screentime. The shocking relevation being that Branjie has been over for months (we been knew) and they were playing it up for the fans. Brooke doesn’t come off well here, though not being ready to commit while your partner isn’t, is a totally valid reason for a break-up, the whole “maybe in the future” hang-up line doesn’t seem fair on Vanessa. To all you readers out there, you don’t owe yourself to anyone, but don’t let people think you might in the future and give them false hope. That’s not cool.

Silky Nutmegb Ganache

Surprisingly demure today which makes us wonder whether she was putting all the extra-ness on during the season for a top 4 free pass. She seems on good terms with Yvie, her primarily source of contention, so the drama has sort of dried up. 

A’keria C. Davenport

Ru apparently does not like A’keria who is portrayed as the secret potstirrer of the season. Though A’keria had her finger in a few of the dramas, the pinning of a lot of it on her seems a bit unfair. These girls are tired and stressed. Miscommunication and talking without thinking runs rampant.

Yvie Oddly

In a cute bathrobe number, Yvie comes off with the best edit. RuPaul bends over backwards to justify her behavior and actions throughout the series to the point where it’s a little bit ridiculous. We like Yvie’s passion and honesty, but there’s a time and place and she frequently missed the mark and further upset people who were already upset for no real reason. It’s not cute, but the show praises it while chewing out the other girl (whatever happened to reading is fundamental?).

Brooke bLynn Hytes

Our presumed winner comes off bad in her Vanjie relationship and with little else to counteract that, Brooke comes off badly in the reunion. Cool hat though.

Review

For a drama-full season, this Reunion was light. It wasn’t the emotional-exploitation-carnival of season 10 or the cutthroat calamity of season 9, it was just a bit eh. None of the really big issues were properly address like Shuga’s robbery or the show’s race issues, social media hate and so forth. But we suppose it would undermine the show to do so.

It’s one to skip on future viewings.

5/10