RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under power rankings: A legendary top three

The makeover challenge sends one straggler home, and solidifies a pretty damn good top three finalists.

This recap is for season two, episode seven of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under, available to watch on TVNZ+ now. If you’re waiting for the broadcast on Friday night please don’t read any further until then.

Sometimes we watch Drag Race to see the truly nuts things the producers throw at us. And sometimes we watch it for something comforting and familiar. This week is the latter, featuring a Drag Race standard: the makeover challenge. This near-annual challenge has claimed many a queen in its time. Anybody can beat their own face and turn a look, but how do they translate that to someone else? It’s a challenge that focuses on nurturing and generosity, both things that are important in the drag community and the queer community at large.

There’s a twist, of course – this is Drag Race. This time the queens have to make over an entire family in their own image. Drag Race superfan Keelan, his dad Tony, his cousin Tyler and his uncle Paul are presented to the queens, and after an arbitrary game of paper-scissors-rock (never rock-paper-scissors), they are each assigned queens.

Here, Molly Poppinz makes a fatal decision: she chooses the person she assumes will be the easiest to work with, the superfan. You can see why a queen would pick the fan – they’re the most familiar with the format and know what is required of them. But there’s a flip-side: unfortunately for Molly, superfans also tend to have a lot of opinions about Drag Race. Keelan (who introduces himself as a quiz host, a marriage celebrant, an MC, a big personality and a performer – in that order) and Molly don’t necessarily butt heads, but he’s clearly not too keen to be made over in Molly’s image. Keelan pulls focus, and Molly can’t quite pull it back.

On the other hand, everybody else more or less succeeds! This was one of the better makeover challenges of recent years – it’s genuinely touching to hear Tony, father to three gay sons, observe that it’s a shame when people praise him for doing something as natural as loving and raising his children. He vows to give the challenge 100%. Also super touching is straight cousin Tyler, who points out that if gay people grow up doing things they don’t want to do (like sports) why shouldn’t he give drag a try? This season of Drag Race has been a bit light on social commentary, but these lovely local blokes stepping up and doing drag is not just funny TV, but genuinely important TV.

Nobody outright bombs on the runway either, but it’s clear that Spankie and Kween are the kind of nurturing queens who tend to do well in these challenges; they’re used to bringing people into the fold to let them bloom. Kween wins the challenge, Spankie safely makes the finale, and the lip-sync (to Steps and Michelle Visage’s recent single ‘Heartbreak in the City’) ends up being between Molly and Hannah.

And thus, one queen popz off:

ELIMINATED: Molly Poppinz

As established above, Molly’s choice of contestant was the first nail in her coffin. The other nails include not being able to do makeup on a different face from hers, not necessarily being the best at corralling a higher energy down to meet her own lower energy, and, to perhaps be a bit harsh, not being an essential part of the top three. I never felt like we got to know Molly during this competition, and even though there’s no doubting she’s a great queen, I don’t think she was ever any threat to win.

3. Hannah Conda

Hannah’s choice of Tony turns out to be a great one; they have an immediate rapport, and despite Hannah’s concern that she doesn’t know how to do makeup on old skin, Tony looks lovely. Her being in the bottom two is not because of any particular failing – and Kelly Gator is a great drag sister name. It’s simply because she wasn’t in the top two.

Hers is a pretty even lip-sync, but given her track record in the competition, it was never likely that she was going to get kicked out in the semi-final for doing “just fine”. And so here she is!

2. Spankie Jackzon

It’s a very good sign for Spankie that so many queens have thanked her in their lipstick mirror messages. If she doesn’t win the show outright, she’s a shoo-in for Miss Congeniality. It’s an even better sign for Spankie that the judges have completely adjusted to what she’s giving them. Spankie is one of the roughest, crunchiest queens we’ve ever had on the show, but she also has such skill, charisma and grace that you end up realising her roughness is a gift. Why cover it over with sparkle?

Spankie nails the challenge. She bonds with her partner over the wonders of Palmerston North, she somehow turns a very simple waitress outfit with “pizza slut” written on it into something resembling chic – and she secures herself a spot in the finale. Honestly, her ultimate placing is likely entirely dependent on what the last challenge is, but whatever happens, she’ll come away a fan favourite. That’s worth its weight in gold (and bookings).

WINNER: Kween Kong

Kween Kong could’ve potentially come out with the worst result here. Tyler, the very straight, very staunch and quiet cousin, could’ve been the hardest one to bring out of his shell. But it’s very clear that Kween Kong has been in this role a hundred times before. She quickly establishes that his physical transformation will be stunning, but the challenge will be bringing Tyler out of his shell.

Kween allows Tyler to ease into whatever kind of queen he wants to be, complete with a hilarious exercise in facial expressions. I doubt Tyler is going to continue on in the art of drag, but after an episode with Kween, Tyler at least looks more ready for this competition than some of the queens who actually competed.

RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under drops on TVNZ+ on Saturdays at 6pm, and airs the following Friday on TVNZ2 at 9.30pm.

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