Drama Queens (RuPaul's Drag Race)

"**Drama Queens**"
"Drama Queens"
RuPaul's Drag Race episode
Episode no.	Season 5; Episode 9
Guest appearances
	María Conchita Alonso; Jamie-Lynn Sigler;
Episode chronology
← Previous; "Scent of a Drag Queen"	Next →; "Super Troopers"
	List of episodes

"Drama Queens" is the ninth episode of the fifth season of RuPaul's Drag Race. It originally aired on April 1, 2013. María Conchita Alonso and Jamie-Lynn Sigler are guest judges.

Alyssa Edwards and Detox win the episode's mini-challenge, and Jinkx Monsoon wins the main challenge. Alyssa Edwards is eliminated from the competition after placing in the bottom two and losing a lip-sync against Coco Montrese to "Cold Hearted" by Paula Abdul.

Episode

María Conchita Alonso (left) and Jamie-Lynn Sigler (right) are guest judges.

For the episode's mini-challenge, the contestants create a fake "sob story" and produce real tears for RuPaul. Alyssa Edwards and Detox win the mini-challenge.

For the main challenge, the contestants star in a faux Latin telenovela. Following are the teams:

Team Casa de Locas ("Crazy House"): Alyssa Edwards, Coco Montrese, and Jinkx Monsoon
Team Ella No Es Dama ("She's Not a Lady"): Alaska, Detox, and Roxxxy Andrews

María Conchita Alonso and Jamie-Lynn Sigler are guest judges. The runway category is "Spanish Telenovela Realness". Alaska, Jinkx Monsoon, and Roxxxy Andrews receive positive critiques, and Jinkx Monsoon wins the challenge. Alyssa Edwards, Coco Montrese, and Detox receive negative critiques, and Detox is deemed safe. Alyssa Edwards and Coco Montrese place in the bottom and face off in a lip-sync to "Cold Hearted" (1989) by Paula Abdul. Coco Montrese wins the lip-sync and Alyssa Edwards is eliminated from the competition.

Reception

Oliver Sava of The A.V. Club gave the episode a rating of 'B+'.^[1]

In 2022, Cailyn Szelinski of Screen Rant included the lip-sync in a list of the ten best Drag Race lip-syncs of all time, according to Reddit, and wrote: "Some things about RuPaul's Drag Race are fake, but one thing that isn't was the feud between Alyssa Edwards and Coco Montrese that resulted in one of the best lip-syncs on the show... Both queens pulled out all the stops, Alyssa turning big tricks and Coco using her outfit to pull focus. But when Coco literally pointed to her mouth to show the judges she knew every single word to Paula Abdul's difficult rap ... she secured the win."^[2]

References

^ "RuPaul's Drag Race: "Drama Queens"". The A.V. Club. 2013-04-02. Archived from the original on 2023-04-04. Retrieved 2024-03-27.
^ Szelinski, Cailyn (2022-12-08). "RuPaul's Drag Race: 10 Best Lip Syncs In Any Series, According To Reddit". ScreenRant. Archived from the original on 2023-06-23. Retrieved 2024-03-27.

[1] "RuPaul's Drag Race: "Drama Queens"". The A.V. Club. 2013-04-02. Archived from the original on 2023-04-04. Retrieved 2024-03-27.

[2] Szelinski, Cailyn (2022-12-08). "RuPaul's Drag Race: 10 Best Lip Syncs In Any Series, According To Reddit". ScreenRant. Archived from the original on 2023-06-23. Retrieved 2024-03-27.

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