‘Drag Race Canada vs. The World 2×01’ Review
For years, the Drag Race fan base has been begging for an international version of the show which would see queens from all over the world compete against one another to be crowned queen of the universe. In fact, all the way back in 2021 I wrote a fantasy cast for such a show, with many of the queens I wanted to appear actually making an appearance! Fans (myself included) were eagerly anticipating an international season to see how the different drag styles would clash and hopefully would provide opportunities for insightful cultural exchanges. However, I don’t think there has been been a season of drag race that has caused so much outrage and controversy than the first-ever season of Drag Race UK vs The World. From jaw-dropping, queen-elected eliminations to supposed purposefully thrown lip-syncs to Jujubee and Baga Chips deciding to showcase some of the worst outfits on the runway we have seen across all the different franchises of the show! Additionally, due to BBC guidelines, the queens were not able to be given any cash prizes for winning challenges and instead were awarded a series of badges. From start to finish the show was incredibly unpredictable and eventual winner Blu Hydrangea managed to weather the storm to overcome a very strong cast of queens. This time however the filming crew took the journey to Canada to record the second season of what many are calling “international all-stars” but is in fact labelled as Drag Race Canada vs The World!
What is nice about filming in Canada is that the BBC laws are no longer in effect and so the winner of this latest season will be awarded $100, 000 and given the title of queen of the universe. Similar to the original season, the episode began with each queen being re-introduced to the audience and their fellow competitors. After each one had walked the runway they waited at the side of the stage to see who was next. First to the runway was none other than one-third of Canada’s Drag Race season one, Rita Baga, who interestingly had drama during her original season with Jimbo who was shockingly eliminated while being a front-runner during the last international season. What is particularly interesting about Rita Baga is that she is in fact a French-speaking Canadian which is something another queen played on later in the episode! Next up was Stephanie Prince from Canada’s Drag Race season two who I have to admit is not a queen I am particularly familiar with but it is always fantastic to see Asian representation in media, which helps to tie into the global element of the show. This queen was joined by her sister from Canada season two Kendall Gender, who looked absolutely stunning in a blue and gold outfit which looked incredible with the choice of ginger hair! Even since hearing Kendall’s verse during “queens of the north” I have not been able to get it out of my head and so am excited to see what she manages to do this season! The final Canadian queen to grace the stage was a very controversial one, as she actually won her original season. Icesis Couture made a statement as soon as she walked the runway by looking flawless and proving that she did in fact win her original season. She is clearly a very talented queen that is a threat to whoever else joins the competition. However, during this season the queens themselves decide who is going home so instantly there is a target on the back of Icesis and I assume the production team will be pushing for drama between the queens she beat in her original season.
I have to admit that at first, I was somewhat of a Silky Nutmeg Gnache cynic during her original run, due to her over-the-top attitude and loud-mouthed nature. But no one can argue that she didn’t prove herself as one of the greatest lip-syncers to ever appear on the show during her dominance of the lip-sync tournament on Drag Race All Stars five. It is very clear that Silky has had a massive glow-up since her original appearance on Drag Race with each time becoming more and more polished. Alongside Silky is her season eleven sister Ra’Jah O’Hara who had one of the greatest Ru-depictions on all stars we have ever seen! From what was initially a very wicked and mean-spirited person, Ra’jah managed to not only change her tune but also showcase how much of a talented costume designer she is, especially during her mesmerising talent show act where she made a costume in just one minute! I am personally very excited to see what looks she brought with her this time as she has had even more time to hone her craft! What is interesting about having Ra’jah and silky on the same season (for the third time) is that this season of Drag Race Canada vs The World is judged by Brooklyn Hytes who competed alongside these two queens during her run on season eleven!
I have to be honest but I am not too familiar with Anita Wigglit from Drag Race Down Under apart from her hilarious impression of Queen Elizabeth during the snatch game and her wonderfully camp and hilarious verse during the queens down under musical challenge during her season. However, she is quickly becoming one of my favourite queens from any season! She decided to showcase an extremely yet classically glamorous look with a black dress and blonde hair. We also saw the return of the Drag Race UK season three lip-sync assassin Vanity Milan, who has also shown massive growth in her quality of drag, especially with her make-up abilities! I thought that it was an excellent choice to showcase a gown in what has become her signature colour orange, as it looked absolutely incredible. I for one am very excited to see a lip-sync between Vanity and Silky as they are both very talented performers but yet bring two very different styles of performance to whatever they do! However, the person I am most excited to see back on our screens is the queen of Cardiff Town, Victoria Scone! Not only is she a hometown hero but also broke the mould during Drag Race UK season two by being the first ever AFAB performer to appear on the show but also she was forced to leave earlier from her original season after an injury as such the world is totally unaware of everything she can do! At this current point, Victoria has an air of mystery surrounding her as no one knows her talents or weaknesses. As a big fan of Victoria Scone (and can’t wait to see her in the drag, nursery mystery Death Drop 2 very soon!) I was so excited to see her return to the conception in a beautiful ombré pink fringe look that was inspired by the drag icon Danny Le Ru!
The first ever main challenge on Drag Race Canada vs The World saw the queens group together to create and perform original verses to the brand new song “Bonjour Hi.” Victoria, Anita and Rita decided to group together to deliver what can only be described as one of the campest girl groups we have ever seen! The number started with the three queens linking arms in a circle and taking turns to deliver hilarious facial reactions to the beginning of the track. The fact that Victoria Scone not only managed to squeeze in a bake-off style “soggy bottom” reference and an “oogy, oogy, oogy” chant was hilarious. Not only is the form clever because it is a UK pop-culture reference but also is on brand for Victoria as her surname is the name of a baked good! It was very clear that Rita Baga struggled with the choreography of this number (that the queens themselves had created) but she managed to disguise this through a very character-based performance. There were moments where Victoria had to direct her while on stage and one of my favourite moments came at the end of the number when Victoria did her “oogy” chant, Anita chanted about being an “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie’ but Rita could not find a rhyme for the word and so the song simply ended! The characterisation and lyrical awareness made this a bit of a hilarious moment that I thoroughly enjoyed!
The next trio was Rajah , Silky and Vanity who formed Drag Race’s first-ever group completely comprised of people of colour! Considering the bilingualism of the country everyone is competing in and the fact that Rita Baga is known for her French fluency, it was a very bold choice for Vanity to try and use French within the opening moments in her verse but it clearly paid off! Not only did she manage to showcase her amazing dance abilities but also used this opportunity to address racism which is particularly important at this moment. The BBC has recently come under fire for putting the wrong queen’s face under another POC’s name during one of the Drag Race UK exit interviews and so seeing Vanity rap about how not all black queens look the same so they should remember her name was extremely powerful! Silky decided to use her verse to deliver a very important message about body positivity as she discussed being fat but still feeling beautiful. She also managed to squeeze in multiple nods to her verse during queens everywhere during season eleven including “drop it like it’s hot,” pointing directly to her season eleven sister-turned-judge Brooklyn as she also appeared during this musical performance. The final group was made up of the remaining Canadian queens who collectively decided to really amplify the dance element of the challenge. The much more high-energy version of the song was opened by Stephanie who talked about her Asian heritage which is so important! Throughout the entire episode, it appeared that Stephanie was very hesitant to take on board the feedback from the judges during the workshop session. It is very obvious that everyone in this team struggled to execute the dance perfectly due to how ambitious it was!
For the second time in this episode the queens were instructed to walk the runway but this time the category was the queen of the world! Rita decided to showcase a fuchsia and yellow contemporary regal outfit complete with a massive up-do hairstyle and a hit dog spectre. The latter element was a nod to her time during Canada’s Drag Race season one where she would frequently bring up her love of hot dogs which again helped to tie the separate season together. Victoria decided to pay homage to her namesake with a scone-inspired look. This outfit contained a magnificent jam splatter train but I do have to say that the cut scone pieces did look a bit out of play on the upper sections of the outfit. Icesis yet again proved to everyone that she was the only winner to return this season as she did an ice queen-inspired look with the most magnificent blue and white jewels and a gorgeous feathered cape that looked extremely expensive! The pressure was on for Icesis to stay in the upper echelons of the competition and if this week is anything to go by then she may actually do it! My favourite look this week however would have to be Vanity who wore the most incredible ruffled collar/crown headpiece which was unlike anything I have seen before! The rest of the outfit was a golden duvet material perfectly crafted into a mermaid hemmed gown that looked absolutely stunning and knocked the spots off every look she showcased in her original season! I’m starting to think that Vanity is going to be one to look out for this season! Silky graced the stage in a totally black outfit that revealed a gorgeous fully beaded floral gown which was so wonderfully dramatic yet played with the classic ideas of beauty perfectly! It was very clear that Silky felt extremely beautiful in this gown and as the audience, it would be very difficult to argue otherwise!
As per usual all-stars rules, Ru Paul will announce the top two and bottom two of each episode with the best performing queens battling against one another in a lip-sync to see which of the bottom queens will go home. At the bottom this week were Kendall and Stephanie which is particularly shocking as they are both from the host nation of Canada. The top two were Vanity Milan (who was in black and gold for the performance so you know she meant business) and Rita Baga who delivered one of my favourites lip-syncs I have seen in a very long time. As a talented dancer Vanity pulled out a plethora of tricks including the splits, whereas Rita went for a much more comedic performance almost doing a parody of her opponent’s moves including viciously pounding the floor. This is the standard of lip-syncs I now expect from this season and I will not be expecting anything less! Vanity was justifiably declared as the winner of the episode as so is gifted $10,000 which marks the first time she has ever won money direct from Drag Race due to the BBC laws in place during her original season. She also however had to decide who would be the first queen to be eliminated and she opted for Kendal Gender! It must have really stung Kendal to go home first as she did so well in her original season but it appears that there will be a lot of strategy at play for these eliminations which I for one am very excited to see!
Overall, as opening episodes on Drag Race go, this one was one of the best with every queen thriving in at least one element of the episode. It was clear from the groupings of the musical challenge that each team represented a different style of drag from extreme camp to dance to politically powerful which created three wonderfully unique interpretations of the same song. It is great to see so many fan favourite return to the show, especially considering the majority of them have clearly stepped up their standard of drag so now the audience love them even more! I cannot wait to see what happens next week!
