‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ season 15 episode 10 recap: ’50/50’s Most Gagworthy Stars’

“RuPaul’s Drag Race” season 15 continued on March 3 with the next step in the competition toward discovering “America’s next drag superstar.” Last week, RuPaul Charles invited the queens to “The Crystal Ball,” a fashionable celebration of the show’s 200th episode. This week, the 8 remaining girls in “50/50’s Most Gagworthy Stars.”

Seated at the judges’ dais for episode 10 was Emmy winning host RuPaul, longtime bestie Michelle Visage and recurring judge Ts Madison.

The 10 queens still in the competition are: Anetra, Loosey LaDuca, Luxx Noir London, Malaysia Babydoll Foxx, Marcia Marcia Marcia, Mistress Isabelle Brooks, Salina EsTitties, and Sasha Colby.

Check out our full recap of episode 10 below:

Following the Salina EsTitties Lip Sync for Your Life win over Spice, the girls gathered themselves in the Werk Room to reflect on their performances in the ball. As has become true of this group, Marcia Marcia Marcia expressed her disappointment at being “just safe” and admitted to the others that she expected to be in the top. Loosey LaDuca took personal offense to the others allowing Marcia to express that point of view because they took her to task for it after past challenges when she said something similar. At this point in the competition Loosey felt like she deserved more respect for her three wins (between mini and maxi challenges), but Mistress Isabelle Brooks was unwilling to let Loosey slide, clocking her for being in her “bitch era.”

The next morning, Ru joined the girls in the newsroom to announce their next maxi challenge. This week they’d “get up close and personal” with celebrities as journalists in the news magazine “50/50.” Ru delivered the assignments: Marcia and Sasha Colby with Charo; Anetra, Loosey and Malaysia Babydoll Foxx with Frankie Grande; and Luxx Noir London, Mistress and Salina with Love Connie. Ru clarified that their interviews will be broadcast live and that she wants the queens to get their celebrities to “reveal themselves in unforgettable ways.”

As the queens sat down to brainstorm and prepare their interviews, Luxx broke it down for us that each would be divided into three segments: a walk-and-talk, an activity, and a sit-down. On Team Love Connie, Salina wanted the sit-down because it’s where she felt strongest and thought that this was a challenge she’d be able to finally win. Team Frankie Grande focused on dividing the subjects of their segments so that they didn’t overlap with one another. Because Team Charo only had two members, they combined their efforts more closely and then focused on throwing shade at Mistress. Naturally, once Mistress caught on she threw shade back, telling Luxx and Salina that she thinks Marcia will have a tough time matching Charo’s energy.

As promised, the queens shot their “50/50” segments live and under the microscope of their peers who watched from a monitor in the Werk Room. Up first was Team Love Connie. Salina kicked it off with the sit-down where she practiced the art of patience and letting Connie speak, followed by Luxx’s well-researched walk-and-talk segment where she got a taste of Connie’s unpredictability and then Mistress struggling to maintain her composure in a cupcake decorating segment.

Team Charo started their interview with Sasha’s activity segment where they made a salad and Sasha learned that keeping up with Charo will be a challenge. Marcia took the reins for the sit-down, but there was quite a bit of awkward silences from Marcia’s end where it was clear she wasn’t fully following Charo’s storytelling.

Team Frankie Grande had Loosey sit-down with Frankie that had the other queens shaking in their boots over how perfect of a role the position was for Loosey. Anetra visited Frankie “on set” for the walk-and-talk and surprised everyone by giving her resting bitch face a rest. Malaysia closed out with a pizza-making segment that repeated the subject of Frankie’s recent marriage, a subject that both Loosey and Anetra had already covered with him.

For the runway, the queens walked in the “Night of 1000 Beyoncés” category. Luxx walked in a Bob Mackie homage to Tina Turner, Mistress added two dummy heads to her shoulders for a Destiny’s Child era look, Salina went with the 2004 Grammys dress, Sasha wore a 2006 BET Awards mini dress, Marcia wore a charity event dress, Anetra took inspiration from a tour look, Malaysia copied the 2018 Global Citizens Festival performance look, and Loosey went with the iconic baby bump reveal suit from the 2011 VMAs.

Based on their challenge performances and runway presentations, this week’s safe queens were Marcia and Anetra. Luxx rose to the top for impressing Michelle with her “matching Connie tit for tat” and Ru for wearing well a version of a Beyoncé dress that she herself also wore. Ts was disappointed in Mistress for missing the mark in her interview segment, but Michelle thought she picked it up with a creative take on the runway theme. Michelle also really loved Salina’s runway look, but she thought Salina spoke over Connie too often in their interview. Sasha was another top performer for the judges because of a flawless runway look, but they also thought that she was easy and casual with Charo in a way that really worked for the audience. The judges clocked Malaysia for showing her nervousness too much in the interview which prompted her admitting to playing it safe. Ts thought that Loosey rose to the challenge of “meet your guest where they are” and Michelle said she was able to pull out “the real Frankie” out of him.

After further deliberation, Ru announced that this week’s winner was Sasha, making it a back-to-back win for the legend and giving her a solid position as frontrunner with three maxi challenge wins compared to only one from anyone else. Luxx, Loosey and Mistress all earned safety, leaving Malaysia and Salina in the bottom two. They lip synced to “Single Ladies” where both very obviously incorporated the iconic elements of the dance. In her third trip to the LSFLY, Salina could have faltered in showing the judges what they’ve already seen from her, but her dedication to Beyoncé’s original choreography offered her the chance to do something different. Malaysia wove in some comedic elements that created a contrast to Salina, but kept it just as fun and engaging. But ultimately this was not a week Ru was going to give a “double shantay” and so she made the executive decision to keep Salina one more time and delivered the “sashay away” to Malaysia.

NEXT WEEK: The series returns to the hour and a half format just in time for the queens to make us laugh in a stand up comedy challenge.

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