A certain sect of competitors has long walked the hallowed halls of RuPaul’s Drag Race. And of course by “halls,” I do mean the warehouses of a studio backlot in Burbank, California. But nonetheless, these very special queens move amongst their competition, undetected and lying in wait. They look just like all of the other contestants in the workroom, but underneath their padding is a gift from the gods, an innate talent that sets them apart from everyone else at the end of the day. These are Drag Race sleeper cells, waiting to be activated the moment they hear RuPaul say, “Don’t fuck it up.”
They are the Lip Sync Assassins. We just met another one of them.
You know them, and you love them. The always and forever fabulous dancing diva Alyssa Edwards; the ultra strange and endlessly captivating Coco Montrese; the jump-splitting Laganja Estranja; the classically delicious Peppermint! These are all queens who made such a splash on their individual Drag Race seasons that their lip syncs sit amongst the most rewatched of all time, and who often are asked back to the show for All Stars seasons because of their unforgettable twists, turns, and pussy-slams on the main stage. Legend has it that the sheer force of Laganja Estranja’s ass hitting the ground caused the California quake that inspired San Andreas.
In tonight’s episode, Drag Race officially bore its latest lip sync assassin. Three letters, two springboard arms, and one name: Jax. Despite also lip syncing for her life against Robin Fierce in last week’s episode, Jax burned the house down in a manner that can only be described as “vicious and premeditated arson.”
Before our new favorite pyromaniac hit the main stage, however, she had to flounder a bit in the rest of the competition. This week’s maxi challenge was a reboot of “The Daytona Wind,” the acting challenge from Season 14 that confused the queens with its straightforward approach to a faux soap opera, only to have a bunch of surprise fart sounds added in post-production. As childish as that was, it ended up being pretty funny. But hammering that joke down for the second time would be useless when the punchline has already been revealed.
It turns out, Ru had another trick up her Klein Epstein & Parker-tailored sleeve. This time around, Daytona Wind is a sitcom parody. The queens all approached the challenge with vigor—particularly Mistress Isabelle Brooks and Malaysia Babydoll Foxx, squashing their metal-gate beef from last week—but like most challenges, the combination of ambition and nerves backfired.
Jax relied too heavily on her character’s description of a funny stoner. She was doing reasonably fine for a straightforward acting challenge, but the camp factor wasn’t there. She was unable to really sell her persona, and got ad-libbed against a wall by Mistress, eventually landing her in the bottom two of the week.
As Jax reinforced her knees while preparing for a lip-sync, the new Daytona Wind spinoff was ru-vealed to be a strange parody of the surrealist YouTube poop genre. I’m not quite sure I’ve ever seen something so strange on Drag Race as I did watching RuPaul laughing to himself, saying, “That, of course, was a parody of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” I don’t know how wide the overlap is between Drag Race superfans and Adult Swim comedy series fanatics, but I’m going to take a wild guess and say that it’s tighter than a stuck tuck.
The bizarro final cut of the challenge only highlighted the more mediocre performances, and it was clear that both Jax and Aura Mayari were going to brace themselves for a true smackdown. Both Aura and Jax acknowledged that their strength as queens lies in their ability to perform onstage for a crowd. And if you have two dancers on stage? Buckle the fuck up.
The moment “Sweetest Pie” by Dua Lipa and Megan Thee Stallion started playing, I sat up in my chair. Compared to last week’s song choice, “In Your Room” by The Bangles—which Jax already annihilated—“Sweetest Pie” is three times the energy, complete with a serving of dancey camp if the pie is baked to perfection. “I am a fucking lip-syncer,” Jax said, completely assured before the song starts. “No one can do what I do.”
And by god was she ever right. From the very first second, Jax was attuned with the song, raising her hand toward the pearly gates as Dua Lipa sings, “You’ve never been to Heaven, have you?” It was almost an instant foreshadowing of the paradise she was about to lead us to, when she hit a double twirl, removing her jacket in tandem with the song’s beat kicking in.
The way Jax moves is completely effortless. Even Aura, who put up a decent fight, looked wooden in comparison to Jax’s fluidity. And that’s a crazy thing to say, because Aura is a stellar dancer! But between the two of them, there wasn’t even an ounce of competition. Only ten seconds into the lip-sync, Aura faded away completely. You couldn’t help but keep your eyes on Jax and Jax alone.
But the very best moment came during Megan Thee Stallion’s verse, when Jax backflipped into Meg rapping, “More bounce to the ounce, pick it up, put it down.” Jax hit every word like it was choreographed—picking herself up and thrusting her hands down—but it all came off completely naturally. She hit moves that gymnasts can’t even do with such precision. If there’s one thing I’m here to do in this recap, it’s start the rumor that Jax has rubber bones.
After watching this lip-sync a total of 15 times so far, I can safely say that it has entered into my personal collection of favorites. I haven’t made so much noise while watching a lip-sync since Peppermint cocked a fake shotgun and took out Cynthia Lee Fontaine to Madonna’s “Music” in Season 9. There were several times that I lost control of my body, waving a snapping hand into the air and just yelling. This is what drag is all about, the thrill of seeing a purely singular performance.
The entire experience was comparable to the way movies depict men screaming and yelling over the Super Bowl. Except a lip sync this good takes much more talent and precision than running, catching a ball, and incurring a decent amount of head trauma. The only concussions anyone is getting around here on Super Bowl weekend will be me, when I try to recreate Jax’s effortless handsprings and have to be airlifted to Mount Sinai. (Seriously, don’t try this at home, let alone in a shoebox apartment with a live-edge coffee table.)
Needless to say, Aura was sent packing. She put up a great fight on that stage, but how do you measure up to history being made? It’s simply impossible. And although Jax has yet to really sink her teeth into a challenge, she’s solidified herself as the latest Drag Race lip sync assassin. In this competition, that status will take you everywhere—even all the way up to the finale.
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