The next pack of ladies (Alexis, Carmen, Delta) are the ones who I could see turning it on and making a charge for the top but they’ve not been able to shine as much yet. Alexis has won two challenges, but how much camera time has she had? I know when you have a bunch of big personalities it’s hard to get everyone in there equally, but you’d think someone as bubbly and nice as Alexis would have a little spotlight. This worries me because Drag Race likes the big personalities and if Alexis is left with, say, Raja, Shangela, and Manila, I have a feeling she would fade a little in the judge’s mind. I adore her, though, because she just seems like a good person who stays away from the drama and she’s talented enough to be able to stand on her own two feet.

I’m not a big fan of Carmen, but I think she can do well for herself in the competition. Above all else in RuPaul’s Drag Race, you have to be a beauty and Carmen has never failed to show off her assets. That’s actually my main problem; at least from what we’ve seen so far, all Carmen has is a nice body and nothing else. Her performance in the challenges has been very flat and with three of her four runway outfits not leaving anything to the imagination, it seems that she may be aware of her limits. I do give her credit because she tried a longer dress in a recent episode, so she may simply be taking longer to show off what she can do, but as of right now, she’ll get the Tati/Rebecca edit of “gorgeous but not great” and scratch the top 4-5.

I go back and forth on Delta and she's the competition's wildcard for me. She has everything to be fantastic, but she's not really clicked for me during the competition. The judges seem to like her and she doesn't have a whole lot of enemies in the house, so it may just be that she's slipped under the radar, but she's never had a moment where I've been bowled over by her fashion or her choices in performance. Now's the point in the competition where you sink or swim, so Delta needs to start making bolder choices and asserting herself before she's swept out of the show without a chance to show who she is.

The bottom ladies (Yara, Stacey, Mariah) all have their strong suits, but I think the odds are stacked against each of them so much that a deep run would surprise me. Yara has made me oddly proud the last two weeks because she was such a non-entity in the opening couple of episodes that all you knew her for were the off-putting blue contacts that she wears on the runway. After slaying in the exercise video challenge and performing solidly in the QNN News challenge, I think she has some talent. She’s just inconsistent and I worry that she may be seen as one dimensional by the judges. Yes, queens with thick accents have a rougher time adapting to the tasks on the show because it’s hard to really take them as more than the “Latin Queen” (either Alexis or Yara mentioned that on the premiere, wanting to be known as more than that). If Yara can find a way to stretch her talent a little and keep her fashion mistakes down (her outfit last episode was phenomenal), she could challenge for a spot in the top three, but I’m just not seeing it as this juncture.

I like Stacey but the potential she has isn’t great enough to overcome a spotty performance. There are moments where she just has It, that X-factor where you believe she could rock any venue she steps in, but they fade quickly and her inexperience shows. In a way, I hope she goes out next only to have a “redemption” arc like Shangela; Stacey needs some serious drag bootcamp in a bigger city where she hones her craft and matures every aspect of her performance. I think she could be a serious threat next year if she gets a little more refined, but now she’ll last a week or two more at most.

Oh, Mariah. You are so beautiful and yet…there’s nothing there. At all. Mariah’s lack of personality should ultimately do her in during the upcoming Snatch Game episode where the queens will break out their best celebrity impressions. It kills me how poorly she’s done because of how glamorous she is on the runway, but her talking heads have had infinitely more zest to them than anything she’s done so far in the competition. I could be completely wrong and she has a hell of a lot of talent that hasn’t gotten a good chance to be shown, but if you told me she was in a LSFYL with any of the remaining queens, I would assume the other queen would win. If she (or any other queen) proves me wrong in the upcoming episodes, though, more power to her.

Personally, I’m rooting for Manila, Shangela, and Alexis to make it to the final three because Raja doesn’t have the drama of a drag queen, so to speak. She would make an absolutely stunning model, but to me, her fashion sense is almost too polished to be a queen; drag queens are supposed to be outrageous and these fun, larger than life figures. I don’t get the sense that Raja can do that and I’m not sure why she hasn’t went to that well yet. We know you can put a killer outfit together and we know you have legs for days, so why not go a little quirky and out of your comfort zone in order to show your range?

RuPaul’s Drag Race is the most fun hour of television in my week, no questions asked. It’s an hour that you will leave feeling better than you did heading into it, whether it be through Ru’s positive affirmations (“If you don’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love anybody else?”), the bright lights, the color, the music, the talent. Drag Race knows what it is and it’s not afraid to let its freak flag wave high in the sky for all of the other channels to see. Trust me, Ru, I am truly jealous of your boogie.