‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ season 16 episode 11 recap: ‘Corporate Queens’

“RuPaul’s Drag Race” season 16 continued on March 15 with the eleventh episode in RuPaul’s quest to find “America’s next drag superstar.” Previously in episode ten, the queens promoted the power of voting by adding original verses to RuPaul’s newest hit “Power.” In a surprising twist, Sapphira Cristál and Morphine Love Dion were named the top two and asked to face off in a Lip Sync for the Win. Sapphira earned her second maxi challenge win by defeating Morphine while Plane Jane contributed to what became a non-elimination episode by sparing Nymphia Wind with her soon-to-expire Immunity Potion.

Seated at the judges’ dais for episode 11 titled “Corporate Queens” was Emmy winning host RuPaul Charles, longtime bestie Michelle Visage, recurring judge Ross Mathews, and comedian Joel Kim Booster as the special guest judge.

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The queens still vying for the crown are: Dawn, Mhi’ya Iman Le’Paige, Morphine Love Dion, Nymphia Wind, Plane Jane, Q, and Sapphira Cristál.

Check out our full recap of episode 11 below:

By securing her own second win, Sapphira joined Nymphia, Jane, Q and the departed Plasma as the fifth queen this season to become a two-time winner. Eager for own first win, Morphine was pressed that she missed out on the opportunity to clutch one, but her antagonizing of Sapphira over the loss was all in good fun. Jane also explained her decision to use her potion to save Nymphia, telling them that it was an act of “sisterly love,” but privately stating that she was hoping it would force Q and Dawn into the bottom and one of them would go home. Regardless she didn’t regret not using it on herself, but Q insisted that she should have because she was ultimately in the unofficial “bottom three” of the week and was called “safe” last by the judges. When Dawn jumped into the convo to rile Jane up, Jane went fully cracked and attacked Dawn’s “clown” look and said she’s never gorgeous.

The next morning, Ru had the queens compete in a “Spill the T” mini challenge where they had to answer questions about each other in an effort to match their own answer with the majority. In the contest, it came out that most of the queens think Nymphia is passive aggressive, that Morphine wouldn’t know what “passive aggressive” means, Jane is the one they’d block online, Sapphira is the flirtiest, Dawn is the gassiest, Morphine is the most likely to blame the edit, Sapphira will spend the cash prize wisely, Jane will blow the money on latex breast plates, Sapphira would give the biggest tip at a gig, and Jane is the most delusional. The winner of the challenge was Sapphira.

In honor of “Drag Awareness Month Week,” Ru introduced the next maxi challenge as a chance to be silly as hosts of “Drag Awareness Seminars.” The girls were divided into teams by Ru and given topics: Jane and Q on “Do you know your drag herstory?,” Mhi’ya and Dawn on “Drag in the workplace,” and Sapphira, Nymphia and Morphine on “Are you a drag queen? Coz you might be surprised.” Ru emphasized that this is to be a silly challenge, noting that it’s their chance to “be ambassadors of confusion, unemployment, nerve and telekinesis.”

During the planning phase of their presentations, Dawn felt right at home as an engineering student and comfortable with public speaking, but her partner Mhi’ya admitted that she was uncomfortable and has never given a formal presentation before. Dawn’s concern was that Mhi’ya would not be easy to host and banter with in a back and forth live on stage. Once again, Nymphia was “very stressed out” by the idea of the challenge and Morphine was left trying to understand what a seminar even is, leaving Sapphira caught between two lost souls. Meanwhile, Jane and Q were happy to be paired together with equal amounts of confidence that they could knock this challenge out of the park.

Later, Michelle stopped by with guest judge Joel to offer their advice as the queens workshopped their ideas. Q told them that she’s nervous at their ability to “finesse” all of the content they came up with and Jane expressed no concern that they would not wind up in the top for this challenge. Joel was happy to see Jane being so confident and embracing her own sense of delusion as a key part of her drag. With Mhi’ya and Dawn, Joel cautioned them against “getting into straight man comedy territory” and that Dawn was relinquishing all of the jokes to Mhi’ya. When Michelle asked Mhi’ya about her experience hosting gigs, Mhi’ya struggled to come up with anything concrete to show that she actually has that experience. Joel told the last group that they have a “good premise,” but advised them to go beyond that and find the punchlines in their statements. The biggest task for them was to not let Sapphira dominate their presentation and for it to be a threesome that makes sense.

The next day as the queens prepared for the presentations in front of a live audience, Nymphia and Mhi’ya shared their nervousness going into the event. Dawn felt prepared for her own part in their plans, but she was still stressed because Mhi’ya was so anxious. She was also concerned that they might end up in the bottom together and having to lip sync against Mhi’ya is “terrifying.” In another conversation, Q started talking bout her plans for the 80s era runway and opened up to Jane about how she’s been HIV positive for the last couple years and so her look in honor of all the lives lost in the 80s to HIV/AIDS is really important to her.

In the presentations, Jane and Q got off to a strong start with pun jokes showing slides of slides, and “historic clips” (hair clips), but then flattened as they presented photoshopped images of historical figures with wigs on and incessantly calling each other “doctor.” Dawn and Mhi’ya had moments of clarity in their presentation, but mostly became defined by Mhi’ya’s inability to get through her lines without looking at her cue cards or stumbling over the words on them. The last group had a hit series of punchlines in their “behavioral symptoms” of drag segments and Nymphia stole the show when she took center stage with jokes about sure signs of noticing a drag queen. In Morphine’s moment to shine, she slipped up and then called herself out as a “drag queen flopping” in front of the audience.

After the queens walked the runway in the category “Flashback: DragCon 1980,” the judges offered critiques to all of them and clarified that they’d be judges individually, not as teams. Jane’s runway look and presentation with Q was one of Joel’s favorites and Ross enjoyed that their “slides and clips” jokes were so simple and not complicated. Joel added that Q’s timing in the presentation was perfect while Michelle said that the standout on the runway was her Keith Haring-inspired garment and homage to the AIDS victims. Ru loved Dawn’s runway outfit and though Ross loved her personality in the challenge, they “lost the storyline” overall. They told Dawn that she put in work to “get it back on course,” which only hinted that they were let down by Mhi’ya’s performance. Michelle also had issues with her runway look that should have been corseted. Both Ru and Michelle thought Sapphira’s runway look would go down in herstory, but they all acknowledged that they were shocked to see her stumble in the challenge. The judges called out that Morphine was paired with two strong queens in the presentation and so she inevitably took a back seat to them and Michelle didn’t think her look was very 80s. Joel appreciated that Nymphia was able to reference the past in a way that looked to the future wit her Grace Jones look on the runway and then they thought she “laid heavily into characterization” that redeemed her “Snatch Game” performance.

After further deliberation, Ru announced that it was another maxi challenge win for Sapphira and suggested that Nymphia was in the top two with her. Then, Jane and Q were offered their safe placements, leaving Mhi’ya, Dawn and Morphine as the official bottom three. At the back of the stage, Q told Sapphira that she’s happy for her, “but gagged” with a sour expression of disappointment on her face. In the bottom, Dawn earned her safety and so we were set for a battle between the Miami queens in the Lip Sync for Your Life. In their head-to-head to “Dim All the Lights” by Donna Summer, Morphine managed to stay in the light at the front of the stage while Mhi’ya turned in the back of the stage and then taking off the train of her skirt threw it over Morphine as she was in an extended back-bend. Like a pro, Morphine capitalized on the dirty trick by flinging the skirt off and around her and then off the stage in a swift recovery. The battle could have turned nasty from there, and it did escalate with Morphine throwing her fake breasts at Mhi’ya as well, but it was all in good fun by the end of the song and both her laughing and congratulating each other. By the end, Ru had made her decision that Morphine was the winner and that after four times in the lip sync, it was time for Mhi’ya to “sashay away.”

NEXT TIME: Michelle and Carson guide the queens through the design show “Bathroom Hunties” while Q harbors resentment over Sapphira’s win that she thinks “wasn’t deserved.”

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