‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ season 16 episode 5 recap: ‘Girl Groups’

John Benutty
·9 min read
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“RuPaul’s Drag Race” season 16 continued on February 2 with the fifth episode in RuPaul’s quest to find “America’s next drag superstar.” Previously in episode four, Plasma served up a perfect Barbra Streisand and sang her way to a challenge win in “RDR Live!,” while Geneva Karr found herself in the bottom for a second straight week. Though not quite a “lip sync assassin” yet, Geneva was able to best Mirage in the Lip Sync for Your Life. Mirage, who had admittedly not known the lyrics to the song, left in tears with her sisters stirring in the emotions of her premature exit.

This week, the remaining 12 queens write and perform their own original verses as part of girl groups to three of RuPaul’s hits. Seated at the judges’ dais for episode 5 titled “Girl Groups” was Emmy winning host RuPaul Charles, longtime bestie Michelle Visage, recurring judge Ts Madison, and pop icons from Icona Pop Caroline Hjelt and Aino Jawo as the extra special guests.

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The queens still vying for the crown are: Amanda Tori Meating, Dawn, Geneva Karr, Megami, Mhi’ya Iman Le’Paige, Morphine Love Dion, Nymphia Wind, Plane Jane, Plasma, Q, Sapphira Cristál, and Xunami Muse.

Check out our full recap of episode 5 below:

Amanda described the return to the Werk Room after Mirage’s elimination as a “funeral precession,” showing that the girls had already grown as close as sisters only a few weeks into the competition. The lesson of her departure was that each of them would have to be at the top of their game each week if they want to remain. Plasma was thrilled with her first win, but quickly overshadowed by Q expressing her frustration with being in the top for a third straight time and not snatching the win. In the top alongside her this week, Jane found it “hard to sympathize with Q,” telling the room that she wasn’t going to “cry and sulk” just because she didn’t win. For many in the room, especially on the heels of an emotional elimination, Q was out of place being so upset at not winning, but Jane was also starting to rub people the wrong way with her careless digging at the merits and feelings of other queens.

The next morning, Ru interrupted another tit-for-tat between Jane and Amanda with instructions for a new mini challenge. This afternoon Ru had the queens spend 30 minutes getting themselves dressed for a cover shoot for their own memoir while also providing a brief summary of what story their book would tell. Standouts were Amanda’s “Time for a Meating” and Q’s “Why?,” but Ru’s favorite and the declared winner was Sapphira with “Throat Goat.”

As the mini challenge winner, Sapphira joined last week’s maxi challenge winner Plasma and LSFYL winner Geneva as the group leaders for this week’s collaborative maxi challenge. Working in three girl groups, the foursomes would have to write their own unique verses to Ru songs and then perform their own choreography on the Main Stage. In the schoolyard pick’em for groups, Sapphira chose Dawn, Morphine, and Q to perform “Star Baby,” Plasma chose Amanda, Xunami, and Jane to perform “Courage to Love,” and Geneva picked Mhi’ya, Nymphia, and Megami to take on “A.S.M.R. Lover.”

When the groups sat down to brainstorm their performances, first impressions in the room were that Team Geneva would struggle because it is made up of all the quiet girls. In their planning session, Nymphia’s energy was all over the place and seemingly made it hard for the other three to focus on their intentions for the song. Megami was also put off by being the last girl picked for a group and expressed that it’s been a trend in her life that her peers don’t believe in her value. At the Team Plasma table, Amanda took a lead as a confident lyricist, but her inability to work comfortably with Jane became an issue when they had competing suggestions for a struggling Xunami.

Later in the day the queens made their way to the stage to create and rehearse their choreography. As her group’s leader, Plasma led the charge for “Courage to Love,” but her approach to the task was too advanced for Xunami to keep up with and the girls on the sidelines weren’t sure if the group would have enough time to get on the same page despite Amanda showing that she’s a very strong dancer. When Mhi’ya began to teach Team Geneva the steps she had in mind, Mhi’ya was once again too timid to get her voice heard. Sensing a problem, Nymphia stepped in to lead the group through dance decisions instead, reminding the girls on the sidelines that she is a secret threat hiding her strengths. Team Sapphira was content to let Morphine lead the charge for their session, but it was readily apparent that the weak link among them was Q who was admittedly “shaky and scared.”

The next day, as the queens put on face for the challenge, Q thought it was the proper time to clear the air with Jane. She wanted Jane to know that when she opened up to everyone about how hard she can be on herself, she felt like Jane “walked all over it” by throwing her under the bus. Jane’s apology was that she didn’t intend to invalidate her feelings, but Q had to explain that it did come across that she doesn’t have respect for her. To that, Jane threw Amanda under the bus again by telling Q that she has more respect for her than she does for Amanda. Immediately, Amanda jumped up to ask Jane why she’s bringing her up yet again out of nowhere. Jane didn’t have a strong response to either queen and ultimately Q didn’t know if she’d be able to fully trust Jane going forward. Following the fight, Sapphira gave Jane the motherly advice that perhaps having issues with other queens is a trend and she could think about using a different approach when trying to get her feelings across. Jane admitted that she doesn’t necessarily take other people’s feelings into account, but backtracked by stating that as artists they are all opening themselves up to criticism at the end of the day.

On the Main Stage, the first group to perform was Team Sapphira with “Star Baby” performing as Q.D.S.M. As expected based on their rehearsal, Q was not on pace with the other girls in the dance department, but Dawn was able to surprise as the standout of the group with stage confidence that one might not have anticipated her having. On Team Plasma performing “Courage to Love” as Lovah Girlz, Plasma and Amanda both controlled the momentum of the group with their strong presence. Team Geneva went last as Thicc & Stick to “A.S.M.R. Lover” and left the entire room gagged with strong verses from Megami and Nymphia and an overall cohesive presentation across the board.

For this week’s runway, the queens walked in the category “Faster Pussycat! Wig! Wig!” where their looks were expected to highlight a pussycat wig. The queens who presented the strongest ensembles were Morphine in a Catwoman gown with red scratch scars, Xunami in a chic matador garment, and Jane with a latex facekini bimbo look. The weakest looks came from Amanda who interpreted the challenge loosely with a robin’s egg nest covering her head, Geneva who missed her own mark with a confusing 1920s flapper look, and Mhi’ya with a simple black dress with pointed shoulders that were flopping down her back instead of standing upright.

Prior to judges’ critiques, both Sapphira and Jane once again decided to not use their immunity potions this week. Assessing the queens in the context of their groups, Ru declared Mhi’ya, Geneva, Nymphia and Megami as joint winners for the week. Instead of giving critiques to the winners, Ru kept the remaining two groups on stage to provide feedback. Though they were technically up for elimination as part of a non-winning group, the panel was happy with the runway looks and performances from Sapphira, Morphine, Dawn, Plasma, Xunami and Jane. The judges loved Q’s runway look, but had to break it to her that she was a clunky dancer and her look in the challenge was subpar. On the flip side, they thought Amanda was very strong on stage and one of the best dancers among the group, but she completely missed the mark in the runway category. The judges didn’t understand Amanda’s journey from pussycat wig as a prompt to nest and eggs as a concept.

Following the full critiques, Ru asked the eight queens on stage to tell the judges who they personally thought should go home this week. Sapphira, Morphine and Jane all said Amanda based on cumulative runway critiques and not being at the level of everyone else. Dawn, Plasma, Amanda and Xunami all said Q based on this week alone. Q said two names, telling Ru that it’s “definitely between Amanda and Xunami” who she had “haven’t made a mark in the competition yet.”

With or without the queens’ opinions, there was a clear bottom two this week that Ru asked to lip sync against one another. Q and Amanda were tasked with a head-to-head to Icona Pop’s song “Emergency.” To everyone’s relief, Amanda quickly discarded the oversized nest on her head and got straight to delivering strong dance antics from one side of the stage to the other. Q gave more energy this time than she did in her week 1 lip sync against Sapphira and smartly decided to focus on a comedic approach to the song rather than attempting to compete against Amanda’s skilled movement. In the end, Ru decided that it was not Q’s time to go and so she got to “shantay” and “stay” while Amanda had to “sashay away.”

NEXT TIME: The girls create their own dolls that they walk the runway with.

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