‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ recap: Interpretative dancing brings out ‘ugly, beautiful art’ from the top 6

Last week in Episode 11 of RuPaul's Drag Race, RuPaul Charles asked the queens who should go home next and four of the seven named Suzie Toot as their biggest competition that they'd like to see leave the competition. Suzie remained as one of the "safe" queens in the acting maxi challenge and lost official frontrunner status to Onya Nurve, who was named the overall winner for the third time. After their third trip each to the bottom two, Lana Ja'Rae and Lydia B Kollins faced off in the Lip Sync for Your Life and a scissor mishap helped Lana send Lydia home for good.

This week, the top six paired off in mini and maxi challenges aimed at getting the girls to show more of their personal identity through storytelling, monologues, and interpretive dance. Joining Ru on the Main Stage as judges this week were bestie Michelle Visage, series recurring star Ts Madison, and special guest Jerrod Carmichael.

Read on for our recap of RuPaul's Drag Race Season 17, Episode 12, titled "Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve & Talent Monologues," which aired Friday, March 21 on MTV. The contestants still in the running to be named "America's Next Drag Superstar" at the start of the episode were: Jewels Sparkles, Lana Ja'Rae, Lexi Love, Onya Nurve, Sam Star, and Suzie Toot.

SEE ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ winners list: Every season, plus ‘All Stars’

"I'm feeling very inspired to tap into my authorness... authorness? Author vibes" — Sam Star

To set the stage for this week's challenges, Ru asked the queens to pair up with "the queen that gets you the most." Sam was shocked to see her closest sister Lexi quickly saddle up with Onya, but Lexi made the move to associate herself with someone that has been doing well in the competition. Sam paired up with Lana instead, leaving Suzie and Jewels to be the third pair. As pairs, the girls competed first in a Mad Libs-esque mini challenge where they filled in blanks to tell a short, but funny story about their partner. The story Jewels wrote about "Suzanne Boots" about her "truly hard to look at" style and next business venture called "House of the Great Depression" was chosen as the winner.

For the maxi challenge, the pairs were tasked with "using heart and humor" to write a personal story about themselves in the "Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve & Talent Monologues." In addition, their stories were to center around a topic chosen by each at random: Jewels on "something supernatural," Suzie on having lost something, Lana on being lost, Sam on something triggering, Lexi on karma, and Onya on an intense obsession. The twist was that while they would be telling their own story orally, their partner would have to tell the story visually through interpretive dance.

"Suzie Toot wants to be Jamal Sims all of a sudden and I'm like b--ch relax" — Jewels Sparkles

During the brainstorming session, it was revealed that Suzie might tell the story of the time she lost a spelling bee, Jewels meant to translate her "out of this world" prompt as a ghost story, Lana wanted to communicate the feeling of being lost as a middle child within the religious framework of her upbringing, Lexi was worried about going "too serious," and Onya considered discussing an experience being in a "spiritual vegan" cult. As the winner of the mini challenge, Jewels got to decide the running order of the show, settling on Suzie, Jewels, Onya, Lexi, Sam and Lana after listening to the wishes of each queen.

As the girls rehearsed their drafted stories and dancing, Onya caught on to the fact that while she couldn't really understand the context of Lexi's story about a social media interaction she could at least cling to the action words Lexi used and dance to those. Jewels faced the rigorous direction of Suzie when trying to put movement to her words, but onlookers Onya and Lexi could tell that once again Suzie was being too serious out of a strong desire to win. Sam was thrown by the creative vision Lana was taking her prompt when she handed her a lantern as if she was lost in a maze and tried to urge her in a more humorous direction, but Lana felt like they had two different interpretations of what she wanted her story to be.

"It's making me think of every ugly c--- I've seen in my life" — Jerrod Carmichael

Following the "Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve & Talent Monologues" presentation and walking in the "Ugliest Dress Ever" runway category (10 years after it was first walked during Season 7), the queens received critiques from the judges panel. Ts was "moved" by the story that Suzie told, but wanted more from her in the facial expressions during her dance number and "dragged up more." Michelle and Ru thought Jewels could have used "more drag aesthetic" in the story that Jewels told, but she "really shined" in the dance because she "went all the way" and "wacky." Jerrod told Onya that he could listen to her talk all day because she's "so charismatic" and Ts appreciated that she brought Lexi's "story to life" in the dance. Jerrod liked that Lexi's story provided memorable lines like "passion without penetration," but Michelle thought the "best part of the whole night" was her dancing to Onya's story. The judges thought Sam could have made her story funnier and Ru said that her dance of Lana's story "lacked comedic lunacy." Jerrod related to Lana's story, but Michelle didn't feel a "connection to the words" and it felt like she was "just saying it."

Based on their deliberation, Ru and the judges chose Onya and Lexi as dual winners of the week for making "ugly, beautiful art" in their storytelling, dances, and runway looks. Also judged as pairs, Suzie and Jewels were declared safe, which left Sam and Lana as the bottom two. To decide the next elimination, Sam and Lana fought in a lip sync to Dua Lipa's "Illusion," both queens pulled costume changes and death drops out of their arsenal and lit the stage up with consistently strong interpretations of the song. But after many successful shots, this was the week that Lana's "lip sync assassin" gun came out blank and she had to "sashay away."

Next time on Drag Race...

Loved ones enter the Werk Room in the "drag family" makeover challenge.

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