In the HBO series Westworld, a bunch of robots go about their lives on repeat. Endlessly replicating the same situations, forced to endure what we would consider painful and degrading encounters with rich humans who abuse them for sport. Watching this week’s episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, I started to get why the robots pushed back against their fleshy masters.

Like the robots in Westworld, here in the RPDR universe we too are stuck on a loop: the viewers, the queens, Ru and his judges. In last night’s episode, I could see the cogs whirring behind the eyes of the robots, and it left me feeling as though I’d wandered into the uncanny valley of the dolls.

The Challenge

Part of the reason why this week felt so flat was surely due to the writing of the Breastworld parody challenge. This week, the queens were given an acting challenge, a parody of the big budget HBO program mentioned above.

There’s no guarantee that the writing on the parody challenges is going to be any good. Indeed, Ru’s work since his VH1 show has been littered with groan-worthy sketches. They are camp, silly, and you’re not meant to think about them too much. But they should also be funny.

For a show that started out looking like it was filmed in the garage of house being used in a gay porno, it’s a remarkable feat for RPDR to have made it to ten seasons and all the trappings of pop culture success. For those of us who watch it intensely, perhaps we are simply fatigued. Perhaps, as the audience has expanded, we have been pushed to the margins and it is maybe time for us to find the exit.

At the start of the season, I hoped that the producers would take us back to what worked, and repeat some classic challenges. While this has happened, the content in those repeated challenges hasn’t raised much of a laugh. It’s all well and good to critique the queen’s average performances, but with material like that, who could blame them?

The Definitive Ranking of the Double Shantay

My Mother once told me that if I didn’t have something nice to say, then don’t say nothing at all. She clearly hasn’t read these recaps. Regardless, I figured the kindest way to review this week’s double shantay lip sync between Eureka and Kameron would be to rank it alongside all the other “shantay you both stay” performances. Let’s see where they rank!

1. Raven vs. Jujubee

Picture this: it’s the last dash before the finale of All Stars 1. Season two fan favourite Jujubee and “the real winner of season two” Raven are BFFs and have been competing as a team all season. Now, they have to lip sync against one another. Only one can win. So, to the haunting sounds of Robyn’s ‘Dancing On My Own’, they stand and deliver a tearful lip sync where they barely let go of one another. Ru has no choice but to send them both through to the final, making Drag Race herstory.

2. Alyssa Edwards vs. Tatianna

If you weren’t a sentimental old fool, you’d probably put this at number one. Alyssa and Tatiana’s All Stars 2 performance is a spectacular collusion between two queens fighting for a chance to re-enter the competition.From the matchy-matchy looks to the choreography dialled up to eleven, this isn’t just one of the best double shantay lip syncs, it’s one of the best RPDR lip syncs of all time. It’s made even more special in that it was this double shantay that send Phi Phi home.

3. Roxxxy Andrews vs. Alyssa Edwards

This is the lip sync where Ru emotionally declared “shantay, you BOTH stay” and it’s the last in the list in which it was clear Ru had no choice but to keep both queens. Moments before the lip sync, Roxxxy had gone and done the most infamous trauma disclosure in the show’s herstory when she admitted that as a child, she was abandoned by her own mother at the bus stop. In a parallel universe, this would have been the lip sync song, but instead mean girl Roxxxy duked it out with the beloved Drag Race savant Alyssa, and gave us the iconic double wig reveal.  

4. Sharon Needles vs. Phi Phi O’Hara

Here we move into the “oh, so you wanted a twist” version of the double shantay. This one gets a high ranking purely for the producer puppet strings DRAMA of it all. In all of RPDR herstory there have never been two queens who hated each other more than Sharon and Phi Phi. This was the conflict that put the show on the map: a tired ass showgirl who couldn’t see that a spooky queen belonged on the winner’s dais, not in Party City. There was no way either of these two were going home, and their lip sync battle was a pure stunt move. Once they were done, Willam was brought up to the stage and disqualified, leaving Sharon and Phi Phi to keep on beefing.

5. BenDeLaCreme vs. Darienne Lake

This season six lip sync is the closest equivalent to this week’s double shantay: a perfectly well executed lip sync by both competitors, with the winner difficult to determine, but the stakes for sending at least one queen home too high. In this case, Ru knew he wasn’t ready for a sermon from the Patronising Saint of PassAgg, BenDeLaCreme, and that she had a lot more to offer. There was also more drama to be milked from Darienne, who couldn’t stand DeLa (SHE WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG!). So it wasn’t so much a case of the lip sync being the deciding fator, but rather the narrative arc of both queens being incomplete.

6. Eureka O’Hara vs. Kameron Michaels

Was this a good lip sync? Yes. There were lots of kicks and splits and the serving of face. Was this double shantay material? Eh. Eureka turned more than enough stunts to survive, especially that drop split into a 360 degree spin on the floor (Homer? I hardly know her). So why did Kameron also survive? She turned a solid sync, but there is no objective reason to keep Kameron in the game at this point. The whole thing felt manufactured, and if you need evidence, check out Ru’s OTT fake laugh at the end of this lip sync – it’s the exact same fake laugh he uses at the end of the DeLa and Darienne lip sync in season six. J’ACCUSE!

7. Carmen Carrera vs. Yara Sophia

I don’t know why this is even here. Yara Sophia was the loveable oddball of season three, Carmen was the stone cold bitch who, to paraphrase Sasha’s Valentina read, combines all the excitement of not smiling with the thrill of just standing there. Clearly there was more drama to extract from Jersey Heather, so they kept her around.  

8. Farrah Moan vs. Cynthia Lee Fontaine

LOL, nope. This season nine hot mess should have been a double sashay DESPITE Eureka being disqualified due to injury. What is with Cynthia peeling off her outfit to reveal mismatched underwear, was it laundry day? Meanwhile, Farrah looking as overwhelmed as a twink on his first trip to the sauna. This lip sync is legendary not for the default double shantay, but rather because it was the moment we all put Eureka on layby for season ten, and now we are PAYING for it.

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RuPaul’s Drag Race is fast-tracked from the US on Stan. Read more Drag Race recaps here.

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Nic Holas has written for The Guardian, Sydney Morning Herald, Archer Magazine, and Hello Mr. You can find him on Twitter @nicheholas, or in his role as co-founder of HIV movement The Institute of Many.