It came to our attention that we may have spoken very early in declaring RuPaul’s Drag Race the 13th season lip sync killer to be Denali. A new assassin threw her wig in the arena, and her name is LaLa Ri. In last night’s episode of Drag Race, Atlanta’s queen, LaLa Ri, was among the last two, alongside self-declared “filling queen” Joey Jay. The queens had to create looks made entirely of handbags for a “Bag Ball” challenge, and after Utica tried to help LaLa thread a bobbin to no avail, she ended up gluing some paper gift bags to a jumpsuit and calling is a clothes. It’s a caricature of a DIY look, which Vulture recap Paul McCallion called “the worst look in Drag Race her story. “It looks like a cleansing situation in the Dollar Tree party hall. But as a phoenix rises from the ashes, so does LaLa Ri from the low of the lanes to the heights of entertainment, in Lip Sync for Your Life for“ Fancy ”By Iggy Azalea.
From the opening sounds of the track, LaLa is one with the music, knowing when to point, when to parade, when to dance. She pulls off the wig, a movement long seen as exaggerated and eventually banned in Drag Race lip sync, done again through LaLa’s fun performance, turning the pink mohawk into a clutch. Their expressions are fascinating, good-natured and ferocious, raising the source material for leagues (again, this is Iggy Azalea we are talking). It’s impossible to take your eyes off her, and every cut to see what Joey Jay is doing looks like we’re stealing precious seconds from a perfect performance. Ru is smiling and laughing. Michelle Visage is laughing. Guest judge Nicole Byer looks dizzy. And punctuating all this are the queens having their life in the background; you can hear Kandy Muse scream “YES BITCH!” when the second chorus starts.
The masterstroke comes in the first chorus, when Joey Jay does a pre-planned feat of throwing fake money into the air as she begins to divide. LaLa grabs them from the stage, as if she’s being tipped at a show, tucking them into her bodice. Like something out of Sun Tzu, or at least a particularly good episode of Beyblades, she used the enemy’s ace up her sleeve to destroy her. The judges ate everything, and so did you. This is for the hall of fame.