“Be kind.” It’s how Jaymes Mansfield signed off last week after being eliminated, and it seems the producers have it tattooed on their WeHo botox heavy foreheads as this season finds ways to seed some love in and amongst all the drag queen competitive fuckery.

Alaska, reigning All Stars queen, even tweeted Lil’ Jaymes’ advice to the world.

Be kind.

— Alaska Thunderfuck (@Alaska5000) April 4, 2017

Is this the beginning of a season that might actually be RuPaul’s Best Friend Race? Let’s find out!

The Setup

The first major disappointment of the week is that there was no surprise blonde famous lady in the work room. After Gaga and Lisa Kudrow visited in episodes one and two, I was kind of hoping that Kellyanne Conway would pop in to say hi.

Disappointment the second was no mini-challenge this week, again. No doubt it was due to the cast size and the sheer amount of content on the runway (and a lip sync that deserved lots of airtime, but more on that later). Actually, are we really missing the mini-challenges? Apart from the reading challenge and the puppets, is it too gimmicky? I’m sure once we separate the wheat from the chaffed tucks, we’ll see the mini-challenge return.

This week, it was hard to be cynical about the heartstring-tugging moment in the workroom: a complex and personal discussion about last year’s massacre at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub. Two of the queens, Trinity Taylor and Cynthia Lee Fontaine, revealed their proximity to the tragedy. Particularly, that Cynthia was supposed to perform there the evening of the massacre, but had to reschedule. That night, she received a text from a friend saying he’d only gone to Pulse to see her perform; sadly he killed later that evening.

I did get to have my snarky moment when Cynthia’s cucu GOT AN ORIGIN STORY. I swear, that ass is about to get a three picture deal directed by J.J. Abrams.

The Challenge

This week, the queens had to create a new look as a drag princess, complete with their own mythology as well as a comedic sidekick. This was a straight up sewing challenge with an acting challenge twist and I was HERE for it.

Old school fans of the show will recall just how many challenges in earlier seasons demanded the queens create entirely new looks from scratch. Back in the day, there was so much use of sewing machines and so much hot glue, I’m amazed you can’t yet buy branded “Hot Ru Guns”.

In more recent seasons, there has been greater emphasis placed on the runway looks the queens bring with them, based on the pre-provided loose themes they’re told are coming. This has meant that the looks each season get more and more spectacular, but we lose that week in-week out workroom mania.

One thing is for certain: by season nine if you turn up and have zero skills in dressmaking, design, or drapery, you’re going to run into trouble. So, Farrah Moan, the queen with the least sewing ability, was set up to fail.

What this did get us though was a moment of kindness from Eureka, who helped Farrah out with her mermaid look. This was the first time the ever-loud Eureka has shone through beyond being just a loudmouth and hopefully this new side comes out more often (because she can really work a look).

The Runway

So many strong looks this week, but the added bonus of the acting challenge really helped pull out the winners and the losers.

Trinity was stitched up as this week’s winner when she made Ru laugh the hardest during workroom check-in, and her being one of the central figures in the moving Orlando moment didn’t hurt. Thankfully her Princess Aquapussy look, complete with that fishtail reveal and campy sidekick performance, was total gold. A deserved win and a nice side step from the foreshadowed Valentina VS Trinity moment at the top of the episode, which had me worried this was going to be Jinxx VS Roxxxy all over again.

The Lip Sync

With so much foreshadowing over Farrah’s lack of sewing skills, it was a worthy surprise that she didn’t end up lip synching for her life. Instead, the banjee queen Aja was up for elimination thanks to that anything-but-mainstream drag look.

And thank the Lord for Aja, because her lip sync was Mink, Drink, and Models Inc: nothing but high quality, campy DRAMA. The song was Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Holding Out for a Hero’, and please excuse this old queen for a moment kiddies, but I’m going to take a second to school you on the significance of this number and drag.

Step one: watch this iconic performance by Tandi Iman Dupree (RIP), or at least the first 25 seconds.

Step two: consider yourself schooled.

So ‘Holding Out for a Hero’ has a legacy, which means to win Aja needed to bring it and keep bringing it to ensure it was indeed brung. At first, I was worried because she started big, taking to the runway and going high energy from the start (conventional wisdom is you start your lip synch on the spot, and build from there). Luckily, Aja WENT IN and didn’t stop.

By contrast, Kimora’s lip synch was perhaps one of the worst in drag race herstory. Did she even know the words? Needless to say, given last week’s lip stink and this one, no-one anywhere was surprised when Ru sent Kimora home.

This Week’s Real Winner

Nina Bo’Nina Brown. Excuse me, horny tin robot sidekick, can you come back next week?

Ruling Bad-Bitcharanium, Princess Zathena will vogue the haus down! ? @atlsexyslim #DragRace pic.twitter.com/tiIWyjbP57

— RuPaul’s Drag Race (@RuPaulsDragRace) April 8, 2017

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RuPaul’s Drag Race is fast-tracked from the US each Saturday 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.