Let’s talk turkey, and I don’t mean the Breastworld challenge: if RuPaul’s Drag Race were a sport, we would be in the middle of finals season. And just like the Superbowl*, RPDR finals season is very important to gays and their allies.

*The Superbowl is an annual pop concert in the USA and sometimes they let actual football fans watch, which I think speaks to how tolerant we as a society are becoming.

This season hasn’t been the most exciting we’ve seen in recent years, with quite a few favourites got knocked out earlier than expected. Even so, we still approach finals season as a sacred time. No matter who you originally barracked for, we will all keep watching until the grand final at the Drag Race equivalent of the MCG (Mainly, Cisgendered Gays).

So, with that in mind, let’s take a look at the final four and work with what we’ve got. Don’t make me turn this car around, kids, we’re almost there.

Four Play

After Sasha Velour flopped her rosebud out all over the finale stage, it’s hard to predict who will take the crown. Luckily, I’m dangerously good at presenting my opinions as seemingly researched facts, so here are the queens in order of who should, could, and cannot win.

Why Aquaria should win: Aquaria is the statistical frontrunner to take the crown, and quite frankly the only queen who could hold her own in the winners’ circle. She’s a more polished, emotionally intelligent version of Violet Chachki and has RPDR royalty as a drag mother. Beyond that, Aquaria is already a brand, and when it comes to the winner, Ru doesn’t much care for your sob stories or heartwarming backstory: he wants to know you’ll hold your own amongst the best of the best in the swirling late capitalist nightmare he’s trapped us all in. Aquaria would perform the act of being the enfant terrible next drag superstar, without actually disrupting the status quo — which is precisely what Ru is looking for.

Why she might lose: Plateau Era RPDR is all about the last-minute surprises. We don’t yet know the format of the finale and how Ru will determine the winner. Aquaria’s spot on the leaderboard is her greatest strength and her greatest weakness.  

Why Asia O’Hara could win: The sentimental favourite, Asia is everything you want in a top four queen: poise, class, kindness, and experience. She is bested only by Aquaria in terms of show-stopping runway looks, and her pageant past belied a comedic skill that meant she won us over by surprising us. Also, she is the only queen remaining from the show’s historic black caucus, and having an African-American queen take the crown this season would be just so fucking awesome and overdue.

Why she might lose: Asia’s pageant poise is precisely why she also lacks the grunt and cutthroat attitude to take the crown. At the same time, she’s too respected and statesman-like to be an genuine underdog.

Why Eureka O’Hara could win: In terms of who Ru is keeping an eye on, Eureka ranks above Asia. But it will be a cold day in hell before I wish victory on Eureka over Asia. That being said, her season ten narrative is one for the herstory books. She is the only ‘returning’ queen to make it all the way to the finale, besting the efforts of Shangela in season two/three and Cynthia Lee Fontaine in season eight/nine (and ten, if you count her appearance as Frankie Grande). A lot of people are behind Eureka, and Ru pays attention to that sort of thing.

Why she might lose: Like Aquaria, Eureka’s shot at winning is highly dependent on the format of the finale.

Why Kameron Michaels could win: White gays on Instagram.

Why she might lose: Because it would be the right and just thing. No shade on poor Kameron, but what she symbolises in terms of privilege and access to opportunities is pretty glaring, especially after such a diverse season.

Rank Bank: The Rumixes

Thanks to two years of hastily delivered content, the relatively new top four challenge of writing your own verse to a RuPaul track and performing it on the mainstage has happened enough times, and so closely together, than comparing them is inevitable. So with that in mind, let’s take a look at how this week stacks up to the recent rumixes.

1. Read U Wrote U

The end of the Drag Race Golden Era and start of the Plateau Era is marked by All Stars 2. If that season was the culmination of the best queens of the Golden Era (Seasons 4-6 plus Katya), then ‘Read U Wrote U’ was the metaphoric asteroid that destroyed the apex predators, leaving only smaller, less ferocious drag queens to rule the earth. ‘Read U Wrote U’ has everything: the ascension of a truly confident champion in Alaska, a passing of the beloved underdog torch to Katya, and of course the forever iconic “I’m Roxxxy Andrews and I’m here to make it clear” rap. Although Roxxxy’s verse is hilariously bad, that’s what makes this track so damn good. That, and “but your Dad just calls me….Katya.”

2. Category Is

‘Category Is’… without a doubt the tightest track of the four rumixes. There is something alchemical about the season nine top four, a combination of queens that tick all the boxes: smarts, looks, clowns, comedy, wit, and killer moves. There is no verse that sticks out like a dud, and that’s because each of the four queens earned their place in that top four.  This performance, set against the backdrop of the entire season, made it impossible to predict who was going on to the three. Which is why it was a genuinely thrilling moment when Ru declared that for the first time, all four queens would be moving on to the finale.

3. Kitty Girl

This could  be tied for second place with ‘Category Is’, but for very different reasons. All Stars 3 was shaping up to be a bit of flop, until Kitty Girl came through as a solid bop. The track itself is loads of fun, with Shangela’s verse a standout and Trixie looking like she was having fun for the first time that season. We even get a Roxxxy-esque so wrong its right verse thanks to BeBe’s Janome Malone sewing machine choreography. And the transition from backstage to mainstage? *Italian chef kiss*

However, ‘Kitty Girl’ falls down the ranking because it will be forever associated with the most unforgivable disruption in RPDR herstory, when it was announced that the eliminated queens would pick the final two. Shangela was robbed of her right to compete in the final lip sync, and as such we cannot watch ‘Kitty Girl’ without remembering the grave injustice that immediate followed this banger (I hardly know her).  

4. American

This is the Westworld Hemsworth brother of rumixes. Perfectly cute and serviceable, until the Thor Hemsworth comes along and then you just want him to check out your Asgard. In ‘America’, Aquaria and Eureka have the strongest verses by far, with Aquaria delivering genuine star quality. Eureka was giving me Jennifer Coolidge, and I didn’t mind it.

Unlike Kitty Girl’s crafty use of the entire building to shoot what looked like a one-take performance (even if it wasn’t), the ‘American’ performance feels oddly manufactured in its otherwise nondescript TV studio setting, like watching Killing Heidi perform their new single on the set of Rove Live. As with the season as a whole, the fundamental issue with ‘American’ is not the track but the mix of the top four queens. Also, maybe the track production was hindered by the fact that the mixing desk wasn’t connected to the recording equipment?

Next week: reunion! I am loving this return to a dedicated reunion ep away from the pageantry of the finale stage. Start planning your Miss Vanjie references drinking games now, kids.

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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.