When I’m writing and thinking about Survivor (as I am wont to do ), something that comes up a lot is “win conditions.” Basically, the goal of the show is twofold: Step one is to maximize the amount of situations moving forward in which you are the winner of the season, and step two is to make one of those situations happen. It’s a pretty basic explanation of “strategy,” and it applies to lots of situations, including RuPaul’s Drag Race .
The difference is that Survivor is primarily played among the players, with the storylines crafted through editing. On Drag Race , the strategy is not just to win the show by winning challenges, but to craft a winning storyline for yourself while competing. This week, one contestant takes a massive stride forward in creating her win condition, and all the other girls she’s competing against should be kicking themselves for letting her do it.
I’m talking, of course, about Suzie Toot, who in Untucked gets to turn herself into a full-on lovable loser. Suzie Toot’s win condition is that she’s a quirky queen with the occasionally hideous mug, but performing chops that put her far ahead of most of the competition. Sound familiar? Baby that’s a recipe for what is perhaps the most dominant Drag Race edit of all time: The Jinkx Monsoon.
Jinkx Monsoon on season five, if you’ll remember, was not just defined by being perhaps the best comedian and musical theater performer ever on the show, but by the fact that the other queens .
