RuPaul's Drag Race Season 5: Mid-Season Analysis

We started this year with fourteen queens, and now we're down to seven. As I tipsily tweeted last night: this is the beginning of the rest of your season.

Since we're at the halfway point, I wanted to look back at past seasons' records and see what, if anything, we can infer from them, and what they might tell us about what's to come this season. (Translation: shit's about to get real data-crunchy, then turn maudlin at the end. It's how I roll.)

This is a spoiler-free post, save the results of this season thusfar (including last night's elimination). Just analysis and speculation here!

To start, let's look at the records for Seasons 2 - 5. (I love and respect Season 1, but it's not very useful for comparison: it featured a third fewer queens and episodes, and it hadn't yet adopted the season-spanning ordering and rhythm of challenges we expect to see now. It featured a total of seven competition episodes, and on Season Five, our seventh competition episode is next week.)

These are all sourced from the Wikipedia pages for the individual seasons. You can click the images to see them at full size.

Season Two:

Season Three:

Season Four:

Season Five:

First, what can we say about the past seasons' winners?

1. The queen who wins the most challenges wins the season.

This isn't a hard-and-fast rule: ultimately, RuPaul is going to choose who RuPaul chooses. It holds, though: yes, Raja and Manila tied for number of challenges won, but BeBe, Tyra, and Sharon all won the most challenges in their seasons.

This season, nobody has yet won two challenges, making it anybody's game. That also makes this season unique: it's never taken this long for a queen to win two challenges. Sharon and Alexis did it by the third competition episode, and Tyra did it by Episode 5. Of the remaining queens, only Coco and Alaska haven't yet won a challenge; everybody else has one win.

2. No team captain has ever won her season.

Here's a nugget of trivia: BeBe, Tyra, Raja, and Sharon were never team captains. While being a team captain isn't directly damning to your chances of winning, RuPaul's Drag Race has a terrifying sashay rate for its captains.

Here's the mathetmatical T: in Seasons 1 - 4, the overall random-statistical chance of any one queen being in the bottom two during any given team challenge was 19%, and the statistical chance of any one queen being eliminated was 9.5%. However, if you look at the numbers for captains, the statistical likelihood of a captain being in the bottom two of a team challenge rises from 19% to 26.3%, and the likelihood of a captain sashaying rises from 9.5% to 15.8%. (If anybody's interested in how I arrived at those numbers, let me know in the comments and I'll reply with my methodology. You can trust me on this, though.)

Or, to look at it another way, and include this season: Through Seasons 1 - 5, there have been a total of twelve team challenges. In four of them, a captain sashayed. One third of all team challenges have resulted in a captain's elimination.

Like I said: being a captain doesn't inherently hurt your chances of winning, but captaining a team isn't statistically favorable to your chances of surviving the challenge, either. Now that we're past the Snatch Game, team challenges have concluded. Of the remaining Season Five queens, only Roxxxy never served as a captain.

3. The last two seasons, the winner of the first challenge won the season.

This is more coincidence than indicator, but it's true: Raja and Sharon were both swinging hard out of the gate, and while Morgan won the first challenge of Season 2, Tyra was a high-scorer too.

(Editor's note-to-self: "Swinging hard out of the gate?" Oh so now we're mixing baseball metaphors and race-horse metaphors in the same phrase? I guess this is why I cover drag, not sports.)

Of course, we know that Roxxxy won the first challenge of Season Five.

Now that we've looked specifically at commonalities among the winners, what else can we glean from past seasons' records?

4. Unless you're gunning for Top Three, nobody survives their third Lip Synch.

Nobody. While many excellent queens have survived two LSFYLs (Raven, Sahara, Shangela, Delta, Jiggly, Milan), each of those queens was eliminated on her third lip synch. The only two queens to survive their third lip synchs were Jujubee and Alexis, both while moving from Top Four to Top Three.

Of the remaining Season Five queens, only Coco has already survived two lip synchs, putting her in this danger zone. Detox has survived one, and none of the other queens have lip synched yet.

5. The returning Top Five queen probably hasn't been eliminated yet.

This is more of a hunch than anything else. It's hard to compare Carmen's and Kenya's records and find predictive trends: neither of them ever won a challenge, and both of them were initially eliminated before their third lip synch, but that's true of many queens who weren't called back. Carmen bypassed one episode; Kenya bypassed four. It's a tough call.

The "second Top Five" episode, which is the "put a random dude in drag" challenge, will be Episode 10 this year. Jade's elimination was Episode 6. Right now, looking at the win/high/in/low records of the remaining Season Five queens, the clear statistical frontrunners are Jinkx, Ivy, and Roxxxy, with an uncomfortable number of safe/low rankings from the rest of the pack. If any of these three are eliminated in the next couple episodes, I'd bet my hat they come back on April 8. If it's not one of those three, though, your guess is as good as mine--maybe Jade? Maybe Lineysha?

6. So, who's winning Season Five?

I'm laying down my prediction now: from the win/high/safe/low records, from the edits they're getting, and from my gut, I think we're looking at a Top Two showdown between Jinkx and Roxxxy. Among the others--Alyssa, Alaska, Coco, Detox, and Ivy--I don't have a good guess for Top Three, or even Top Four. The upcoming challenges will find unexpected ways to stymie the queens, and in particular, the Top Four Ball Challenge has always pushed the queens' mettle to the breaking point.

(If I was going to hand-pick my favorites for the top three at this moment, mine would be Jinkx, Ivy, and Alaska. That said, I don't think my personal preference has much influence over RuPaul's decisions, let alone the results of challenges filmed more than half a year ago.)

Unless she makes a unexpected turn to jackassery in the next few episodes, I think Jinkx will win Miss Congeniality. Her fan support online is massive, and she's getting an extremely sympathetic edit. This assumes, naturally, that the other queens' behavior and stories hold their course--it's entirely possible (and even likely) that another queen will have an episode that results in a surge of love from the fanbase.

So here we go again: RuPaul's Drag Race season five, Chapter Two. The next couple months are the main event.

The second half of this season is when we'll get to deeply know and love the final competitors. We're going to watch these seven queens develop lifetime friendships with each other, as well as fanbases that will follow them through their entire careers. As RuPaul herself said: I can't wait to see how this turns out.

I want to hear what you think! Leave a comment below and let me know your predictions, and follow me on Twitter and we'll talk about what's coming up. (The only request I have: I'm trying hard to avoid actual spoilers, the kind that come from queens' drag moms and loose-lipped cameramen. If you actually know what's going to happen, please don't tell me.) *thumbs up!*

Coming tomorrow: a deliciously GIFfy recap of "Can I Get an Amen?" Plus, I have prizes to give away to readers! Stay tuned, darlings.

Comments

[Pepper]

Long time reader, first time commenter

I could see Alaska making a push for Miss Congeniality (and not just cuz I love her) mostly because I see Jinkx making top 2. And Alaska has gotten a great edit as a fun underdog.

I think Jinkx and Alyssa could make a good top 2, just cuz I'm not big on Roxxxy's shtick.

[Vidur]

In the last two seasons, there has in my mind, been a clear winner/favorite from the first few episodes and they've gone on to win. I have yet to see that break-out queen just yet. They all seem so vanilla.

My personal favorite is Jinx but, she hasn't stood out for me yet like Raja or Sharon did right from the start. Also, they're editing her as the misunderstood/odd ball queen. They did something similar with Sharon but, it seemed to work so much better.

I may have a spot for Alaska only because of the Sharon angle (my all time favorite queen). Based on your analyses though, can easily see Roxxxy up there as well. Again, not a break-out yet but, she does consistently well (tied only with Ivy for points).

[MMH]

Wonderfully informative post. Thank you for putting this all together!!

*shudder* I truly hope Roxxxy does break the trend of the first challenge winner taking the crown. She seems to be an aggressive attention-seeking and dare I say ... mean spirited person. All fun and laughs until someone else wins the challenge. See Episode 6 with her disparaging remarks regarding Jinkx.

The hope I hold is that Ru returns to the Season 4 format where the "un-washed" masses take to Twitter and FB and vote for their favorite queen. *crossing fingers*

My top 2 picks are Jinkx and Alaska. I am enjoying the sisterhood they seem to be sharing right now through watching their various club appearances and youtube postings. The third spot, I can't muster up enough enthusiasm for a definitive choice but I'd be more inclined to leans towards Ivy and Alyssa rather than Roxxy and/or Detox. Which surprised me because I went into this season with high hopes for Detox.

Like you, I can't wait to see how things turn out!

[Cheronica Damila]

These stats are odd to me, because when watching the season (and maybe this is just my love for him interfering) Alaska seems like a definite frontrunner! I don't think, either, that he was "low" on Monday night's episode, since they was no top/bottom, and he did well in the challenge, they just gave him a critique. I REALLY hope Alaska pulls away from the pack soon, these stats have me worried! But even when Alaska does poorly (Draggle Rock) or is safe (ballet) he is still the standout! Hell, every episode Alaska has stood out! He was in the top the first week, made out with Detox the second, was OUT OF DRAG the third, made everyone die with laughter the fourth, was high the fifth, and got a new interesting underdog twist this week. I don't feel as though the stats reflect Alaska's performance in the competition!

[fearofphotography]

New reader/first time commenter here. Loving the recaps and analysis!
Right, so looking at the trends just for this season thus far, the top three will be Jinkx, Roxxxy and Ivy - they've had the most high/wins. I would be fine with that... as long as Roxxxy doesn't win. I am hoping for the vote again this series and if that happens I think it's unlikely Roxxxy will manage to take it out.
That said, obviously the stats don't necessarily mean anything so it'll be interesting to see. I really, really, really hope Jinkx makes top three though. I agree with MMH - Jinkx and Alaska are my ideal top two!

[Miguel]

I think Jinx is a really good queen, but Michelle Visage is bottering so much with that "you don't bring glam" that if she's not bringing it, she'll go home. Coco is maybe leaving next week, with Ivy or Alyssa on bottom 'cause none of them are funny. Alaska is maybe going to be at top 3, she was high first week; Ru called her attention last week because she wants to see more of her amazingness.

[Luce]

First time reader (kickass blog, btw!) here. I'm eating up your analysis with a spoon.

On the one hand, I *dread* the idea of Roxxxy winning Season 5. Truthfully, I don't think she's got the C, the U, the N or the T to earn the crown. Well, maybe the N (though, lately, the edits are making her look like she's too full of herself). I don't see Coco making it to top 3 either.

My ideal Top 3 would be Jinkx (a total surprise since I didn't warm up to her until the Snatch Game episode), Alaska and either Alyssa or Detox for the third spot. In a perfect world, Jinkx would win. She's got a refreshing personality that's kooky enough to come off as friendly and that has enough edge to keep it from becoming saccharine. :)

[eulogy]

OK First?

"There is a ”Fuck, we didn't realize Jinkx was gonna get the sympathetic edit” convention in Las Vegas happening right now."

I LIVE.

Now, Ugh Even though Jinkx has been the highest rank and never placed LOW... I'm having trouble envisioning her making it through the makeover or worse, the top 4 Ball challenge. So much outfitting. Sewing etc. My guess is it's not something she's really been that interested in judging from real life. Unless the others underperform, which, given Detox's inflated view of herself may happen. I can see her sending many of them home on a LSFYL, though.

On merit, I'm going for Jinkx, Ivy, Alaska. Deducting many points for having to sit through all the others' hours and hours of screaming, pagentry, pulling focus and boredom. I live for Heathers. This crew is just meh.

I appreciate Alyssa's fortitude and LOLZ but she is a pro conniver. Pulling psychological pageant tricks and I'm protective of Jinkx, who obviously never met these pageant girls who will cut a bitch. While she was busy working full time and graduating summa cum laude :). Coco is a lip sync sniper and that may just pull her through pretty high. I want to see her send Detox packing just for fun.

But by any measure, Jinkx Monsoon is a quadruple threat, sings, dances, acts, stand up, improv.

Anybody can buy clothing. (and a body, Detox.) Poor Alexis Matteo lol Michelle was gagging over Detox's body then we found out it was purchased and no pads required.

Notice I didn't mention Roxxxxy. I. Can. Not. Even.

But you may be right about that. She's being a bit cheeky on social media for a "loser" just like Phi2 was.

I can see this could be a season to give the win to either pageant or character queen. And we already had Sharon for character. groan.

Is Ru going to expand the children's consciousness with new things to think about and a performer or go with the cheap win exhaulting pop culture nobodies like this Tamar Braxton person and people who pose and lip sync?

Do you think there will be a top 3 deal like last year?

[DB]

For people who have been watching Jinxk perform for years or know her personally know that she is as sweet in real life as she is coming across on screen. She is 100% as kind and loving as she is being shown to be. I don't think she is getting an "edit" so much as it's hard not to fall in love with her. Obviously her real life friendship with Alaska speaks to her character as well. Personally I hope they both make the top 2. It would be nice to see positive drag role models.

[Miguel]

It has being spoiled to me that top 3 are Jinkx, Alaska and Roxxy. (I'm not saying they are my favourites). Also, Michelle Visage just said she has been very disappointed with one of the following eliminations on the show; one of the queens might be Detox or Alyssa 'cause Coco is going to be a little bit more on the show.

[Chuckie]

What a great analysis! I can see the top two showdown being between Roxy and Jinkx, with Alaska coming in third. Jinkx and Alaska are the only two remaining queens that have never lip synced and Jinkx is the only contestant that has never been in the bottom 3. I love Alaska and think she will be voted Ms. Congeniality but I think (at least based on her critiques) she has rode the middle the entire season.

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