‘Drag Race’ Finale: A Queen Is Crowned After One Finalist’s Epic Fail

Spoiler alert: This post contains spoilers from the finale episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 10. Proceed with caution.

After a season of Vanjie chants and Vixen rants, the historic 10th season of RuPaul’s Drag Race has officially come to an end. And in an edge-of-your-seat finale, RuPaul crowned New York queen Aquaria as America’s Next Drag Superstar.

The final episode used the same format that Ru originated in Season 9, which found the final four contestants lip-syncing against each other in one final showdown for the crown.

Asia, Aquaria, Eureka, and Kameron came out in new costumes to spin the wheel to decide who would perform first, and one thing was suddenly certain — these queens had some reveals planned. (Aquaria was literally in a giant silver bag with no arms showing, so no extra points for surprising us.)

The first queens to face off were Kameron Michaels and Asia O’Hara, performing to Janet Jackson’s “Nasty.” While Kameron’s reveal involved taking off her robe to show off a skimpy bodysuit, Asia put in a little more creativity. The queen had butterflies hidden in her outfit, unleashing them throughout the song. Unfortunately, it went terribly, terribly wrong.

Every time she took off a piece of her outfit to set the butterflies free, they didn’t fly away. Instead, they simply fell to the ground. And the audience noticed. A shot of Monique Heart staring at the stage in horror said it all.

At that moment, Asia’s dreams of becoming the winner of Season 10 crashed to the ground harder than those butterflies. And that meant Kameron Michaels continued to be the surprise lip-sync assassin of the season, as she moved to the finale.

Next, we had Aquaria and Eureka lip syncing to Janet Jackson’s “If.” Aquaria’s reveal came immediately, when she took off her silver pouch and revealed a bodysuit made of spikes. Not sure what the point of the reveal was since it happened so instantly, was so obviously going to happen, and nothing exciting appeared. But, okay!

Meanwhile, Eureka took off her wig and had two different costumes underneath her original outfit. It was all fun, but the sad thing is, none of the reveals or performances came close to the shock and awe of  Sasha Velour‘s rose petal reveal from last season, except for Asia’s butterfly concept. Except it didn’t work.

As for their performance, Aquaria and Eureka both equally turned the party, so it was completely unclear who the winner would be. But Ru clearly agreed, announcing, “Shantay, you both stay!” They both deserved it, but this must have made things sting even more for Asia.

Before the final lip sync, Ru announced that it was time to reveal the winner of Miss Congeniality. But because of some hacker interference in the fan voting process, she decided to have the other queens of Season 10 vote instead. I was just telling everyone who would listen that this is the way it should be done because it’s the only way to avoid a “fan favorite” winner, and only the queens really know who was the most congenial behind the scenes.

Luckily, Ru listened to my thoughts and announced that the queens voted for Monét X Change to be crowned Miss Congeniality. This was no surprise to me, as every queen I asked on the red carpet said Monét deserved the title. Congrats, Sponge Queen!

But the good cheer quickly dissipated and things got serious as it became time for the final three-way lip sync, set to the sounds of Jessie J’s “Bang, Bang.”

Aquaria instantly set off sparklers as the song began (she clearly has a hard time building up to a surprise), and the rest was a chaotic scene of splits and death drops. But it was clear that all the girls brought everything they had.

But only one could walk away with the crown. And so, RuPaul announced that Aquaria was the official winner of Season 10. Which means Eureka and Kameron were runners-up, and Asia was left behind in fourth place.

With All Stars 3 leading right into Season 10 earlier this year, we’ve spent a lot of time together over the last few months discussing our Drag Race obsession. But all good things must come to an end. Don’t worry, though, we’ll be here next year when Season 11 debuts (hopefully with Miss Vanjie as a contestant). But for now, are you happy with the results of tonight’s finale? Sound off on Twitter and let us know!