RuPaul's Drag Race Sixth Season Premiere: 7 Queens Enter, 7 More Enter Later...

RuPaul's Drag Race, Episode 1: "RuPaul's Big Opening"

RuPaul's Drag Race launched it's sixth(!) season premiere on Monday night and Ru went a different route.  Instead of introducing us to all 14 queens competing for the title of America's Next Drag Superstar all at once, she divided the group in half, so no queen got lost in the shuffle.  This is a good idea.  RDR has become something of a cultural phenomenon and it makes sense to spread the premiere love a little.  My issue was that the first seven queens they showcased were boring, annoying or both.  Only a couple showed the uniqueness, charisma, nerve and talent needed to snatch the crown from season five winner Jinkx Monsoon.  It was an interesting challenge with the queens tasked with serving face while flying through the air for their first photo mini challenge and then serving up some reality TV realness on the Main Stage.  It was kind of funny to see one of the categories being Duck Dynasty after their anti gay brouhaha a few months ago.  As Ru pointed out in an interview, they certainly don't agree with the Robertson's views, but it was much too late to do any sort of edits.

Now, I know it's ridiculously early, but let's judge!  After the jump, I've ranked these first seven queens from least to most likely to win it all.

7.  Kelly Mantle (pictured above)  Oh, Kelly we hardly knew ye.  It was dreadfully obvious from the start of the episode that you would probably be the first to go.  Your first mistake was comparing yourself to Willam, the other working actor cum drag racer that came before you.  Actually, your first mistake was that mug.  Seriously, girl, but all T all shade, what did your plastic surgeon do to you?  You need to get a refund.  And in your interviews, why was your face so red?  It looks like you got a botched chemical peel.  Kelly was presented with the television show Downton Abbey where she made a dress with a pink flower petal bodice and a green skirt, topped off with a ratty red haired wig.  According to Michelle Visage, it looked she had made her top out of bacon.  That's definitely not what you want to hear the judges to say.  After a lackluster lip sync to Madonna's "Express Yourself," Kelly became the first season six queen to sashay away.

6. Vivacious

It's not looking great for Kelly's bottom two cohort, self proclaimed "last New York City club kid," Vivacious.  Vi made quite the entrance into the work room with her alien head piece, but it went from "Oh that's kind of cool" to "oh that's kind of sad" in 2.5 when she couldn't get the flap covering her actual face to come undone.  Vivacious struggled with the challenge, trying to turn her horrible hemlined silver dress with the crow corsage into Game of Thrones cotoure.  (Sidebar:  One of my favorite parts of the show is when Ru critiques the girls prior to their Main Stage presentations.  He doesn't even try to hide his shock and dismay when a contestant is off the mark.  It always surprises me how some of the dolls stick to their guns, no matter how dismayed Mama Ru is.)  Vivacious made up for her lackluster performance by utilizing a pretty fierce runway walk and a lip sync for her life that had me gagging.  I worry about Vi, though.  I like her, but I worry that if she doesn't step it up she won't make it past episode 3.

5. Adore Delano

You may recognize young Adore from her brief stint on American Idol as Danny Noriega.  I will say one of the funniest moments of the premiere was when Adore referred to himself as a "lesbian Jonas Brother."  Unfortunately, it was all down hill basically from the time the turquoise haired beauty strolled into the work room like an X-rated Jade Jolie.  Adore just didn't seem to understand how this all worked.  It's pretty clear that Adore is out of her depth.  That outfit she wore on the runway.  Egads.  It looked like the sack dress that Ariel made when she first got legs.  And even though  Ru deemed her runway look "hideous," Adore was able to avoid the bottom two.  I think that Ru has a soft spot for this foul mouthed underdog, which may result in Adore sticking around longer than she may deserve to.

4.  Gia Gunn

You have to hand it to Ru.  Bitch can coin a catchphrase in a split second just like he did with G-g-gia.  It's too bad that Gia is so insufferable.  Seriously.  Even the judges picked up on her annoying attitude.  What was the deal with her saying "Absolutely" after everything the judges said, positive or negative?  It didn't even make sense.  It's like the bitch was on autopilot.  Gia is fishing but when it comes to her personality she is serving trout.  Dead trout.  No one is rooting for you Gia, including the judges.  If you don't become a smidge more likeable then you may be headed home prematurely.

3.  April Carrion

April made an impressive entrance into the work room, donning a Boy Scout/Air Force costume and dragging a parachute behind her.  There's no question that April is stunning.  That face!  Yaaaasss!  She is beautiful and it's no suprise that guest judge Adam Lambert was so smitten with her.  I loved it when Ru declared that Adam wanted to fuck April.  She also had arguably the hardest television show to try to interpret with Duck Dynasty.  It's hard to make plaid high fashion, but April pulled it off.  April seems to really like to play on masculine and feminine elements, but she may want to stick to feminine while she is in the race.  It's pretty  obvs that Ru is not a fan of drag queens looking anything but girly, evidenced by her disdainful look when April mentions tailoring a high waisted pant for her runway look during her work room critique or Ru's comment about not covering her buzzed hair during her runway crititque with the judges.  If April is able to keep it ladylike, she has a strong chance of joining the other illustrious queens who have hailed from Puerto Rico.

2.  Laganja Estranja 

Laganja made quite the entrance into the work room.  She dead dropped, not once, but twice.  I have to say, I am a little numb to those, because every queen looking to make an impression does that.  So, I wasn't really impressed, at first.  Then, Laganja performed very well in the mini challenge, putting up the best picture by far.  Laganja could be a dark horse in the competition. She fumbled a little bit in the main challenge, but she seems open to the critiques and willing to improve.  If she continues to listen to the judges and grow, she could make it all the way to the top.

1. Ben DeLaCreme

If I'm being honest, I didn't have high hopes for Ben when he manically burst into the workroom.  My opinions on DeLa changed pretty significantly when she performed very well in the mini challenge.  If she would have been able to be more "dancerly" (was it just me or did you want to beat Mike Ruiz to death with his camera every time he said that word?) he might have won both challenges.  Ben lucked out being given The Golden Girls by Laganja.  It was right up his alley and Ben was serving cheesecake, literally and figuratively.  The resemblance to Michelle Visage is uncanny and I can't really figure out if he was being serious when he acted like he was surprised about it.  Could a quirky queen win two years in a row?  Maybe.

So, what did you guys think?  Were you a little underwhelmed?  Excited to meet the rest of the queens?  Let me know in the comments.