by J †Johnson, Staff Writer 

Dragula: Season 666
A Boulet Brothers’ Dragula Season 666 Serial Commentary
Episode 10 “The Grand Finale”
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“I can be happy.”
—Asia Consent 

“I have to go stupid / I have to go camp.”
—Auntie Heroine

“I love shiny shit.”
—Grey Matter 

From last week’s commentary:

 Notice, also, the way she takes the stage for judgment, like she has already won. Because she has.

This was a plant, and a reminder to ourselves of what we already knew about Asia Consent. And yet, the magic of the show, which shows us what already happened, is that anything can happen. Anyone can win, until Dracmorda says, “Even Grey could win!” We haven’t had a true kiss of death since week 3—when the Boulets told Desiree Dik she belongs on Dragula, then eliminated her—so it was a kick, but it also feels like all those moments when you realize something isn’t happening before it hasn’t happened. It’s a sinking feeling, a trapdoor to the underworld, that has its own allure in a supernal world where most of what we want doesn’t come to us.

Grey Matter had a good run and put together a fantastic final floorshow. They held their category, Horror (3 Faces of Death), and threatened to steal Filth (Tubby Pigcow) and Glamour (Sparkle Goblin). They were right there, and if we were judging only by week 10, they might have taken the day.  

And look, we’re Asia fans, happy to see her totally inevitable triumph. But we also want to see the less likely thing happen. It’s a commercial world, and people like Asia aren’t frontrunners in that world. But in the Dragula world, we knew she had it locked from like week 3 (even in week 4, when Asia’s Ghost Train look was a little off, we watched her sway on that locomotive and noted, “no one can beat Asia”). And sure, we’re swept along in Grey’s episode 10 breakout interview, with all that talk of a world after gender where drag could show the way. Like, the next step after dragging gender difference might be dragging us past gender differentiation. Not here though, not now.

Except that Asia is also helping us move on from what we were given. We get to choose ourselves. We get to be what we know we are, regardless of what we’re told. It’s a small detail, perhaps, but a glimpse of Asia’s untrimmed underarm hair during her Glamour runway was everything to us. We knew she had this, but that’s when we knew it for real. Asia is our queen.

And so is Auntie Heroine. They wear the crown slant as we tell all truth. This top three is as queer as they’ve come, but it’s been a queer season, and that’s what makes Dragula Dragula. We are given a vision of drag that is old as drag itself, and as forward looking as the world we might like to build. That radical vision is not inherent to drag, because the radical future is beyond exaggeration or criticality and maybe even imagination. To have that world beyond this one, we need to be different than we are and have been together. Drag can show us that, but only if it sees itself outside the World That Is from a position inside it. It’s an impossible perspective only the bravest among us can model: not the avant-garde, but the fighter within. We can’t get ahead of ourselves. We must lead from inside our most intimate attachments. Drag radicals know this, always. Watch Asia and Grey and Auntie lead us forward from where we all are.

We need to revisit our own motivations. We watch this show like we watch other drag shows: for the attitude. And that attitude is not necessarily revolutionary, but it is inherently critical. And it’s at the sharp boundary between assessment and takedown where we might find something beyond the miserable present, if only we don’t litter the field with bodies and broken minds. We don’t need to take each other out to make us all better, even as we seek individual and collective excellence.

This is easy to forget as we stir the cauldron. But it’s also a kitchen where we work shit out. In the cauldron we are witches, and if we are witches, we are witches together, making and remaking the world.

Thrown bones:

† Our floorshow score card looks something like this:

Filth: Asia holds her category, shitting herself onto the stage, with strong shows from Grey’s Milk Cow Bather and Auntie’s Prolapse Ghoul with the Most Cake. Auntie has the best story arc, but the manic animal weirdness of Grey and the total commitment and Big Shit Energy of Asia outshine Auntie’s relatively muted longing, even though they eat worms and snuggle their parasite.

Horror: Our initial notes say “Grey holds / no competition,” but we do find Asia’s Tormented Soul affecting (though Nina Bo’nina Brown describing the look as a demon hanging her while she tries to do homework is instant canon), and Auntie’s Mars Attacks! moves are strong. Grey’s Hellraiser floorshow has no swing, but the gestures are deliberate and effective, and the staging and reveal are deadly.

Glamour: We initially scored this a three-way tie, and subsequent watches leave us torn between Grey’s lush Fancy Couch Fantasy and Asia’s Bone Spider Queen. Auntie not only fails to hold their category, but might have placed third. Ow!

Our first tally gave a slight edge overall to Grey, but after a few more viewings, we can see Asia taking Filth, stealing Glamour, and showing well in Horror. Grey takes Horror, shows well in Filth and Glamour. Auntie has three strong but not winning looks and brings glamour to all of them while ceding the Glamour category. Asia deserves her crown, which she holds onto for dear life as she is doused with buckets and buckets of blood. She also seems to unhinge her jaw during her victory scream. It rules and so does she.

† In retrospect, through the lens of the finale, Grey’s role seems to have been to set a standard for character design and craft, to raise the bar for everyone. It’s easy to say after the fact that it was inevitable Grey would not and could not win—not because of their own shortcoming but because of the part they are cast—but in terms of show construction and presentation, everything is inevitable, so maybe that feeling is programmed in, as it were.

† On the Boulets’ Creatures of the Night podcast episode 10 postmortem, Dracmorda puts it well when she says Auntie is at odds with herself as a competitor (we are paraphrasing): She is a moderator and an antagonist. It’s awkward but real, and we love seeing real people’s real contradictions play out in performance. During Auntie’s breakout backstory segment, we linger with the camera on the Auntie Heroine chest tattoo. It reads differently when Auntie is not in drag (or it reads differently in drag, where it’s mise on abyme amplification vs. other selfing). We see them as they like to see themselves. In Auntie’s words, they shine through. But we are not our image, even if our image is true, because we are not coherent subjects. We are complex, many selved. Drag personas simplify this in a sense, suggesting two selves, one of which is superheroic, writ large. Dragula challenges this duality, asking drag artists to run that stamped image through many variations, extending our sense of ourselves without losing our essential spirit and character. Auntie is turned up and turned out in drag and brings the person through while following them back out of drag to give them the gift of seeing themselves outside themselves. If we can empathize with ourselves, maybe we can see others more clearly, love them as well as we learn to love ourselves better.

† Asia is a champion for queer Black trans nerds, an intersection that could actually heal us if we are open to that. It’s not Asia’s job to fix us: We have to put our own hearts back together, mend our own souls. But Asia inspires us to embrace our own mess and look out for our friends while making more of them. The joy we feel in our enthusiasms is the energy we must bring to make the world a place to live as well as die. Asia played a game she loves with fearlessness and relish, and brought a nastiness to her drag that did not corrupt her personality. Drag artists will learn from her example, and we hope other artists will as well. We can be the shit without being an asshole.

† What is Drag? ends up being an emergent theme of this season, and Dragula’s answers to this question are unique in the world of drag. In part it has to do with all the non-binary gender presentation and she/he/they drag pronouns in this cast. And it’s also about a philosophical and practical approach to the art that may well be rooted in the wild card cast selection. Remember, these were all names with question marks next to them in the Boulets’ little black book, and instead of adding one of them to this season’s cast, the Boulets cast them all. Their fuck-it move paid off not just in general chaos and weirdness, but in unique perspectives on the art of drag.  

This season has underscored the ways drag isn’t just about exaggerated displays of femininity, but of bigness and exaggeration itself, and dress-up in general. Further, there’s something in the act of drag that involves transforming yourself into something you aren’t that is closer to what you are. We think again of Auntie’s tattoo, which makes more sense when they’re out of drag—or let’s say dressed down, because we never see Auntie in something that wouldn’t bring delight if you passed them on the street. Drag is something beyond stagecraft: an unexpected, highly deliberate, supremely confident attitude and approach to self-presentation. Maybe that elaborate, outlandish display of confidence, even when it’s aspirational, can carry over to bring us comfort and help us take heart when we doubt ourselves and question the universe in drab sweatpants and an old T-shirt.

Consider, also, Grey’s grey streak, which he’s said is a reminder of his sobriety, but we can also read as a scar of the exposed brain Grey always shows in drag. That grey streak gets dragged when Grey sees themselves as a powerful monster, and perhaps that capacity comes back to them in their daily life. The drag gaze is not objectifying: Drag artists show us how to see them as they see themselves. OK, so there’s all that, and there’s also the linguistic act of dragging someone or something, which is to critically, eloquently, precisely, fiercely read the world. And this cast has proven itself floridly capable in this regard.

† We finally made it out to Pi’s watch party upstairs at Strangelove’s in Philly, and what a night it was! Season 5’s Jay Kay was the guest, and Season 5’s Onyx Ondyx was a surprise guest. We told Jay Kay we miss Recapitation and encouraged them to bring it back (in queer time you are always on time). We might have also blurted out I LOVE YOU, which they kindly de-escalated with a hug. And we told Pi that we are Team Pi, but didn’t get into our Theory About Their Extermination (see our week 9 commentary). We do have some restraint. All kinds of secret shit happened at the party, but one thing we will reveal is that Jay Kay still has some kitty lives in reserve. At one point they tore down the runway/aisle, slid into the balustrade, and pretty much burst into flames but popped right up unscathed. Here’s hoping you too come through our season in hell on your hooves and throwing horns.