‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Season 17 Power Rankings: Episode 5 — Live From the Main Stage, It’s RDR!

With RuPaul’s Drag Race bringing back their Rate-a-Queen system for season 17, Billboard decided to rate each of the new queens every week based on their performance. Below, we take a look at the show’s compilation album challenge to see how the queens performed in the first group challenge of the season. Spoilers ahead for episode 4.

With Saturday Night Live celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2025, it’s only fitting that the producers of RuPaul’s Drag Race would offer up their own homage to the sketch show’s storied history during season 17.

On Friday’s episode (aired Jan. 31), the 12 remaining queens on Drag Race were asked to create their own SNL-style sketch comedy revue, complete with references to some of the show’s iconic characters and segments. Each of the contestants were paired off into sketch groups and given roles to act out on the main stage.

Building on the success of the “RDR Live” acting challenge from season 16, this season’s rendition felt more firmly set on solid ground — the sketches written for the queens were genuinely funny, and each part came with plenty of room for scene-stealing among the 12 contestants. Of course, only one was rewarded for her efforts — Suzie Toot, becoming the first queen to earn two challenge wins this season, ran away with the episode from the moment Ru announced the acting challenge.

Meanwhile, a furious Arrietty found herself in the bottom after falling apart in her caveman-Karen cosplay, while Lydia B Kollins couldn’t land her Sophia Petrillo impression for a Golden Girls-themed sketch. In the showdown to Earth, Wind & Fire’s 1979 hit single “Boogie Wonderland,” Kollins pulled off one of the best lip syncs of the season so far, decisively defeating Arrietty and nearly sending her home. But, thanks to some good luck with the Badonka Dunk Tank, Arrietty managed to earn another week in the competition, meaning no one was going home after episode 5.

Below, Billboard takes a look back at episode 5 and ranks where our remaining contestants lie based on this episode and the season as a whole: