from left to right: Aquaria, Asia O'Hara, Eureka, Kameron Michaels

The last regular episode of "RuPaul's Drag Race" S10 aimed to paint each of the final four queens in the most flattering light, giving them their dues, and allowing the public a chance to root for all of them. I fully believe that each one of them would be a deserving winner. But Eureka will take the crown.

Starting with Asia O'Hara, she was an early favourite of mine. She showed an original and joyful sense of style and knew how to carry her looks — who can forget the fringe-blowing that accompanied her Tweety Pie outfit? She then proved a flair for comedy early on in the Butterface challenge (yes, she bombed in Snatch Game, but they wouldn’t let her do her first choice Whitney Houston, and who knows how amazing that could have been?)

Asia O'Hara, as Tweety Pie

Most attractive, however, is her maturity. To use a term frequented by Alright Mary, she's the adult in the room. She's the one who talks sense, who shows a motherly compassion, and whose passion for drag is most palpable. Maybe being mature doesn’t sound so exciting for reality TV, but for me, she's the queen who I'd like to be if I did drag. Who better therefore to carry the legacy of winning Drag Race? She remains my personal favourite of the final four, but who cares what I think? Asia won't win.

Next comes Aquaria, the queen who on paper should absolutely win S10. Everybody knew she could paint and that she could turn a look, but who knew she could do comedy (winning Snatch Game and fully deserving it too), could act, could sing, could dance, could do anything they asked of her? But it's clear that they don't want to give Aquaria the crown. Otherwise they'd have just crowned her last week. It's like how they absolutely didn't want to give Shea Coulée the win, concocting a lipsync-off as a way to justify that the numbers did not matter. However, they at least had the kindness to use last week's episode to make Aquaria look both flawless and humble, rather than finding a way to edit the scraps of filming into something less flattering, so that we'd be okay with her not winning (though really it's quite likely that Aquaria simply didn't give even one second of film time where she didn't slay).

Aquaria, in her Luchador look

Aquaria won’t win. The problem is partly youth. Adults have a bad habit of being patronising to younger people. Yet Aquaria constantly reveals her intelligence, making a fool of anyone who'd even try to to talk down to her. So even if the judges give her the props she deserve on camera, they still don't respect her enough to consider letting her win. Unfortunately, adults also like to condescend to young people in the sense that they think it's OK to not provide them with opportunities, either because they think it can't possibly mean as much to them or because they placate themselves by claiming that they still have time for success later… "She'll be fine, she's got a whole career ahead of her", "She doesn't need this crown", "She can always do All-Stars". It's all bullsh*t and it's not fair. But then adults also like telling kids over and over that life isn't fair, even though there's no damn reason why it can't be!

Next we have Kameron Michaels, who was fully expected to leave after last week's episode, but after being the top performer in the challenge (or at least second best), there was simply no way to justify sending her home. More than for anyone else, last week's episode was about making viewers fall in love with Kameron. It was about making them understand why she still deserved to be there. I applaud that the show did this for her.

Kameron Michaels, doing "Miami summer realness"

Personally I'd love a Kameron win. Part of what we're supposed to relate to in Eureka — being chastised for being different, being made to feel out of place — applies to Kameron too. She was introduced as this "hot guy", this "muscle queen", the sort of guy that queer kids are supposed to be afraid of in high school, and the sort of guy that queer men are supposed to be intimidated by at the bar. But while Kameron has a look that might open doors, his introversion is a quality that is still very derided and misunderstood (I relate to this, which is perhaps why I have an extra squishy soft spot for her). But facts are facts, she slayed across the board. Her only fail came when she was required to not be herself. I'm speaking specifically about the Evil Twins challenge (where she was expected to treat her introversion as a weakness and then apologise for it). As for the Makeover and Breastworld challenges, I think she performed absolutely fine.

Kameron also won't win. It's not because the numbers are against her — again, if numbers mattered, Shea Coulée would have won S9. It's because America isn't ready to understand the marginalisation of people due to personality types. Remember last year the way they treated Nina Bonina Brown, as if she could just snap out of her feelings? As if the way she felt was invalid, ridiculous, and simply annoying? Being quiet, shy, needing alone time, not being the life of the party… these things are OK, but if people are not ready to understand depression or anxiety, they're sure not ready to understand something like introversion… I can hear RuPaul's voice now — "Kameron, it's not your time."

Moving on to Eureka, I had dismissed her early on. I felt like her return after S9 was simply payback by the show, acknowledging responsibility for her injury. I expected that it was all written in a contract — she’d be allowed to stay for perhaps six episodes, and then everyone would be square. However, by episode 5 she’d won a main challenge, that one where she played a sexy baby. Then the following week in the Drag Con challenge she won again. While most emphasise the sexy baby as her big moment, this was where I stood up and took notice.

Eureka, as a sexy baby

As a Drag Con panelist, she exuded charm, charisma, professionalism, and most crucially, confidence. She made it look so easy. And it made me feel that Eureka had finally proven herself and that as long as she could keep her poise, she would be unstoppable. Where Eureka falters however is in a lack of maturity, shown last week when she couldn’t read that Kameron genuinely didn’t want to sing. But who said that the winner of Drag Race needs to be perfect? After all, doesn't Eureka prove that you can be beautiful and loveable despite being loud, fat, and effeminate? Also, we should remember that people can make mistakes, and it's our choice to forgive them. Not that Eureka really did anything wrong when she was taunting Kameron — she just didn't understand that what she was doing wasn't appropriate. She'll figure it out. She still just twenty-seven.

Eureka will win. Remember that Drag Race isn't a numbers game, and even if it was, Eureka would be right behind Aquaria. But there are other clues beyond a count of wins and losses that reveals the show is leading to a win for Eureka. Remember when she lipsynced against Kameron and Ru declared a "shanté you both stay?" Watch it as many times as you like — this was not a double-shanté moment (that was Dusty Ray Bottoms v. Monet X Change by the way). But the show could not let her go. And remember just last week? If that was a normal episode, Eureka would have been in the bottom two, and Asia would have sent her home. But again, the show kept her, because they have big plans for her.

I'm ok with that. In some ways I think it's what we need (I'll remind you here that all of the queens will be fine in their careers regardless of any crown). I usually watch Drag Race in a local gay bar, and I am always shocked by the amount of grunts I hear from audience members when Eureka comes on screen. And while I know I shouldn't read comments, many against Eureka are shockingly vile. If you think such sentiment is nothing to do with the way she looks, you're simply wrong. In my own work as maker of Elska Magazine, a publication that features men of all types, where you're as likely to see someone who looks like Kameron as someone who looks like Eureka, I often see people make negative comments about those who look more like Eureka. I also see more copies sold when we do features on guys who look more like Kameron. Yet I totally believe that both are beautiful, and equally so. That's why I continue to publish different types of men, with the belief that with more exposure, others will see that beauty too. So, in that spirit, it's about time for a big girl to win. They all deserve the crown, but this is Eureka's time.

All images lovingly borrowed from the internet.