RuPaul's Drag Race season 16 episode 15: Recap and more details explored

Episode 15 of RuPaul's Drag Race season 16 brought with it the "LaLaPaRuZa Smackdown," which had the eliminated contestants of the season compete for a $50,000 prize on April 12. With the finale episode around the corner, the top three queens, Nymphia Wind, Sapphira Cristál, and Plane Jane, took a backseat as special guests and supported their former co-stars' performances.

With season 16 of RuPaul's Drag Race coming to an end, episode 15 replicated what the show did with season 14 and All Stars seasons 7 and 8. The rules were simple: the former queens had to lip-sync their way to the win.

After each performer gave it their all to win something this season, the episode concluded on a grand note. Morphine Dion Love took the title home after outperforming the rest of the 10.

---

What happened on LaLaPaRuZa lip-sync battles on RuPaul's Drag Race season 16?

The episode was divided into three rounds, with each one reducing the queens to sift out a winner. As part of the first round of the competition, the show had one selected queen choose a lip-sync partner at random, who would in turn pick the song to lip-sync at. The loser among the two would be eliminated.

The final lip sync of this round had the three remaining queens competing against each other, and the winner would directly be sent to round three.

Round two would have the winners of Round one compete in the same way. Round three had the number of queens reduced to three, which meant one random queen chose to compete with the other and the remaining queen went directly to the final round to compete with the winner of Round three.

---

How did Morphine Dion Love pave her way to winning the $50,000 prize on RuPaul's Drag Race season 16?

Dawn chose her best friend Amanda Tori Meating in a smart strategy to ensure at least one of them proceeded to Round Two. Amanda won as she chose Damaged by Danity Kane to lip-sync to.

Then came Q, who chose to compete with a comparatively weaker contestant, Megami. However, tables turned on Q as Megami selected What About by Janet Jackson and won the first round.

This left Morphine Dion Love to choose from the six remaining strong contestants. She made the best move by opting for Geneva Karr, who, although considered tricky for lip syncs because of her history, still seemed conquerable to Morphine. Geneva confidently went with Million Dollar Baby by Ava Max but lost to the creative moves of Morphine.

Morphine Dion Love was sent straight to the final round after her Round Two win against Mirage on the song This Time I Know It's for Real by Donna Summer. After her Round Three win against Mhi'ya Iman Le'Paige on the song We Got the Beat by The Go-Gos, Megami joined Morphine in the final round.

Morphine was the clear, strong contender of the two because of her lip-sync experience on RuPaul's Drag Race. She had a reputation for sending Xunami Muse, Mhi'ya Iman Le'Paige, and Dawn packing in the regular season before biting the dust herself, so standing against Megami, who got eliminated the very first time she hit the lip sync on the show, Morphine seemed stronger.

RuPaul chose the song Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) by C+C Music Factory for the final round. Megami gave a humorous take to her performance, which had worked for many in the past but didn't work for her as Morphine killed it with her dance moves and took the $50,000 home.

---

The finale episode 16 of RuPaul's Drag Race season 16 will air on Friday, April 19, on MTV at 8 p.m. ET.