Now THAT was a satisfying conclusion. The brilliance of last night's finale can be summed up in the following words, taken from the first stanza of Bebe Zahara Benet's rap contribution to RuPaul's new music video: "Face! Face! Face! I give face, beauty face!" GENIUS.

And as a result of that genius, and because of her fierce performance in Ru's video for "Cover Girl" (her best track since "Supermodel"; download it for your gym playlist now), and because of that amazing gown she wore to the final runway, and because of her hysterical lip synch performance, and because she is just generally awesome, Bebe WON! Camerooooooon!

It's funny; my feelings about Bebe pretty much mirror my feelings about this show. She was virtually nonexistent in the first couple episodes - I don't even remember her saying anything of note - and then exploded on to the scene during the Oprah challenge. That was right about when the show went from dull and cheap-looking to good campy fun, eventually maturing into relentlessly entertaining, compulsory pop-culture viewing. I stand by all of my criticisms of the early episodes, but am pleased to see how the series, and its stars, blossomed during the run. Season 2 cannot come soon enough.

Bebe's win was well deserved, but it left me sad for Nina Flowers, my initial favorite who made it through the entire show maintaining her dignity and good nature. It had to have been a tough choice between the two of them, but ultimately, I think Bebe is a better winner. Nina is such an artist, and does such an unusual type of drag, that she won't be everyone's cup of tea. Bebe's probably a better drag ambassador. And I'm sure Nina won't be hurting for gigs now that this has wrapped. She's America's drag sweetheart, having won the viewer-selected Miss Congeniality award.

That left poor Rebecca Glassock, who I think was unfairly painted as the villain of the series once genuine bitch Akashia got the boot. Jade and Shannel frequently talked about how fake and manipulative Rebecca was, but we never really saw any of that. That said, she showed off a pretty terrible attitude in the finale, crapping all over Nina and Bebe's lovefest, holding up the video shoot, complaining about just about everything, and making some pretty thoughtless comments about her competitors. I have to think that at least some of the stank was enhanced by editing. She may have been no match for Bebe and Nina, but if you look at the last three eliminations, I think you'd have a hard case arguing that she got through due to some kind of favoritism, as several of the queens have implied. She was immune in the fighter-makeover challenge, and Ongina lost that lip synch fair and square to Bebe; Shannel basically threw the competition away with her BS antics in her departure episode. Rebecca was outclassed, and probably a bit of a shit, but hardly worth the vitriol that came her way as part of the reunion.

And, oh, that reunion. I only caught half of it because I was way behind on my editing, but the queens came with claws bared. Jade and Shannel took to Rebecca like she was some kind of falsie-festooned pi�ata. Jade is just kind of...lame, so really, who cares what she has to say? But Shannel... I get that the diva thing is part of her character. And she certainly has the talent to back it up. But she came off like a bitter old hag at the reunion last night, calling out people left and right for perceived slights against her. Her histrionics did her no favors, and she lost a great deal of my respect, especially when she told Rebecca that Rebecca didn't beat her; Shannel let her win the lip synch. Yuck. She also confirmed what we all suspected, that her big "breakthrough" moment where the snake headdress fell off during "Greatest Love of All" was totally planned to show her vulnerable side. Weren't you the one calling out Rebecca for being fake and playing the game? Ugh, Shannel. Just stop.

Oh, who am I kidding? This is the stuff I wanted all season long! Let's hope that in Season 2 the queens actually live a house together, so they can get on their nerves faster and we get some drama prior to Episode 4. In the meantime: "Cameroooooooon!"