Has Paramount+ done a deal with the dairy industry? What is this season’s milk budget?

This episode is a testament to the fact we should let the queens write their own material more often.

Jiggly, Catch Ya Later

In the wake of Jiggly’s departure, Ginger is feeling a little guilty for having voted to eliminate her – mostly based on the fact Yara did have a better track record having won the previous episode. I’m sure a little part of her having A Moment was to distance herself from the fact that one of the remaining queens had obviously voted to eliminate Yara, showing a profound lack of social awareness on Trinity’s part, who was said queen. Her reasoning is pretty sound, I’d also be a bit pissed if a competitor spent the entire day lounging around, being a little annoying and then whipping up a very rudimentary gown, knowing they could have done something more elaborate had they put more effort in.
The others are all naturally a little sus on in it though because it does come across a little bit like she did it just because Yara would have eliminated her last week. Either way, neither Yara or Trinity were particularly hell bent on holding a grudge over it – this year’s cast are too nice for that, were this season 4 or 5, there would be BLOOD! I’m excited for this season because there seems to be a lot more cases of left field voting, the previous seasons were always quite unanimous in their decisions. Next week’s opening should be… interesting to say the least.

A Bit on the Side

Sadly we’re skipping a mini challenge this week, unless we want to consider the queens having to line themselves up in height order a challenge? Mostly just thrilled that Kylie is a confirmed Tall Girl (the representation means a lot to me) and Eureka, as expected towers over everyone by nearly an entire foot

I am very annoyed that this was the best wide shot they gave us of everyone lined up, like guys… Where is the coverage?

Our first team, The International House of Short Stacks, is Ginger, A’keria, Jan and Silky

They’re doing an advert for a Rent-a-Queen service, based on hiring out drag queens for social engagement AND DEFINITELY NOTHING ELSE.

The second team, Just a Medium Please, is Trinity, Pandora, Yara and Ra’Jah

They’ll be making an advert for a Drag Fixers agency who were prompted to deal with scandals in the same vein as Olivia Pope, which they very quickly disregard entirely, mostly I’m sure because Pandora has absolutely never watched Scandal in her life. While we’re here, shout out to Yara’s outfit that makes her look like she’s going to every single Pride event.

The last and final team: The Tall Queen Alliance, is Kylie, Scarlet and Eureka

Who are going to be Drag Exorcists for the day. Yeah, at some point the pre-production brainstorm meeting got away from them.

Despite the teams being chosen entirely arbitrarily, it worked out phenomenally well with every team ending up with a queen that focuses more on comedy, or at least with experience of being a good team leader, and it meant this was a pretty solid challenge for everyone.

Rent-a-Queen

This group’s biggest sin was that they just had too many ideas and seemingly the only one they cut was A’keria’s bizarre idea to twerk with a turkey in her pants

which I fully believe they only cut because production refused to try and source a turkey prop in time for a challenge where seemingly the only props they were given were a table and some flowers if you’re lucky, which the queens tried their best to turn into a funereal vista

Unfortunately the only queen to notice that they were seemingly putting on a 4 woman production of a new modern American classic play was Silky who is so traumatised by the way she was treated on Season 11 for being even slightly disagreeable that she just took a backseat and blithely agreed to play 4 parts with a total of 3 lines, one of which was just Woman Sleeping

Personally, I feel like that’s a role I was born to play.
I was surprised that Jan, the Theatre Kid Infested With Bees, wasn’t the one taking all the roles and instead stuck to a conservative two, the first of which was… beauty influencer Margaret Thatcher?

I have to say, I did really love all of their Conservative QVC presenter outfit that border on churchgoing, I thought they all looked kind of cute if maybe like they were all wildly different denominations

A’keria’s is a particularly stand out, unfortunately for her she fumbled her lines a little bit but given how much that’s thrown queens off in the past, she recovered very well and still gave a perfectly good performance as the mourning rental to Jan’s bereaved 90s boyband member

I thought this scene was one of the strongest in the whole show, A’keria telling Jan to “butch up” the crying and then Jan just shouting “FUCK! THIS IS SO SAD!” has lived in my mind rent free for the last 24 hours.
I think they could have really played up the Buy In Bulk gag, it didn’t read very well, but God did I love Silky’s preparedness to just launch herself onto the ground at a moment’s notice

God knows she did it enough times on Season 11

Silky Nutmeg Ganache thrives within the Crash Mat Queen genre.
Ginger was also very good, she should maybe have edited the whole thing down a bit, as she seemed to be the Unofficial Team Leader but the commercial wasn’t nearly as big a clusterfuck as it absolutely could have been in less capable hands. Also the Richard Slimmons voice is going to make her a small fortune on Cameo and I love that for her.
And whoever came up with the list of things they cover needs a medal,

“Astacology – that’s the study of crawfish!” is a joke after my own heart.

Fix-it, Bitch!

Where the Rent-a-Queen team failed, this team really excelled – they realised that not everyone needed their own individual scenario and that they could get away with just Trinity and Yara mostly mugging to camera while Pandora and Ra’Jah emceed the whole thing.
There were other things that threatened to take the team under, mostly the fact Yara seems to be entirely adverse to spending more than 2 minutes sitting down

but once again, when Yara needs to pull it out, she pulls it out and she was very funny, I’m glad they workshopped the whole joke about farting while tucked but not even Yara was a match for the torrent of entirely memeable looks to camera that Trinity pulled off in the span of their 2 minute advert

It’s a good brand to have!
My favourite part of the entire thing though was the fact footwear retailer ShoesForQueens.com, that’s ShoesForQueens.com, paid to be featured in this episode and then the one point where they were displayed prominently was as a joke about how badly Trinity’s shoes fitted her

It’s the kind of advertising that money just can’t buy.
Pandora and Ra’Jah were very much supporting cast to Yara and Trinity but Pandora does have to be commended for seemingly being a great team leader and this was her challenge to lose considering she works as an advertising and promo designer. And Ra’Jah, well she was just $20k richer and looking fabulous

I will never not stan her.

The Exor-Size Queens

I wasn’t sure how well a team made up of Scarlet, Kylie and Eureka would go – mostly because we don’t know if Eureka is in full Showboating Mode or not, Scarlet’s acting challenge repertoire is both very good, extending to a joint win for Good God Girl, Get Out! And yet she did the whole infamously cursed Church of Mariah challenge as though she was the ghost of a jellyfish taking over a televangelist. And Kylie, well she was just nervous that Eureka mentioned the word “improv”, which would have sent shivers down my spine too but I get what Eureka meant about not getting too stuck in your head if you say a line slightly wrong.
The three of them actually worked really well together, Kylie maybe lacked a little bit of energy but it’s hard to out perform Scarlet Envy in the role of slightly vapid airhead – it’s truly the role she was born to play. I actually think some of their outtakes were funnier than the final video, like Scarlet not knowing what a crunch is and also forgetting to walk off camera with Kylie

I am glad Michelle stepped in to reword the line about your first born being an optional payment method – for once in an acting challenge Michelle was actually useful and correct! I will just ignore The Hilarious Ross Matthews whose contributions surmounted only to bad jokes that I could have predicted coming two weeks ago.
And then there was Eureka who was really going all out as a possessed roast chicken

The whole thing did get a little messy around this point, whether it’s the queens’ fault or the camera coverage of the possession scene, it was just a little garbled and frenetic but I’ve got to say, I love that Eureka showed up again at the end, in full possession makeup, covered in fake vomit but in a cute outfit

That’s high camp.

Everyone Loves a Rudemption Arc

I think my favourite runway in an All Stars season is the Rudemption Runway and I think they should make it a requirement for every All Stars season – I’m still mad that All Stars 4 Monique never got to redo her mermaid costume.

First up this time was Kylie who didn’t really have any runway fails in her season and so was redoing her Lady Gaga Snatch Game look and was just straight up wearing the same BCALLA outfit that Gaga wore for her Chromatica promo

It’s great, she looks good, it moved well – you can’t really hope for more. I will say that I would like to see Kylie just do something glamorous, just as a change of pace and more so before Michelle tells her to do it.

Next was Scarlet in what is maybe The Look of the Night

it’s everything I wanted her entrance look to be and more – she looked divine and I like that this coincided perfectly with the Drag Race España runway that was focused on wearing looks inspired by Spanish art.

Following Scarlet was Eureka who was redoing her fur runway look from Season 9

the judges really had to insist that this was an elevated version of the look, to me it is absolutely just the same look

God, remember how awful the Season 9 lighting was? Maybe I shouldn’t complain too much.
I think the redone version lacks some of the humour that her season 9 version had and it’s basically just a cute performance number.

Ra’Jah was reworking the farm-to-runway look that got her eliminated – I still don’t think it was bad and I would have liked to have seen her instead redoing the newspaper dress she wore for her entrance, but this was good

She looks like a very well to do Lady Ent from Lord of the Rings. I love the green eyebrows, I really like the bodice work, I just don’t know if I love that it’s velvet – with the matching gloves and it being a very heavy column dress, it just seems a bit monotonous and could have done with some sort of detailing. But for a tree costume? It’s stealing the end of year junior school play.

Oh Pandora, I think the general critique for the turquoise blue and acid green dresses you and Mimi Imfurst wore was to burn them because truly there was no saving them

they’re just bad colours and truly this outfit looks like something the Evil Stepsisters in the 2015 live action Cinderella would have worn. It’s not like Pandora doesn’t have a few looks she could have pulled from for a better result – not that her style was bad, but like… season 2’s entire fashion journey with the exception of Tyra and Raven was ROUGH because it was 2010 after all.

One of my favourite things about the Rudemption Runway is when a queen has the audacity to say “None of my looks on the show were that bad, so I’m just going to redo the promo look that nobody remembers!”, enter Yara Sofia who basically just wore her promo look again

It’s a really polished look, I don’t know if I’ll ever love a mono-legged catsuit but her face looks like it could reduce entire civilizations to ruins – it’s FIERCE and I think the contacts work really well here and add to the slightly vampiric feel of the look.
Trinity was also very much playing in the same ball park, doing her promo look and just looking like a vampire

I will never not love a halo crown, and I’m partial to any sort of vaguely gothic-y, vampire look so I did very much enjoy this

I wish the dress gave me slightly more, it’s a very awkward and abrupt change from the bodice to the skirt but she looked really good!

Jan also never really had any runway mishaps on her season and so had no choice but to redo her rather confusing basketball entrance look but this time as a gown

First of all, the fact she’s managed to look this good under what is some unfairly harsh lighting is nothing short of a miracle. Michelle thought that the hair was a little matronly, personally I don’t and I think with the very stately cut of the dress it all works together very well. It is kind of just a pretty gown though and I with she had played more with the letterman jacket aspects of it. And maybe not walked like she was trying to put her phone in too small a pocket?

Oh boy, and then we have Ginger who was redoing her Futuristic Drag look from All Stars 2 and might have made it worse? Or at least less fashionable

She looks like a Mad Max Care Bear, which maybe I don’t hate? That’s got to exist somewhere? If there’s a My Little Pony X Fallout fanfic longer than the Lord of the Rings trilogy out there then I will be SORELY disappointed if there’s no Care Bears X Mad Max fanfic that’s at least as long as War and Peace.
I do like Ginger’s wig and… mask? headpiece? crown? – I think they’re really cute, the jumpsuit though is just cut very strangely and the torso has absolutely NOTHING to do with the rather fabulous ruched legs.

Silky was redoing her family resemblance look which was instantly better just for the lack of Soju

I see what she was going for, it has that disco dancer vibe that she was trying to do – the judges however do expect something slightly more literal so she would probably have been better served with doing it in blue.

A’keria was redoing her caftan look and was actually wearing a caftan and not a butterfly Halloween costume she bought off Amazon for $15

the fabric is gorgeous and caught the light beautifully. Her wig is a little weird to me and I’m not sure if it’s being caused by the sea slug she seems to have stuck in it or if that’s an attempt to hide something that went a little wrong during transit.

A Rudemption Runway Ranking

1. Scarlet’s Botticelli Phase
2. Kylie’s Commitment to Lady Gaga Cosplay
3. A’Keria’s Correct Caftan
4. Trinity K. Bonet, The Vampire Drag Queen
5. Ra’Jah the Lady Ent
6. Jan’s Thing Is Purple
7. Yara Sofia’s Mono-legged Vampire
8. Eureka Skinned a Muppet. Again.
9. Silky’s Disco Red Tape
10. Ginger’s Mad Max Care Bear
11. Pandora Boxx’s Colourful Car Crash

As I’ve said before, nobody had a bad showing this episode. The winners were obviously the Fix-it, Bitch! team, with Trinity declared the winner. As for the bottom, they ultimately judge it in teams and so Ginger, Jan, Silky and A’keria all find themselves up for elimination and because of this the Untucked is a cacophony made up of the four of them desperately trying to plea their case while Trinity goes completely unpraised and very much feeling a certain kind of way about it

And the way Trinity stops the entire pity party to make everyone praise her and congratulate her on the win is one of the best Drag Race moments ever, if only for Ra’Jah’s look to camera

Trinity does attempt to save it with a rousing speech about how being in the bottom does not make you “a bottom bitch” to which Scarlet responds with a look that I have only ever seen from a femme fatale in a 1940s noir movie

Iconic.

Let’s Get Physical!

If you’ve ever wanted to see someone win a lipsync before the damn thing even started, here’s a masterclass from one Laganja Estranja

I mean, DAMN!
I would have just curled up in a foetal position on the side of the stage and let Laganja do her thing because she was only there to shine in an incredible outfit to boot

which did promptly get used as a weapon

Queens, please strip responsibly.
As for TKB, her outfit was perfectly good

but doesn’t quite stand up against the chartreuse fantasy armour that Laganja came bedecked in.
And of course in true Laganja fashion she was shablaming, death dropping and flipping left and right

I mean, HOW DO YOU EVEN DO THIS

lowkey, my favourite part of the whole performance was the fact Tia Mowry was loving every second of it

and how could you not?

It’s very much a win for Laganja, Trinity put in a valiant effort but there was no stopping the chartreuse freight train from winning. And the lipstick pulled from her bra is for Silky

I think it was the fairest option, I wish Silky had maybe had the realisation that she was overly editing and restricting herself earlier so she could have been the queen she wanted to be on this run – she has a lot of charm and charisma and I hope that goes to good use.

And so, 10 All Star queens remain

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