RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season-Premiere Recap: Reading the Dawl

A solid start to the season nonetheless raises some early red flags.

It’s time to welcyum welcome you to the second edition of RuPaul’s Variety Hour. It’s a lot like RuPaul’s Drag Race, only without the stakes. Following the rousing success of All Stars 7, which featured a cast filled with only winners competing without eliminations, and the rousing nonsuccess of All Stars 8, which followed a typical All Stars formula, Drag Race is back to experimenting. It’s been pretty obvious for a while that All Stars is not getting the talent it wants. Obvious candidates like Peppermint, Asia O’Hara, Gigi Goode, and the rest of ’em aren’t coming back, likely because filming Drag Race (a) costs a lot of money and (b) requires you to miss gigs that would have made you money. That leaves us with queens who want to go back on Drag Race because they didn’t get the maximum booking fee from their first go-about. Sometimes, that works great (Ra’jah, Kylie Sonique), but, as with All Stars 8 or All Stars 5, it can also lead to a boring season where only one or two queens ever truly stand out as potential winners.

All Stars 7, on the other hand, was a coup for Drag Race. The queens were top-tier, the performances were great, and Jinkx’s post-AS7 success further validates the franchise’s influence on pop culture. But the show only got there by making the season into a variety hour: The competition was de-emphasized, there was little to no real drama, and the judges were not shown giving any negative feedback. After trying that format once, All Stars tried to backtrack into doing a typical season with AS8 and got diminishing returns. So now non-elim is back, but this time, it’s with a group of queens who didn’t win, and some of whom, in fact, didn’t even make their original finales.

Is that a bad thing? Maybe. It’s hard to be mad at these first two episodes, which are pretty entertaining, but also show some, shall we say, warning signs. It’ll likely depend on your tolerance for this kind of format. I thought All Stars 7 was, overall, a nice experiment that sometimes ground to a halt. That double Snatch Game? One of the best things the show has ever done. Santa’s School for Girls? A boring mess made even worse because there were no stakes. “Stakes,” in fact, is likely the word I’ll keep parroting throughout this season. As in: There are none. There’s an attempt at fostering strategy by giving the winning queen each week the ability to bar another queen from earning a star, now known as “snipping” a queen with the “Ruby Snippers.” But, as we saw last time with the Platinum Plunger, that tends to not be much more than a fun gag. The queens are all there until the end anyway.

Plus, now, they’re not even competing for themselves. Over and over, these first two episodes hyperemphasize how much the queens care about the charities they’re playing for, but does that count as having stakes? The first tenet of storytelling is “show, don’t tell,” and there is a lot of telling about these charities. If you want to get me to care about the charitable aspect, it might have been worth it to spend some time showing me why these organizations need the money and what they’ll do with it (especially when some of them throw galas that raise this amount with regularity). Yes, that would be a stretch for Drag Race. But, also, they’ve completely changed the format. It may take a stretch to make it matter.

So, basically, I have concerns. The season has not yet convinced me that I will not be bored by the end of it. With that said: pretty solid start! But enough with the vagaries! Let’s run through the episodes, with specifics:

“Drag Queens Save the World”

First queen into the Werk Room is Gottmik. She looks great, her hairline is unclockable, and I think she’s got a real shot to win this season. The trick with a non-elimination season is that your talents matter a lot more and your weaknesses matter a lot less. Jinkx won All Stars 7 not by being passable at sewing, but by absolutely murdering everybody else at comedy. Mik’s weakness is that she is not a great dancer, but that doesn’t matter here, because it won’t get her kicked out, and she’s arguably top two of the season at most other skills.

Next is Roxxxy Andrews, whom I’m really rooting for moving forward. She’s one of the best, most well-rounded drag queens to ever be on the show: good at everything. If she has a downfall this season, it’ll be because of that, not in spite of it. She’s unlikely to often be in the bottom group of performers, but that doesn’t mean anything this time around. What matters is if she can punch through. I’ll be pulling for her.

Third is Vanjie, who so far is the court jester of the season. A glamour queen with the mouth of a trucker, Vanjie’s someone I’ll never be mad at having on my screen. At the same time, this season is a talent show, and she’s the only queen who’s never won a challenge. Normally, that would be fodder for an interesting arc. This season, it hasn’t been brought up.

Angeria comes through the door next, and I’m thrilled to see her. Angeria is a good drag queen. Even better, she’s a queen who’s good at Drag Race. She takes well to challenges and always grits her teeth and gets down to business. On season 14, her track record was incredible at the beginning, and got more and more mediocre as the season progressed. This season, she’s starting well again. Let’s hope she keeps up with it.

Nina West follows Angeria. I’m going to tread lightly here, because she’s been getting a lot of hate online (partially because of an Instagram comment and, sorry, but a wayward Instagram comment is not enough to become a monster toward someone). Still, being fully transparent, Nina West’s drag is not the drag that gets me excited. She’s your grandmother’s drag queen: appropriate for Drag Story Hour, able to do Harvey Fierstein drag with no problems, and always comfortable onstage. That’s great, that’s fine, that’s a needed part of the drag community. Is it to my taste? No.

Plastique Tiara, the most-followed queen on all social-media platforms, enters the Werk Room next. She’s gorgeous. I have a hard time being passionate about her conceptually based on season 11, but my God, she really is gorgeous.

Then it’s Jorgeous, who I love. Sorry not sorry! She’s a petite ball of energy who makes me laugh and laugh. Jorgeous is a queen who is just kind of inherently funny. Anything she does is enjoyable because she’s doing it with her gay little self. She is, notably, not that good at Drag Race, but hey, I don’t really care. She’s a good time. Happy to have her.

Finally, it’s Shannel. I’m a Shannel superfan, because I have taste. She’s hilarious. I have watched the clip of her “interviewing” Tori Spelling more times than I can count over the years. Still, it’s kind of disappointing to see her included on a non-elimination season, when she tends to get really worked up over eliminations. Maybe that’s why she agreed to come back; who can say? I’m glad she’s here, but they’re kind of not doing their jobs if they don’t frustrate Shannel enough to get an iconic monologue out of her.

The season starts off with the reading challenge, which has had diminishing returns over recent years. I thought this one was great! It has some jokes I hadn’t heard versions of before, like Shannel’s burn on Gottmik for canceling gigs and a lot of sassy comebacks from Jorgeous. Roxxxy does great and wins, though, for my money, Gottmik does a little better.

Further patterning the season off All Stars 7, the first challenge is a full-group number where each queen has to write and record a verse. They do this often, and every time, I’m disappointed when the recording of said verses is not included. I want to watch drag queens not remember the words to a verse they wrote. Is that too much to ask?

A note on the number itself: They clearly do not want us to see the full group choreo, because there are so few all-group shots it must be intentional. That’s the thing with these talent showcase seasons: There’s no reason for them to show anybody messing up, even if they evidently did. Show me the mistakes, please.

Jorgeous, in particular, stands out during the number. She’s a ball of energy, and when Michelle later notes that it was entirely “effortless,” I agreed. Plus, you can tell that parts of the chorus were choreographed by her. (Hands waving in front of the face is very, very Jorgeous.) Angeria wins the challenge with her, which seems a little arbitrary. Plastique or Vanjie could have gotten it just as easily. The best-sounding verse is Nina’s, but she doesn’t perform as well as the others. Roxxxy is not a verse queen — why didn’t they do a story line about her attempting to redeem herself after “Read U Wrote U”? Shannel and Gottmik are fine. Shannel’s verse is forgettable, and Gottmik still doesn’t feel fully natural onstage.

The runway is a look-and-comedy challenge combo about perfume, which is odd. Have we seen the girls have to do voice-overs that were not explicitly part of the challenge before?

This is not my favorite Gottmik look. The chain looks randomly applied. Nina looks great. Her proportions have gotten better. Plastique is a Victoria’s Secret model, it appears. Her comedy voice-over is not funny, exactly, but it does show how hard she’s trying to break out of her shell. I loved that her bottle appears to have a fan. Angeria is just about perfect. Her perfume voice-over is the most fully realized of the night by far. If this is what won her the challenge, I get it. Vanjie’s voice-over is a little subdued, which is unlike her. She looks good. Jorgeous calls hers “Little Chiquita” and then, surprisingly, has the second-best voice-over. Her outfit is boring, though. Shannel is wearing a great gown and taking the challenge a little too seriously. Perfect! Roxxxy wears an Elsa dress and references a bunch of shit people got mad at her for on AS2. It feels like heresy to say this, but this is my least favorite look of the night.

Jorgeous and Angeria lip-sync to the Freemasons remix of Whitney Houston’s “Million Dollar Bill.” It’s a really good lip sync — two queens performing at the top of their game with completely different versions of the songs. Jorgeous dances as hard as she can, and that’s amazing, but Angeria fully creates a character, and that’s better.

So Angeria wins and she snips Roxxxy off. It’s a smart choice because Roxxxy is good at most things, and they don’t know what challenge is coming next, even if it (spoiler) doesn’t ultimately pan out.

Speaking of, let’s get to the second episode.

“The Paint Ball”

This episode tries to muster up a little drama between Angeria and Roxxxy, but I didn’t fully buy it. Roxxxy is too aware of the cameras to go full bore into a rivalry, and Angeria is too nice. If I’m proven wrong and this develops further, that would be great.

Anyway, the actual thrust of the episode is just the queens attempting to deal with the ball challenge. It’s the “Paint Ball,” which I’m honestly shocked they’ve never done before. The girls have to do a monochromatic look (“Monochromatica”), a look based on art (“Art Imitates Drag”), and a sewn look from white fabric that uses the paints they have available. In recent years, the show has shied away from using unconventional materials in the ball challenge, thus leaving space for two separate challenges. This, like the menswear ball on season 16, is a great middle ground, where the girls still have to do more than “make a pretty dress out of pretty fabric,” but they also don’t have to rig a globe to their head.

The episode is pretty uneventful — though I am obsessed with the shot through the window of Vanjie and Gottmik — so I’ll just jump into the reason we care about the ball: the looks.

Overall, Angeria does: not very well. I’m not into her monochromatic look at all. The sculpted and glittered wig is, by this point, a cliché, and it’s a super-femme look without any tits. “No tits” only works if the outfit specifically calls for it, and this isn’t giving “super-skinny high-fashion girl.” It’s a bodysuit. Her Mondrian look is boring and uninspired. Her final runway look is the best of the bunch, but she didn’t use the paint to its full effect.

Shannel is next, showing exactly the kind of looks you’d expect from a person who spends half the year decorating her house for Christmas. The first is an over-the-top pink gown, the second is an over-the-top wave gown, and the third is a chaotic corset. I love me some Shannel, but I remain curious what challenge she’ll absolutely kill this season. She may end up another victim of the “jack of all trades” curse that will dog some of the girls given the non-elim issue. This round, it’s better to be the best at some things and the worst at others than it is to be pretty good at everything.

Roxxxy puts together a series of good looks, but none of them rank among my faves of hers. The ropes look is great, and the nude illusion is very impressively matched to her skin.  The Dalí look features a great face, but I’m not obsessed with just printing the art onto the skirt of the dress. Her final pantsuit is super impressive given the time crunch, but it’s clearly the third-best look.

Gottmik absolutely slays. She has the best monochromatic look of the bunch, serving in a purple “Trinity from The Matrix” outfit. Then she has the best art-based outfit with a stunning, bedazzled dress featuring The Scream. The hood makes the outfit. Finally, she has the second-best painted outfit of the night. The punk dress itself is pretty basic, but she’s clearly the best actual painter there.

A note on the judging before we arrive at Nina West: Like on AS7, the judges are going pretty easy on the girls. That’s not a good thing. There are more critiques offered in episode two, but even then, they’re mostly waved away. If you’re going to inject stakes into the season, the best way to do that is to go hard on the girls. Make them want to impress the judges.

On that note, Nina’s performance this week should have been ripped to shreds. Her first look, to be fair, is a delightful and glorious pink dress. (I don’t like the mechanical veil reveal that is supposed to symbolize coming out of the closet, but whatevs.) Her Tom of Finland outfit earns conceptual praise, but nobody seems to want to talk about the actual outfit, which is ugly and poorly proportioned. Her final outfit is a clown mess. Sorry, but even if her art skills aren’t up to par, this outfit shows a taste issue, which is what these sewing challenges are supposed to weed out. Even if she isn’t getting sent home for this, it’s extremely unsatisfying to watch Michelle just wave this hideous kindergarten abomination away as a cute moment. Even her wig is ugly.

Vanjie is fine. Her monochromatic Michelle-inspired look is cute. Her art dress is supposedly inspired by Starry Night, which is, uhhh … not the case. It is, instead, a loofah. Her final, sewn look is passable.

Plastique kills it. Everything is great. Top-notch, unforgettable drag. Her first look is a stunning crimson outfit that I have no critiques for. J’adore her second, Yayoi Kusama–inspired look. That hair with it is perfection, as are the sunglasses with eyelashes glued on. Chef’s kiss. Impeccable. And her final outfit is indescribably incredible. One of the greatest outfits ever made in the Werk Room. The dress is beautiful, and the hand-painted cape is spectacular. It’s the kind of outfit that validates all of her other, beautiful outfits that weren’t made by her. This is a queen with real sewing skills, and even better taste.

She’s followed by Jorgeous, and following Plastique is not a task I’d wish on anyone. Jorgeous is cute but not in contention. Her first, weed-inspired look is adorable. As in, I literally went “awwww” when she came out. But even she doesn’t seem to like her second, Picasso-inspired look. In fact, her face gives “I want to get off the stage and stop holding this hat up.” Her final, sewn outfit is okay. The pattern is nice. Michelle is offended by the bra, but whatever, she pretended to like Nina’s outfit, so I’m not taking her opinion too seriously.

Plastique and Gottmik correctly win and lip-sync to “Jump in the Line,” by Harry Belafonte, which should be funnier than it is. The song choice lays bare Plastique’s limitations, unfortunately. She keeps repeating how she does actually have a personality this season, but you wouldn’t know it by her blank face during the lip sync. I wouldn’t say Gottmik is great by any means, but she does seem aware of what song she’s lip-syncing to, so she wins. Then she chooses to cut off Angeria. No surprise there.

And also on Untucked …

• Both Untuckeds are impressively boring, because, say it with me now, “There! Are! No! Stakes!” During the second one, production makes them play Pictionary.

• I will be attempting to get these recaps up earlier moving forward, but two episodes, one of which is a ball, resulted in a tornado of timing issues.

• Next week is Snatch Game of Love. Snatch Game of Love haters, prepare yourselves.

• Curious if there’s an appetite for little Drag Race: France capsule reviews in this section once that season gets going. Sound off in the comments if you care. (Also, if you haven’t watched the first two seasons of Drag Race: France, please take my word for how good it is. Particularly, season two is, no question, top-tier Drag Race.)

• Predicted top three: Gottmik seems like a shoo-in. Angeria’s got a good shot. Maybe out of abiding love rather than smarts, I’m going to pick Roxxxy as my third. I feel like not getting a star in the first two weeks might light a fire under her competitive, pageant-queen ass.

• No guts, no glory winner pick: Gottmik. Locking in.

• Gay thoughts from gay people: My co-worker E. Alex Jung, who both is fabulously talented and, once upon a time, wrote one of the great, early RuPaul interviews way before the show was getting a lot of mainstream press attention, agreed to share his opinions on the format of the season: “Not to be a total Scrooge McDuck, but I’m a little lukewarm on the save-the-world charity concept (there is something ‘fracking baron does philanthropy’ about it where RuPaul is playing both Mr. Russell breaking unions and Bertha Russell starting the Met.) But then, if this results in Vanessa Vanjie Mateo barking in an ASPCA commercial, I reserve the right to love that. Regardless, I’m excited for an All Stars season with the return of the no-eliminations format: a true Roxxxy Andrews Rudemption arc! Gottmik spending more than the prize money on the runway! Boy Plastique!”