HIEEEE. This post contains SPOILERS for RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 3: Episode 1. If you don’t want to have all the tea spilled for you, then sashay away.
Over the past couple of seasons, RuPaul’s Drag Race has gone from being beloved cult show to a legit phenomenon, meaning anticipation has never been higher than it is for the premiere of All Stars 3. Will your favourite queen come through? Will Santino Rice return for his ruvenge? Staff writers Alasdair Duncan and Courtney Fry will be recapping rucapping every episode, so get ready, because it’s about to get shady up in here.
Courtney: I’m so fucking excited that Drag Race is back. I feel like it was time for another round of wig-snatching, back-breaking perfection, where queens are beat to the gods and lipsyncing for their legacies. All Stars season is savage, and it’s filling a very Michelle Visage void in my life. How are you feeling about it?
Alasdair: A friend of mine was so fanatically determined not to be spoiled for All Stars 3 that he somehow avoided ALL mention of it on the internet, and didn’t even know which queens would be walking into the workroom this season. That’s dedication, and I’ve had great time fucking with him for the last few weeks, telling him how exited I am for the Madame LaQueer vs Penny Tration lip sync, but kidding aside, I’m honestly very excited for this season and this bunch of queens.
Courtney: The entrances, my gawd. It’s hard to get all my thoughts down, but just let it be known that I love Ben DeLaCreme and Trixie Mattel with every ounce of my being. Should we go through everyone’s first step back into the workroom?
Trixie Mattel
Courtney: Trixie is looking SO cute as a little 80s rollerblading Barbie but YES her entrance was wasted on being the first one in there.
Alasdair: Trixie has done so well since leaving the show, with Unhhhh her burgeoning career as a country music star, that she’s definitely coming into this season as a fan favourite. As always, I am living for her big hair and aggressive fondness for the colour pink. She looks like a fancy poodle of some kind and I’m into it.
Milk
Courtney: She is looking as fucken weird as ever, she’s painted that gappy tooth back in and her hair looks like something familiar I can’t put my finger on it. Like some weird Dutch doll.
Alasdair: I love Milk because can turn looks inspired by high fashion and club kid culture but also take the piss out of herself in the process. That said, I don’t know if it was just the edit tonight, but her comments towards the other queens seemed a little harsh. Has she gotten a big head since Marc Jacobs hired her for that campaign? Has Milk … gone bad?
Chi Chi Devayne
Courtney: She looks glam in that trash bag gown but oh no girl that look is TIRED. We KNOW you’re a trash queen from the South, but you can do better than revisiting something that another queen has already done.
Alasdair: Every queen has her signature lewk, alright? Bianca Del Rio has a million versions of the one damn dress and she won the whole competition. Just let Chi Chi have her trash bag couture! I think she looks stunning in yellow tonight, although I’ll take a hard pass on the hat.
Thorgy Thor
Courtney: My god. She reminds me of someone’s aunt who hit the bongs a bit hard and went nuts in a Go-Lo’s costume section.
Alasdair: I like Thorgy and believe she has a genuinely good heart, but someone needs to take that tinsel wig outside and burn it. She can keep Chi Chi’s hat, I guess. Also, the fact that she mentions her rivalry with Bob The Drag Queen every five seconds does not bode well – this is All Stars and I think Thorgy’s head may still be stuck in Season 8.
Morgan McMichaels
Courtney: Morgan’s entrance literally gave me goosebumps. Opening with “I look pretty good for a dead bitch” had me absolutely GAGGING what the fuck.
Aja
Courtney: Bless. She was so excited to go over and say hello to the girls that she forgot her entrance pose grab hahaha.
Alasdair: I think Trixie or maybe Katya said that the entrance pose has become a really contrived part of Drag Race and that queens think way too hard about their opening line. I kind of like that Aja fucks it up, because it feels like a very authentically messy moment for her. She reminds me of a Paris Is Burning–era queen and I want her to do well this time.
Courtney: She’s admitted to having a lot of work done – lips, cheeks, chin, skin, forehead. It doesn’t look Alaska-levels of plastic, but it’s working for her regardless. Her glow up from Season 9 to now is phenomenal.
Ben DeLaCreme
Courtney: Oh I’m such a sucker for BenDeLaCreme, she’s such a sweet baby angel. Not too much of a fan of her repurposing her Miss Congeniality dress though, comes on baby don’t lean into your past successes too much – this is a new competition. Her little Jughead Jones vibe is SO cute though.
Alasdair: This may be a controversial call, but DeLa’s Jughead ensemble was possibly my favourite look of the entire episode. I desperately want that crown for myself. I’m also baffled as to why she chose to recycle that Season 6 look for the workroom, given that she’s so good at putting outfits together on the fly – y’know, like that time she was an actual fly. I can only assume she’s saving the best stuff for later, but then, don’t Drag Race girls always say that before they get eliminated?
Kennedy Davenport
Courtney: Oh my GOD. Thank you girl for giving us the first tongue-pop of the season. She’s an incredible dancer and performer, and it’s so sweet that her and Chi Chi have developed a mother-daughter relationship. I’m keen to see what Kennedy’s going to bring to the table for All Stars. That mirror ball gown though … I dunno. And one of her snake-eye contacts went a bit sideways, kinda making the whole ensemble look a bit skewed.
Shangela
Courtney: YES BITCH. It’s so great to see that she’s taken all her feedback from Seasons 2 and 3, and she’s gone hard into drag and in TV and film to develop her look and really get her beat looking great.
Alasdair: Shangela is funny and whip-smart and has the advantage that Ru loves her – this is the third damn time she’s come back and popped out of that box, if you count the gag opening of Season 4. I think she’s going to be Trixie’s main competition this year. I wish her hair wasn’t so flat, though.
Courtney: Ok let’s get down to business, we could be here all fuckin’ week. RuPaul’s just dropped that there’s ANOTHER queen to come in. Now there’s a bunch of speculation about this within the Drag Race community. Is it Cynthia Lee Fontaine and her cucu again? Is it Adore Delano after her tap-out from All Stars 2? IS IT ORNACIA?
Alasdair: It’s LaTransbear, but she’s hired Raven and Delta as her stylists.
Courtney: Oh my shitting lord it’s Bebe Zahara Benet. Consider me entirely scalped.
Alasdair: I’d heard rumours that the tenth queen might be Bebe and honestly I was skeptical, because as Ru says, she done already done had herses when she was crowned in Season 1. Y’know what though? Bebe looks stunning tonight and hardly anyone even saw her weird Vaseline-smudged season, so I’m going all in on her and I hope this introduces her to a whole new audience.
Courtney: Yeah, it’s so good to have an OG Drag Race queen in here. She’s intimidating as hell and I think DeLa almost shit herself when she walked out in all her Camaroon eleganza.
Courtney: Ok let’s get a wriggle on here, the library is open and it’s time to read because why?
Alasdair: Reading is somewhat important!
Courtney: A lot of these reads were great – biting, funny, and toeing the line of being too full-on. Sure there were some fairly boring ones from queens that were so not-funny that I can’t even tell you their names, but I know they were there.
Alasdair: I love a good callback and I screamed when Trixie told Aja “you’re gorgeous, you’re beautiful, you look like Seal.” Also, it’s always the sweet, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth queens who go in on people in the reading challenge, so I loved that DeLa went to fucking town. Her likening Thorgy to It was probably the most savage but accurate read of the night.
Courtney: One massive mistake made was Morgan McMichaels being so cocky and confident, and revealing her strategy for kicking others out. It makes her seem over-confident about winning maxi-challenges, and also just exposes her as a huge threat.
Courtney: So the maxi-challenge for this week is a variety show, right? What the hell would be on offer here? Surely a lot of drag performances – lipsyncing, dancing, uhh…intense eye contact?
Alasdair: So far, All Stars 3 is sticking very close to the All Stars 2 formula – open with a reading challenge, then a variety show, then have the queens eliminate each-other. Is it terrible for me to say that I wish Ru had mixed things up just a tiny bit this time around? I don’t think I would have cared so much, except that the variety show doesn’t have much … variety? Everyone seems to be lip syncing to a backing track and performing acrobatic feats, some of which are very impressive, but still. I had hoped that Shangela would at do a few minutes of stand-up, given that’s the area where she really kills.
Courtney: Yeah alright I straight-up adore how much Trixie is leaning into her country, off-the-wall Dolly Parton vibe by dressing in pink gingham and playing the autoharp.
Alasdair: It’s a breath of fresh air. Or a queef of fresh air, maybe.
Courtney: Can we please just take a moment to talk about Aja’s incredible vogue performance there? Please, turn that runway into a ballroom more often. And that jump into a death drop? I almost fell off the couch and it damned wasn’t nearly as graceful.
Alasdair: One aspect of this season that I’m really enjoying is the unfiltered delight on Ru’s face. She was fucking CACKLING with each one of DeLa’s successive nipple reveals during the burlesque performance, and it was infectious. I want to see more laughing Ru this season.
Courtney: HAHAH, the lipsync between Vanessa Hudgens and a pork chop. I’m sorry but porkchop was absolutely living her meaty truth atop that fluffy cloud of potato, Vanessa did not win that easily.
Alasdair: Justice for PorkChop.
Courtney: It’s wild that BenDeLaCreme won both the mini and maxi challenges this week. She is here to play some fuckin’ tough game.
Alasdair: That Nicki Minaj song was a really difficult one for DeLa – the lip sync was Aja’s to lose, but DeLa really found the funny and gave us some very exaggerated faces. As my friend said, a good comedy performance will almost always win. Also, as much as I dislike the conceit of queens eliminating one-another, I was SHOOK when DeLa picked Morgan. I adore Chi Chi with all my heart but she was objectively the weaker queen in the bottom two, and now DeLa is playing the game strategically, she’s drawn a big ‘ol target on her own back.
Courtney: I am entirely not surprised that Morgan McMichaels got the boot. She revealed far too much about her gameplay tactics, and painted a massive target on her own back. She would have done exactly the same, so she can’t be mad about this outcome.
Alasdair: At this point, I’m not sure why the show is even pretending that the eliminated queens won’t get to come back for a shot at rudemption, so Morgan will be back with an Alyssa Edwards-sized chip on her shoulder. As Ru would say, “I can’t wait to see how this series of events is going to play out.”
