Girl, we’re not even going to pretend to go through the motions of fronting on this one: We’re two days late on this recap of the inaugural episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Global All-Stars (RPDR GAS, for future reference), because it turned out to be TWO inaugural episodes with twelve talent acts stretched over two hours, plus 36 runway looks.
The biggest surprise to us was how the format was upended. It’s always nice to have any episode of Drag Race surprise us, and in this case, it made for a smart choice because it allowed every queen a chance to introduce herself to the audience and interact with the judges a little. The banter was awkward (and we don’t think the judges are always great about understanding the limitations of several queens’ English skills), but everyone got a chance to state who they are.
Athena Likis (DR Belgium) looked great, although we have no idea what she was referencing. Miranda Lebrao (DR Brazil) is a campy clown, but her look was kind of gorgeous. Pythia (DR Canada): fabulous, Kween Kong (DR Down Under) fun and campy (although we didn’t get the brown train), Soa de Muse (DR France) tres Francais, Tessa Testicle (DR Germany) is perhaps a bit too obsessed with talking about her testicle, but the costume was fun and cute. The skirt looked a bit flimsy, though.
Nehellenia (DR Italy) sported a surprisingly craftsy and awkward costume that didn’t give a good first impression, Gala Varo (DR Mexico) sport a gorgeous costume with some odd proportions. Eva La Queen (DR Phillipines) delivered pure eleganza. The skirt was a little chintzy but the use of the pearls was fabulous. Vanity Vain (DR Sweden) didn’t impress us with her costume, but that wig is pretty amazing. Kitty Scott Claus (DR UK) and Alyssa Edwards (DR OG) had the best costumes and we suspect most of the other girls will be playing catchup to those two on the runway all season.
The queens were all sent back to the new and gorgeous Werk Room set (we hope they keep this for the main show), where six of them were told to take the week off while the other six competed in a talent competition.
Kween Kong
Kween Kong came out and tore up the stage with an energetic and powerful song and dance routine.
Miranda Lebrão
Miranda opted to do a little trapeze act and we were delighted by it. So many of the Drag Race queens default to “Here’s a pre-recorded track where I rap a little and am autotuned to within an inch of my life” for their talent. It’s always fun to see someone do something unexpected. We just wish the costume had a little more going on.
Kitty Scott-Claus
Fun and funny with a pretty good vocal ability, although the choreo was of the stand-and-point variety.
Athena Likis
Meh. The costume was bland and the act was a big nothing.
Soa de Muse
She gave them the French torch singer vibe they no doubt expected from her. Technically, the performance had some issues, but she has a knack for commanding the stage.
Alyssa Edwards
This was incredibly stupid, very funny, and totally Alyssa. She pretty much blew all of them out of the water.
The runway category was “Garden of Eden” and in the interests of our sanity and time, we’re sticking with the competing six looks. Athena used the moment to make a statement about how organized religion treats women, which makes a nice reminder that international drag has a tendency to be more overtly conceptual and political than American drag. It was a powerful look. Miranda’s look was strong but overdesigned. Kween’s Tree of Life look was strong and powerful. Soa’s demon was stunning. Kitty and Alyssa once again blew the other girls out of the water.
Kween and Alyssa made it to the top, where they delivered one of the best lip syncs we’ve seen in a long time. It might seem gimmicky for Ru to declare a tie in the first episode, but any other result would’ve felt wrong. These bitches tore it up.
Round Two kicked off with a quick drag challenge, which is always a fun way to make the girls look stupid while also assessing some of their drag skills on the fly. For the most part, everyone was pretty impressive, although Eva’s look was shockingly well done.
Nehellia picked up a $10,000 tip by surprising everyone with her dancing, then it was off to the remainder of the talent show.
Pythia
Is this… a talent? Granted, the show tends to give the queens a lot of leeway in this challenge (if you can make Ru laugh, clap or gasp, it’s a talent), but this wasn’t all that funny or captivating.
Nehellenia
This bitch is a contender. While the costume could’ve been a little more flattering, she gave a killer performance that seemed to surprise the judges and her fellow contestants. We’re a little surprised this didn’t land her in the top.
Tessa Testicle
Not great. She didn’t do much in the way of vocalizing and most of the choreo consisted of her being carried or flung around by the dancers. The dead silence throughout her performance pretty much summed it up.
Eva Le Queen
Eva’s rice cooker bit started off awkwardly, but once the swords came out, it was hard not to be charmed by the silliness of the whole thing.
Gala Varo
If we want to be total c-word we’d point out that Gala’s tuck was terrible, but then again, we might just be missing the point. There have been plenty of pole dances in Drag Race herstory, but this was easily the hottest of the bunch.
Vanity Vain
Vanity delivered a shockingly polished performance of an ’80s-inspired hit that seemed like a concerted effort to make Ru and Michelle dance in their seats.
The queens were tasked with paying tribute to their home currency for the runway. Everybody brought their A game. Seriously, we have not one critique of any of these looks.
To our surprise, Eva was chosen to lip sync with the unsurprising choice of Vanity. We’d have put Nehellenia in there, but we guess they didn’t want to reward two similar pop diva performances. Ru tends to like silly stupid performances over perfectly polished ones.
But Vanity won it handily, to her surprise. We think she’s more of a contender than even she assumed. No eliminations for these first two episodes, but we suspect all of the camaraderie in the Werk Room is going to face one girls start getting sent home.
Legendary Children: The First Decade of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Last Century of Queer Life, a New York Times “New and Notable” pick, praised by The Washington Post “because the world needs authenticity in its stories,” and chosen as one of the Best Books of The Year by NPR is on sale wherever fine books are sold! It’s also available in Italian and Spanish language editions, darlings! Because we’re fabulous on an INTERNATIONAL level.
[Photo Credit: Paramount Plus via Tom and Lorenzo]
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