DRAG RACE ALL STARS: Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner/Murder On The Dance Floor

Posted on May 11, 2025

WINNER WINNER, CHICKEN DINNER
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RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars debuted its tenth season with a whole truckload of twists and a shit-ton of competing queens, but we were deeply relieved to find out that we’d only be dealing with six queens at a time. Still, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get into it.

 

AJA
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Like pretty much every single queen, Aja’s got something to prove. She’s been on the Drag Race merry-go-round plenty of times and the more you come back, the more you have to prove that you deserve another shot. This is a fun and unexpected look from her.

 

DEJA SKYE
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Deja also seems a little focused on proving herself. We forgot how good her glam can get.

 

IRENE THE ALIEN
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No one in this first batch had more to prove than Irene, who got Porkchopped in her own season. This is gorgeous.

 

PHOENIX
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Phoenix, being the oldest of the queens, and one of the OG queens of the early, smeared-lens days of Drag Race, has to prove she can keep up with the babies.

 

OLIVIA LUX
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Olivia seems to want to prove that she’s not as nice as everyone assumed. This is killer drag and we love the wig.

 

BOSCO
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The only thing Bosco came to prove was the mistake that left her crownless the first time. She was always a fully confident queen and now that she’s fully herself, you can feel how well she’s going to do. This is a stunner of a design.

 

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Because everyone has something to prove, it’s leading to some early, highly entertaining confrontations, such as the multiple shade sessions between Irene and Aja. In their case, it seems to have led to burgeoning friendship, but we love that these queens aren’t afraid to throw down a little. There’s an argument to be made that All-Stars is better when you cast it with people who probably don’t deserve to be called All-Stars because they’ll come to the game hungry and a little defensive and that tends to make for better reality television.

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The queens were immediately tasked with a music video challenge (although it was more of a stage performing one) set to a horrific song. All-Stars is never going to allow any of its contestants to look bad or come in for any serious critiques, so the number was fine across the board. If we had to pick a standout, it would have been Irene.

 

 

 

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It’s foolish to expect honest critiques from the All-Stars judges but we were taken aback by the praise Aja’s look got. The makeup is unevenly applied and the dress is kind of a mess. Bosco is serving pure burlesque excellence, although the judges are eventually going to want to see more than body from her. Deja’s look is a little musty and fusty, but she looks gorgeous.

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Olivia’s take on L’il Kim’s iconic look was gorgeous. She’s got some killer wigs in her arsenal. Irene’s look was the kind of drag nonsense that Ru loves. Phoenix’s look felt a little tryhard.

 

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They all came out in different outfits for the lip sync and listen, good for them, but we’ve got enough looks to review in this recap. You do it.

 

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Irene and Aja wound up lip syncing for the win, which made for a nice little bit of drama between the two enemies-to-friends. It wasn’t quite what we’d call “epic,” but they were pretty evenly matched and it could have gone either way.

 

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So Aja racks up her first win, Irene gets the satisfaction of knowing she’s proven herself a contender, and the rest of the queens have extra points to hand out and a lot of strategizing to do.

 

MURDER ON THE DANCE FLOOR

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We actually don’t mind all of the shenanigans that tend to happen in a Drag Race season, what with all the pins and lipsticks and alliances formed and broken. It’s just window-dressing to add a little fake drama to a variety show. This time around, all of the safe queens traded points, which avoided any major conflicts – for now.

 

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So it feels like they’re going to take each sextet of queens and sort of speedrun them through an entire season. Last episode was a music number and this one’s an improv challenge. It’s probably too early in the season to ask the queens to read each other, but when Ru announced a mini-challenge, we were kind of hoping it would be the Library.

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Instead it was something stupid and gay and that’s fine with us.

 

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Surprisingly, no one fought over the roles in the improv challenge. We might have assumed that everyone’s being on their best behavior…

 

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But that’s clearly not the case with Miss Olivia Luxx, who seems determined to prove what a bitch she can be. It’s cute, actually. Bosco was smart to smooth it over as quickly as possible.

 

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This whole thing was horribly painful to sit through. At first, we were kind of happy to hear that Ru was going to be in the sketch, but his performance was so bizarrely low-key that it sucked all the energy out of it completely. We suppose there’s an argument that he was making it more difficult for the queens by giving them so little to work with, but it just made the entire thing interminable.

 

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No one did terribly, but Irene was clearly the best and Phoenix was the worst. Everyone else fell somewhere in the middle. No one was funny.

 

 

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Let’s face it: the runway’s always the best part of any All-Stars season because these bitches come back with a lot to prove and the trunks full of high-end costumes to prove it.

 

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Olivia’s Billy Holiday is stunning. Irene’s alien-brained Republican is hilarious and witty.

 

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Bosco was smart to admit that she was pandering by doing Elvira, but it’s such a good Elvira. Deja’s look is a little craftsy, as giant flowers tend to be, but we love the exuberance of it. The wig is fantastic.

 

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Phoenix’s look was conceptually sound, but wildly overdesigned. The judges kind of danced around saying it, but Aja’s look is horrible.

 

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Once again, Irene found herself lip syncing for the win, so we’d say these first two episodes have been very good for her. It seemed like a fairly evenly matched lip synch until Bosco did her reveal and then it was all over.

 

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No one could compete with the power of those flawless tits.

 

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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