Once again, the queens were shoved in front of cameras and told to figure it out in lieu of providing them with an actual challenge. Someone told us last week that they had to stop reading our recaps because we were failing to make a bad season of television sound better and babes, that’s just not our job here. We’d love a more energetic and complimentary style of recap, but the producers of Drag Race All-Stars just aren’t doing the work to provide us with a fun season of television.
The points system continues to not yield the drama it was designed to inspire, as everyone with a point to hand out gave one to everyone who didn’t have a point yet. No one wants to be the asshole who disrupts these things and the queens aren’t around each other long enough to form strong alliances, so this never really goes anywhere. If Silky or someone wanted to make a big stink about not winning or about what she’s owed from the other girls, it’s possible this scene could have wound up being a bit more energetic, but that’s the problem with this format: it’s relying entirely on the queens acting the way queens on this show acted ten years ago and they’re not willing to do that anymore.
In a similar vein, the queens were all handed the task of writing their own YouTube videos and were paired off in the Werk Room where it was clear the production was trying mightily to get some sort of drama going. There was no need to pair the queens off, since this isn’t a team challenge, and there’s not a lot of interesting footage to be shot of queens trying to write a script, so it just turned into this somewhat lame attempt to get the queens to generate some shade. Again, none of them were having it.
Given how much of modern drag takes place on social media, you’d think a tutorial video challenge would be a no-brainer for these girls, but for some totally bizarre reason, instead of doing the kind of instructional videos drag queens are actually known for, like makeup or hair tutorials, most of the queens settled on a format almost no one would consider a good fit for drag: cooking videos. April couldn’t find a single joke for her bit.
And the judges did the “polite judge” thing that characterizes All-Stars, where someone did an obviously bad job but got praised anyway; in this case, Vivacious’s stone-faced, emotion-free line readings were re-characterized as hilarious by the judges.
Similarly, while we give Silky credit for having an actual comedic concept and executing it, we didn’t think this was a top performance of the week. The judges didn’t agree.
We’ll give Aura some credit for picking an unusual concept for her video and bringing some energy to it, but again, there just wasn’t a single joke to be had.
Salina definitely should have been in the top, for having a concept, some jokes, and the kind of prop that Ru loves, even if it was a bit of a L’il Poundcake ripoff. She was funny and it wasn’t painful to sit through, which makes it a win, as far as we’re concerned.
But let’s face it: Crystal aced this one. We thought it was more than obvious that she’d taken her concept and aesthetic from Pickle Surprise, which was a very smart bit of gameplay on her part.
Category is: Barn This Way 🌾 Which runway has you udderly obsessed? #AllStars11 pic.twitter.com/ceRUJlDmwI
— RuPaul’s Drag Race (@RuPaulsDragRace) May 29, 2026
The runway category was the typically vague “BARN!” but the queens ran with it, to their credit. April’s straw look was the best of the lot, by far.
We wonder if Aura’s dress was originally designed to evoke a barn owl of if she just repurposed a feathery white gown for the occasion, but it felt like the connection to the category was a bit thin. Gorgeous look, though.
This is hilarious, although we think the proportions are really awkward. We get that sexy fierceness isn’t really her vibe, but this would have been much funnier if the body was serving legitimate glam.
It’s gorgeous, and we agree with the judges that the braided bodice was beautiful, but let’s face it: April won this impromptu raffia competition.
Cute, but except for the Gaultier-style udder-bust, this doesn’t feel like great drag to us. It’s a Party City cow costume.
This would be a spectacular idea for a queen in a wheelchair, but for any walking queen, it just comes off incredibly impractical and awkward. An interesting idea that didn’t quite come together.
The judges put Silky in the top because it was time to do so. We doubt she’d agree to come back to the fold one more time without some assurances that she was going to do well, so she got to do her flag routine instead of Salina, who really should have been lip syncing against Crystal. Personally, we weren’t all that impressed when she broke out the flags because it felt like an attempt to cover her poor lip-syncing and lack of choreography.
But condragulations to her, we guess.
Girl, if you ever thought we were going to stop plugging our book, you weren’t paying attention: 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 (like at this link)! It’s also available in Italian and Spanish language editions, darlings! Because we’re fabulous on an INTERNATIONAL level.
[Still Credit: Paramount Plus]
Previous post:
VARIETY Power of Women London Cover: Emilia Clarke on GAME OF THRONES Nudity, Salary, Survivors Guilt, And More Next Post:
VARIETY Power of Women London Cover: Emilia Clarke on GAME OF THRONES Nudity, Salary, Survivors Guilt, And More Next Post:
-
Pop Style Opinionfest: Saying Goodbye to HACKS and Hello to WIDOW’S BAY
-
The Bitter Kitten Movie Club For June 2026
-
RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE ALL STARS: DUETS IT TAKES TWO
Please review our Community Guidelines before posting a comment. Thank you!
