I’ll look back on last week’s episode of All Star Drag Race fondly—watching the queens hassle pedestrians in the daytime is a rare treat. This week’s episode had its own highlights, of course, mainly Kelly Osborne.
For the mini-challenge, RuPaul had the girls do some “cheer-reading,” which is like your standard reading, but it rhymes and is done in cheerleading outfits. And while Team Yarlexis gets a lot of crap for their language difficulties, they threw some half-decent shade. Granted, the bar wasn’t set too high, but a knock-knock joke that ends in “Shannel who? Exactly,” is priceless.
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For the main challenge, each duo is given a guest to complete their “girl group” for a choreographed lip-sync done in front of a live audience. The guest assignment is dependent upon which RuPaul song the team chooses. Team Yarlexis score Kelly Osborne; Team Shad gets paired Vanessa Williams’ daughter, Jillian Hervey; and Team Rujubee is teamed with Kady Z. (“Kady Z who? Exactly.”)
When it came to the competition, Team Shad went first—and was essentially unbeatable. Their moves were tight, and they brought in some rope/chair work that was flawless. During rehearsals Shannel was a teensy bit controlling, but it worked out in the end. (I just worry any time Shannel starts taking control). The only nitpick was that Jillian may have pulled too much focus. But she did deliver the goods, so no harm done.
I loved Yarlexis’ performance. (Okay, I love Kelly Osborne, but she comes with the package.)
Their look? So fierce! Unfortunately they made the tragic decision to dumb down their choreography in rehearsals. (Yara’s brilliant theory: “This is a rehearsal—it’s the time to change everything!”)
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Rujubee did fine. As much as they are my favorite queens, there wasn’t anything memorable about their look or choreography (unless you remember some of the moves from Season Two, which they apparently copied). Pop princess Kady might have been the most difficult guest partner—she didn’t like wearing too much makeup (hel-lo, it’s drag!) and fumbled through the dancing.
Jujubee gave good mouth, but it wasn’t enough to save her team from the bottom two along with Team Yarlexis.
Team Chad Shad wins for the second time in a row? I would be more surprised but Chad has told us that she’s an assassin so many times that I’ve just accepted it. (May the odds ever be in your favor, Chad!)
Raven and Alexis agree to lip-syncing to the Pussycat Doll’s “Don’t Cha,” a drag song if ever there was one. You would think by this point the lip-syncs would be too close to call, but Raven kills it. She destroys every syllable with her sexiness, and it was more than enough to force Yara to press the she-mergency button. Yes, that spinning red siren finally got some attention—and Alexis was not happy about it.
I always wondered what would happen when someone called a she-mergency. Would they stop the clock? Would they repeat some verses or start over? Nope to all of that! The song kept playing, and Raven kept serving it as Yara stumbled up and tried to produce some momentum for the remainder of the song.
But by the time she finally got up there with her massive-ass wig, Raven had already done a costume change (well, a costume removal) and sealed Rujubee’s victory.
Sashay away, Team Yarlexis. Yara and Alexis seemed genuinely upset at not being able to bring back a win for Puerto Rico, but no one seemed sadder than Kelly Osbourne, who let a tear fall from her glitter-encrusted eye—the perfect symbol for a drag queen sashaying away.
Jason Sweeten is a contributing writer for Queerty. He knows that she-mergencies are all kinds of serious.
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