“RuPaul’s All Star Drag Race” Recap: Good Queens Behaving Badly

If you blinked you may have not realized that All Star Drag Race is already down to its final four teams. Evaluating the queens based on “synergy” does add some newness—but it also sashays their numbers down crazy fast!

And they’ve already begun teasing Season Five (Category is: Roman realness).

Already? It’s like seeing Christmas displays in July. This is all moving too fast—and I’m still recovering from losing Pandora Boxx in Episode One.

But I digress. After reflections on last week—and Raven saying Juju looked more like “Tran Dresser” than Fran Drescher—this week’s episode dove right into the mini-challenge: Butch self-pics! (#QueensWithGuyPhones).

How about we take this to the next level?

Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.

Daily

Weekly

Since there’s nothing butcher than a Grindr profile pic, the teams are given a camera to record their transformations for posterity. At first I was confused as to why the girls were still heading to the makeup, but then i realized they needed facial hair—like eyebrows. Silly me.

Taking first place was Team Yaralexis, who win a free year’s subscription to Andrew Christian’s underwear-of-the-month club (especially relevant for Yara, who we learned prefers panties).

For the main challenge, Ru tells the girls they’ll be roping unsuspecting bystanders into performing Stupid Human Tricks. While one queen barks instructions into an earpiece, the other is harassing passersby along the Hollywood Walk of Fame to wear diapers, crack an egg on their forehead or eat grapes out of her hand.  (Note: This challenge would have failed utterly in New York City.)

But since everybody in L.A. wants to be on TV we’re witness to a parade of hilarity, intentional and otherwise: If there’s ever a museum dedicated to reality TV, it will feature Jujubee convincing some dude to let her spray whipped cream down his pants playing on constant loop—and Alexis Mateo greeting a tiny Asian woman with “Hi, Manila.”

Even the down moments, like Latrice fishing through a garbage can for a tin of sardines, are gold.

Her partner, Manila, had little trouble talking one woman into smashing an egg on her forehead, and another into wearing an adult diaper (Of course she did tell the lady she saw it in a Victoria’s Secret fashion show.)

For the runway, our queens were serving bad-girl chic: Team Yarlexis went to Crazy Town and back to give us hairy, power-line insanity. For Team Rujubee, Raven had a nice piece of gothic harajuku, and Jujubee kept it simple with a leather-lace combo.

Latrice tried to pump up Team Latrila with an homage to Divine, but Michelle Visage wasn’t feeling her accessory-heavy neckline. (Of course, the judges would have said she looked plain without it.) Guest judge Janice Dickinson was not in love with her white eye shadow, but she might’ve just been upset she couldn’t snort it.

As for Team Shad,  I wasn’t thrilled with what they brought to the catwalk—too tame—but their scores from the main challenge saw them win the day

Despite their low scores from the main challenge—and two other teams saying they should be sent home—Team Yarlexis is called safe. This leaves Rujubee and Latrila to lip-synch for their lives. (That’s two times in a row for Latrice and Manila.)

For the finale, Jujubee and Manila both bring the goods with a little Jacket Jackson “Nasty.”There really can be no winner here—these are some of my favorite competitors. Is this what parents who love their children equally feel like?

In a subtle hand-off, Raven gives her riding crop to Jujubee—a nice touch that helped bring home the bad-girl realness (and give some spice to Ju’s admittedly cookie-cutter ensemble).

Manila, who’s always been a little campier, served bug-eyed Sharon Needles realness. It wasn’t what the song called for—and it actually felt like a good time for Latrice to press the Shemergency button. We see her glance at it. (Or at least the camera pans over to the buzzer.) But nope, she stays put—and RuPaul sends Team Latrila home.

Maybe it’s because there are four people on stage. Or maybe it’s because they’ve all known each other before the show starts. Or maybe—like it has been for me—this cycle just feels like it’s moving too fast. Whatever it the reason, something about this hug-and-cry goodbye felt more intense. We’ve just gotten started, but it feels like All Stars is already sending home its best queens.

On Untucked: Miss “Thenk You” Tatiana gives a lukewarm reading of our queens via video monitor; Chad recites yet another Hunger Games line (tip: if you want to be Katniss, stop acting like a Career); and Yara spends the whole time trying to fit her headdress through doorways.

Bonus: After getting the chop, Team Latrila have today released their new single… “The Chop”!

Jason Sweeten is a contributing writer for Queerty. If you’re having a shemergency, call fine-hun-hun immediately.