RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars: S3E1 - Queens with Variety
Saturday, January 27, 2018 at 10:00AM by Chris Feil
RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars is back! Wheels are apparently in this season (thank you, Trixie Mattel and Aja), so I’m rolling into the workroom on my Rascal scooter to once again go deeper into Drag Race than Sasha Velour goes into a gay history lesson.
This season some of our All Stars have had mega success after their season, like Milk’s ad campaigns and Shangela and Trixie’s growing television careers. There’s also favorites who were denied a top 3 spot like Kennedy Davenport, Chi Chi DeVayne, and BenDeLaCreme. Throw in Brooklyn goofballs Thorgy Thor and Aja and respected S2 pro Morgan McMichaels. Oh yeah, and one more significant addition.
Since we got the queens’ first workroom looks out of the way, we’ll skip right onto the big news of the mysterious 10th queen in the competition...
CAMEROOOOON! That’s right, Drag Race’s first ever winner Bebe Zahara Benet returns to the competition. Aside from the obvious twist, her inclusion is intended as a major reintroduction of the first reigning to an audience that might be unfamiliar to her gifts. The fandom has grown exponentially since she defeated Nina Flowers to the title almost ten years ago and the unavailability of season one has kept newbie fans from knowing what a talent she is.
It’s the norm for competition shows like this to have winners participating in their All Stars seasons so this isn’t revolutionary, even if we had thought an all winner season might have been in the cards. And I’d argue it’s perfectly fair to the other queens on balance alone - Bebe is risking the reputation her crown affords her while the other queens can only benefit from another opportunity. If anyone is against a winner returning to the competition, consider her confessional look a preview of what she'll wear to your funeral.
As with last year’s All Stars kick-off, the first mission was the Reading Is Fundamental challenge. With season queens come seasoned reads and this was one of the tighter rounds of Reading the show has ever seen. BenDeLaCreme was declared the victor for his brainier set, perhaps laying ground for the dismantling of her Miss Congeniality title the show is already playing up.
Best Read
Milk (as Sia?) - “I always thought her name was Angela and people were telling her to shut up.”
Runner Up: Trixie’s puns for Milk (“2%?) and Shangela (“You’re gonna Halle-lose.”)
Largely it was Morgan McMichaels receiving the early season platform boost this episode, but not for the positive. Quickly cast as the willful villain, her assurance that she would try to eliminate the strongest competition was a surefire way to place a target squarely on her own back. As Aja put it, a perfect strategy that should be kept to yourself, girl. Also a strange one considering the judges pick the bottom two that you choose from anyway.
The main challenge was a variety show and kind of blurs together. Thorgy played violin, Shangie shablammed, and Kennedy cartwheeled onto a raised platform. Trixie faired best of the queens that presented original music, but needed even just one joke to make the subdued risk pay off. Milk’s conceptual paper doll routine was a creative highlight even if her delivery quickly went flat.
However, the episode doesn’t make good on that promise of exposure for our queen from Cameroon. VH1 excluded her from tons of press for the sake of a twist that it forgets almost immediately after it delivers it? No ma’am, it does not sit well with me. Not to mention that she performed well and stood out in a variety show plagued with sameness, and should have wedged either Thorgy or Shangela from their high critiques.
But the best two performances of the night were an easy call: Del’s titacular, hilarious burlesque and Aja’s firestorm of jawdropping choreo. Del’s booby tassle routine was both everything we wanted from her and a skillset she never really got to show on her season. Meanwhile Aja’s precise spinning, outfit revealing, body-thrusting feat of daring was everything we were promised she would deliver on her season and never got. Both of these acts remind of Roxxxy Andrews triumphant first performance on All Stars last season though, so let’s hope that’s not too ominous for their later performances.
Worst Critique - Vanessa Hudgens: “I’m so into voguing right now.”
When even a positive critique can make you cringe. (Let's hope the mainstay judges keep up this newfound helpful criticism though.)
Chi Chi’s ability to deliver All Star quality while being true to her DIY aesthetics has been one of my biggest question marks for the season, and her rightful place in the bottom this week spells doom. She was sloppy in presentation and forethought, but was clearheaded enough about what went wrong to assuage that better things could come. Meanwhile Morgan “I charge for that” McMichaels entertained even as she was taken to task for her undercooked, unraveling performance. Sadly for ChiChi, it seemed sealed up.
Best Look (But) - Morgan McMichaels
Now this is drag! Too bad it came undone in performance.
The lipsync was a nailbiter between Aja and Dela with the titty-tassling goofiness of Miss Creme winning out. Which spelled bad news for Morgan when Dela started in on her circular, not-quite-consistent logic to avoid unfair eliminations with an unfair elimination. What’s the end game of forcing slippery ideas of fairness on the competition? Does Del not realize that there is no Miss Congeniality awarded in All Stars?
But of course Morgan might return, because this is All Stars and there was that cryptic ending (does that “I’ve got your back” mean Ru might have more say this time?). For a premiere, this was a solid start and promises a season that could unfold in any number of ways. There’s always a whif of predictability with Drag Race but I’m not catching one yet, save for a frontrunner or two.
The episode was dominated by the top/bottom two (with Trixie jokes peppered throughout), so hopefully the air time will be more balanced for the queens in upcoming episodes. Ranking is tough to not apply preconceived notions in an All Stars season, but based on this premiere my ranking is such:
- BenDeLaCreme
- Aja (AYO, SIS!)
- Trixie Mattel
- Bebe Zahara Benet
- Shangela
- Kennedy Davenport
- Milk
- Morgan McMichaels OUT
- Thorgy Thor (not a cute look snubbing Bob the Drag Queen so much)
- Chi Chi DeVayne
Gif as Episode Grade:
What did you think of the premiere? Who are you rooting for?
Reader Comments (19)
I'm a loyal bitch so I'm rooting for Chi Chi. Hoping she surges like she did in her season.
p.s. What do you think of the Bebe conspiracy theory?
Paolo - Bebe conspiracy theory?? If this is a spoiler though, pass.
If Thorgy Thor was half as smart as she thinks she is, she would never mention Bob the Drag Queen ever again on camera.
I thought it was a solid episode. Excited for this season in a way that S9 never quite got me.
With only two actually funny comedy queens (Dela and Trixie), if this is anything like AS2, they'll have a fast track to the finals, which is a shame. It is never fun when the show feels rigged. Besides, with so many dance queens, we could be in for the ultimate season of lipsynchs. We have already lost Morgan, and almost lost Chi Chi, but I can only pray we get at least one Chi Chi vs Kennedy showdown.
Re: Bebe, she really is the only winner that could benefit from a return to an AS season that isn't all winners. Her prize was small, her career bump was small, her level of exposition too, she's the only winner to have never been on a Snatch Game or done a reading challenge (up to this episode, of course). She feels like a relic from a time of Drag Race before it truly became Drag Race. I hope she does well and gains a whole new wave of followers, like Tatianna, last AS season.
i loved it right from the hilarious opening with handmaidens chad & alaska all the way through to the surprise booting of the odious morgan over the disappointing chi chi [for someone who claims she "stays ready", she was not...at all]
bonus points: vanessa vs pork chop lip synch
should be an exciting season since there's no obvious frontrunner like the first two all star seasons. i'll be happy if the winner is one of dela, trixie, shangela or chi chi. i'm fond of bebe but i still think nina flowers was robbed so i can't have her win again
Bebe! Minneapolis represent!
Think we're being a little too rough on Thorgy here. Yes, some of his schtick gets old like the BTDQ bits but in terms of pure talent she was probably the best one out there. It may not have been as entertaining as Bendela or Aja, but come on, that was impressive. I hope she puts in a strong competition this season.
Chris, I think Shangela needs to be higher on this list - the last thing you should ever do is underestimate her.
Rumor has it Chi Chi was blatantly the worst performance. Like, the reason the performance ended without the baton is that she dropped it so many times she just put it down and finished without it. Morgan going home was a clear shock to everyone because Chi Chi genuinely earned the boot. Not that I'm mad--love me some Chi Chi. Much like Katya last year (she actually fell a couple times during her gymnastics routine in the variety show), Drag Race could have done a really unflattering edit here but didn't.
Bebe totally didn't get a top spot because she didn't wear heels. Now, that's a stupid critique considering she did traditional African dance and that is not performed with shoes (let alone heels), but look at what VH1 left in of Chi Chi's critique. You'd think Chi Chi landed in the bottom because she wore jazz shoes. Ru hates it when queens take their shoes off to lip sync on the show, so Bebe being passed over (sadly) makes sense. Still one of the best performances.
As for the other two in the top (since Dela and Aja clearly belonged there), there was definitely some funky editing going on with the backing track on Thorgy's performance (there's no way a professional violinist performed a solo in an entirely different key as her backing track) and Shangela's Werqin' Girl is a crowd pleaser.
It’s been very tough to see Chi Chi in the first episode and promotional videos/interviews. She seems so lost. This is just so sad for someone with such raw talent and charisma.
The “Kennedy and Chi are the same person” nonsense from Trixie (and maybe implied by other contestants) is pretty unfortunate racism.
Based on the first episode I’d rank Aja as 1. She had a lot to prove and she did it. Let’s see if she can sustain it.
BenDeLaCreme owned this episode top to bottom. The reading challenge, her variety show performance and one of the funniest lip syncs ever. It wasn't a nail biter, she destroyed Aja in that. They were laughing in stitches at everything she was doing. And she brought a little drama! So proud to see her represent Seattle so well.
Milk was irritating the whole episode and I maintain it she wasn't a hot guy she would not be here without the White Gays.
I got the impression that Shangela was in the top 3 and Thorgy was in the bottom 3. The show often seems to blur the lines between the tops and the bottoms which is weird as they should be vastly different critiques.
Especially since Milk was so boring (that fashion song he releases is appalling, quite frankly).
I thought ChiChi had the most room for improvement, but I guess not. Disappointed that Thorgy and Kennedy still seem to be exactly where we left them, too, but I hope future challenges show more of their polish. LOVED Ben and Aja, so they were the rightful top two.
The funny thing about the elimination, as Sean suggested, was that Ben did *not* actually end up playing fair with his elimination, while Morgan was annoyed at this even though, clearly, eliminating the stronger contestant was the smartest thing for Ben to do in this instance.
Chris, I don't think it's a spoiler to say that some are suggesting Bebe is a mole, keeping in tune with the Handmaid's Tale theme of the season. She won't ever make the top or the bottom, but will then be revealed as having played some sort of part. That way she gets the attention of new fans that she deserves, while also keeping it a bit fair for not winning twice.
I play the violin, and I wasn't very impressed with Thorgy's number. Not only did it seem like she wasn't even playing live, but she cut out much of the actually technically challenging material in the opening snippet of the classical piece in favor of parts that *sound* technically challenging but aren't.
Although, I guess it's nice to see someone do something other than dance. This episode reminded me of the horrible Madonna runway, except instead of all doing kimonos, all they did was dance. Some of it was impressive (Kennedy's cartwheel onto the platform), but it is all completely within the drag queen wheelhouse.
I felt like S2 of all stars had more variety in the variety show.
Bendela gave me life in this episode. I love me a comedy queen, and Dela came ready to bring it. That lip sync was an amazing way to kick off the season...so damn funny. I had no idea Dela had it in her. Aja would have won the lip sync against probably anyone else.
Seán - I fully imagine she'll skyrocket up the rank at some point, but from this episode she was outshined for me
I'm surprised Trixie is ranked so high. I did like how well rounded her performance was but between DeLa and Aja's showstoppers, the kinetic energy from some of the dancing acts and the unique nerve of Bebe's she kind of faded for me this episode.
Her racist remarks against Kennedy and Chi Chi were the one memorable thing this episode. Not a good look. I'd have her below Shangela and Bebe at least.
While there were plenty more risks with year's talent show, many of them stuck to what they know and for that we got a good show too. Arguably none of the acts were actually bad, and nothing compared to Coco or Phi Phi's fiascos from last year.
So happy to see that despite fading a bit DeLa is back giving it her all. 3 for 3 wins.
At a viewing party, Milk said that Chi Chi had injured her hand which is why the baton twirling routine didn't go well. I think she was also marred by the fact that so many girls wrote their own songs so that they could lip-sync them on the show (as a way of getting around the issue of paying for rights).
Bebe was the co-host of the viewing party I was at SO WE ALL DIED.
Trixie released a full-length country album, so I'm glad she played to her strengths. Same for Thorgy, who received a standing ovation when I saw her do a violin performance at a Christmas Queens show.
Rumor had it that Bebe's wig flew off on her first go so they had to start over hence her lack of a spot in the top.