RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2, Episode 3 – Drag Race World Power Rankings

February 24, 2024 by krisis

It’s another week of the Olympics of Drag Race! RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2 Episode 3 was “Drag Race World,” a tricky commercial challenge that paired personal branding with creating a marketable immerse experience. It was paired with a franchise-favorite “Ruveal Yourself” runway.

This was one of those “is the challenge bad or are the queens not getting it” weeks of Drag Race for me.

The assignment was to advertise an experiential VIP fan experience unique to the brand of each queen’s drag. Effectively, queens had to make commercials for themselves – and for what it would be like to meet them in person.

Some queens got the VIP experience part, and some queens got the brand part, but only a handful of queens were able to marry them in a way that made sense, was funny, and also was something sellable.

That lead one queen to ruveal more than just a runway look, but also a previously-secret talent she has kept under wraps through her entire Drag Race experience. It also gave us a fresh pair of winners, one surprisingly near-flop, and two very different senses of humor on the runway from a pair of UK queens. That lead to a number of shakeups in our power ranking compared to last week’s fairytale-themed “Happy Ending Ball” challenge.

(Want to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World outside of the UK? For most of the world, it’s available with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best international drag superstar win!

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2, Episode 2 – The Happy Ending Ball Power Rankings

February 17, 2024 by krisis

It’s another week of the Olympics of Drag Race! RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2 Episode 2 brought us “The Happy Ending Ball,” a fairytale-themed ball challenge with three looks – including a design challenge with conventional materials.

I am always a fan of Ball challenges being earlier in the season. Instead of being a final gauntlet for a slim group of exhausted queens as they near the finale, it becomes a chance for a much bigger pack to jostle for attention.

That makes sense to me, as it gives almost the entire cast a chance to have multiple runway walks and lets the judges make early eliminate decisions based on a wider sampling of each queen’s fashion sense.

Ball challenges on All Stars seasons bring an additional layer of complexity. They function as a proving grounds for who has had the biggest glow-up (and, who has taken the time to learn how to sew). Almost every queen in the RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2 cast outperformed their original season design challenge looks in this episode, but they were doing that alongside a firm top group of fashionable heavy hitters who were not afraid to go full camp to command Ru’s attention.

That lead to a surprising queen leaping into a top power ranking compared to last week’s Queens’ Variety Show recap, while a previous potential finalist tumbled out of contention.

(Want to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World outside of the UK? For most of the world, it’s available with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best international drag superstar win!

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2, Episode 1 – Queens’ Variety Show Power Rankings

February 10, 2024 by krisis

The Olympics of Drag Race is back! It’s RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2 Episode 1 – a Queen’s Variety Show talent performance and a national pride “For Queen and Country” runway.

That allowed 11 queens from 7 different Drag Race franchises to show off their brands and how they’ve grown since their original run (or, in a few cases, how they stayed exactly the same).

The entire point of the Talent Show as a challenge on Drag Race is for each queen to have a minute of uninterrupted stage time to show off the idiosyncrasies of her personality and aesthetic.

Very few queens actually manage to do that.

Across many franchises, we’ve seen dozens of queens misunderstand this challenge as “deliver your club performance (without using a licensed track).” Really, the challenge is, “give us a commercial for your brand that people will always remember you by.”

Think of some of the most-impactful talent show performances we’ve seen on Ru-hosted franchises. For me, that includes Tatianna, Willow Pill, Anetra, & Jimbo. They were all unique, slightly surreal, and surprising while also making complete sense once we got to know the queens better. Tatianna is about unclockable realness with moments of silliness. Willow Pill is about making light of morbidity. Anetra is about being a ballroom-imitating martial artist.

And Jimbo is about… baloney?

Those performances can be endlessly imitated, but the original magic will never quite be recaptured because each one was as much about talent as it was about brand and personality.

Three queens figured that formula out on this episode, and it was unsurprising to see all three of them in the top of the critiques.

The same thing is true about any kind of runway about local or national pride. It’s not about dressing as a cheesesteak if you’re from Philly. It’s about showing your home and what it means to you as seen through your own unique lens of drag.

What did that mean for our power rankings compared to my pre-season prognosticating? Two queens quickly vaulted to the top, a shaky queen solidified her standing, and one predicted finalist didn’t have the intense glow-up I was expecting.

(Want to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World outside of the UK? For most of the world, it’s available with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best international drag superstar win!

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7 – Every All-Winners Lip Sync Ranked!

July 31, 2022 by krisis

We now have a Queen of Queens! RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7 came to a close with a decidedly anti-climactic lip sync tournament that crowned my top power-ranked queen. She shall reign supreme over the entirety of RuPaul’s empire of English language franchises!

Since there are no more queens to rank, for this special edition I’m going to rank every one of the 17 lip syncs of the season – including the six lip syncs from this week’s final dual tournaments.

Over the past six seasons of All Stars, Drag Race has reversed its existing lip sync formula from regular seasons. Instead of seeing the queens at risk for elimination lip sync for their lives, we see the top queens of the week lip sync for their legacy.

This has yielded many remarkable lip syncs, but also a number of unremarkable flops. That’s down to two factors that make an All Stars lip sync very different from a regular season one.

First, the obvious: survival isn’t on the line in an All Stars lip sync. Instead, it’s a victory lap. A queen is typically awarded with $10,000 and the chance to chop a competitor (or, this season, to block them).

That’s not a do-or-die situation, so it produces different results. Even though everyone loves a fresh 10k, many queens are ambivalent or outright opposed to the doing the chopping. That seems to be especially true after they get their first taste of it (unless their name is Alaska or Shangela).

Plus, if a queen cuts a fan favorite, they could easily lose more than 10k in their next few years of booking fees due fans who now view them as a villain. And, we’ve seen that some queens don’t prep as hard after a victory as they do out of fear. Whether it’s being shaky on the words or not having as many tricks planned, several All Stars lip syncs have been somewhat… approximate.

The second reason All Stars lip syncs are different is the nature of repeated lip syncs.

In a typical season, a potential season winner can get away with lip syncing for their lives once – maybe twice – before their chances of winning the crown are greatly diminished. In fact, on the RuPaul-hosted franchises, as of this writing we’ve only had one winner who lip synced for their life multiple times: Symone.

(I don’t count Willow as a two-timer, since she won in her first round of the Season 14 lip sync tournament which was compulsory for all but one cast member and wasn’t truly at risk for elimination until her sem-final lip sync with Angeria.)

That means that queens on a regular season are motivated to give it all they’ve got in every lip sync – not only to survive, but because if they truly plan on winning the show they won’t need to save any tricks for a second lip sync!

However, on All Stars, queens actually do plan to lip sync multiple times. Of seven All Stars winners in the “Legacy” format, all but one (Kylie Sonique Love) has won at least two challenges. That means All-Stars have further incentive to not go all-out in every lip sync, especially early in the season. They might want to save something for later – or, at least, they’re not going to force every trick they know into an ill-fitting song.

It also means there’s an amount of lip sync fatigue that sets in when someone wins three or more times, as they often do on “winner-vs-winner” legacy lip sync seasons like All Stars 2-4 & 7, as opposed to “Lip Sync Assassin” seasons like All Stars 5-6. In fact, I suspect the Assassin twist was added after Season 4 partly to reduce repeats and bring more fire to the winner in each fight.

Both of those problems were at play on the All Stars Season 7 lip syncs, but if there was an episode for them to go out the window it was this one – where everything was on the line.

That means all six of these lip syncs ought to be the best of the season, right?

…right?

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best lip syncers win! If you disagree with my ranking, comment below with your best and worst of the season. [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7 – Every All-Winners Lip Sync Ranked!

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7, Episode 11 – Drag Race Gives Back Variety Extravaganza recap & power ranking!

July 23, 2022 by krisis

Welcome to my recap of the eleventh episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7 – Drag Race Gives Back Variety Extravaganza, a talent show where everything is on the line since the pair of winners will get three Legendary Legend stars each!

I’ve been struggling with how to recap this episode for you for two different reasons – because of how it shook up the power rankings of the season due to its multiple-stars twist and because of the nature of “talent” on Drag Race.

After thinking about it for a while and reviewing my extended power ranking math from last week, I’ve come to realize that the only way to produce a satisfying ending was to award 3 stars to the winners.

I know that’s a radical proposal. I’ll explain more about it below. First, I want to talk about talent.

If you want, you can skip my pair of essays on stars and talent to get to how I’d rank the queens on their talents and rate their chances in the twin final Lip Sync tournaments:

As a reminder, here’s where 10 weeks of Power Ranking left the queens standing headed into this episode. Note that my power rankings are not necessarily based on how they performed in each episode, but where I thought they would place based on their performances and the teaser for the next challenge:

Jinkx Monsoon – 4 Stars from 5 Wins, 2 Block (1.4 Avg. Rank, #1 Pre-Season Rank, 4-8 wins predicted)
Trinity The Tuck – 3 stars from 4 Wins, 1 Block (3.3 Avg. Rank, #3 Pre-Season Rank, 2-6 wins predicted)
Jaida Essence Hall – 3 stars from 2 Wins + 1 Bonus, 1 Block (3.9 Avg. Rank, #6 Pre-Season Rank, 1-3 wins predicted)
Monét X Change – 2 stars from 2 Wins, 1 Block (4 Avg. Rank, #4 Pre-Season Rank, 2-7 wins predicted)
Shea Coulée – 1 star from 1 Win, 1 Block (4.4 Avg Rank, #2 Pre-Season Rank, 3-6 wins predicted)
The Vivienne – 2 stars from 3 Wins, 1 Block (5.7 Avg. Rank ,#7 Pre-Season Rank, 0-3 wins predicted)
Yvie Oddly – 2 stars from 1 Win + 1 Bonus, 1 Block (6.3 Avg. Rank, #8 Pre-Season Rank, 0-3 wins predicted)
Raja – 2 stars from 2 Wins, 1 Block (7.1 Avg. Rank, #5 Pre-Season Rank, 1-3 wins predicted)

Readers, start your engines! And, may the best drag queen… win!