‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars’ S6E9 Recap: Drag Tots? We’d Rather Drag Not (Subject Us To This)
Another branding challenge, another excuse for Ru to rant about what words he likes to say.
Drag Tots, huh? S2 now streaming, featuring Jimbo and Heidi’N’Closet? To quote Manila Luzon, “okay, werk“.
This week, our top five had to create their own child-friendly superhero personas and outfits. I love this cast — this has been one of the best All Stars ever — but not even they can make this challenge work: I just don’t want to watch drag queens dress up for children. It’s great that exists! But it’s not for me, or what I perceive Drag Race‘s “true” audience (aka not children/families) to be: maybe that’s naive.
RuPaul sells the concept by highlighting how important euphemisms, innuendos and puns are for queer people as a way to covertly express themselves, but this challenge made all that so explicit. These branding challenges tend to be a low-spot of a season, as it’s an excuse for Ru to sell his own ideas about consumerism, limiting the queens to his own fracked-up confines.
Still, there were some cute moments, as we said bye to Eureka. For now, at least, as the game within a game finally starts next week. With Ru telling Eureka to stop de-dragging and instead get ready to lip-sync, it’s seemingly a tournament where each queen has to face whoever was eliminated the week after them. If Serena ChaCha can survive nine lip-syncs, she deserves to be there.
Mexicantessan Marketing Genius
The mini-challenge returns this week purely to stir up drama. School’s in session, with the queens voting on superlatives (most gassy, moodiest queen, etc.) and getting points if others agree with them.
Ra’Jah voting herself for ‘prettiest’: she knows how to use every second of her camera time.
Where Eureka takes her many titles in stride (most likely to go home next, shadiest and most bossy, gassy, shady), Trinity takes ‘moodiest’ to heart — as well as ‘most likely to go home next’, forgetting that, in a refusal to play mean, she was one of the two votes for herself.
Ra’Jah is a little shaken too by Eureka putting her name for likely next elimination, with Eureka explaining she thought Ra’Jah got the second-worst critiques last week. Of all the queens, only Ginger doesn’t have a moment this episode, as both Kylie and Eureka take time outs while sewing. They must all be exhausted, and this is essentially both a design and branding challenge, as they have to make their outfits, too. It’s a lot.
Me, basking in the sun each day after the NSW Covid press conferences, listening to Nicki Minaj on repeat, thinking of all that will come after this lockdown and the beauty still within this broken world (Nicki Minaj).
Ru’s little werkroom chats didn’t help with the mood, either. He tells Ra’Jah that her character’s name sucks, going on one of his classic rants about how brand/character/stage names should roll off the tongue.
I’Siya Queen is a better name that Queen SeeMe though, and listening to Ru did see her win. On Instagram, Ra’Jah said she really struggled this challenge and ended up having a little twerk break to shake it loose, which is how she landed on the idea of changing perspectives and vibes as her superpower.
Me, 11.04am each day.
She’s the clear winner, as her character’s “message” is (apologies for writing this) genuinely affecting, rather than the generic ‘love yourself!’ messaging most of the other queens go for.
It also sums up Ra’Jah’s 180° from S11 to AS6: it’s hard to pick a winner out of this bunch, but I think my heart’s set on Ra’Jah. Putting her in the hall of fame is such a testament to how your Drag Race performance doesn’t define who you are as an artist or person, that every queen who has competed is so much more than what we see on the show.
Ra’Jah is so talented and charming, but so much of the show’s audience was blind to that after S11. She deserves the win as much as anyone else, but to make an ex-‘villain’ a winner is a clear message to those who troll the queens — and disproportionately the queens of colour, too. (There’s something to be said about the show’s duty of care to its contestants, too, but that’s a whole other Pandora Boxx.)
‘Drag Tater Tots’ – Someone Who Hates Napoleon Dynamite But Can’t Remember What The Film’s Called
This week, the show wastes not just one but three guest judges: I’m still recovering from the lip-sync song being Charli XCX’s least-favourite of her own music, but to have Latrice and Bianca appear as little cartoons, providing their voices to ‘jokes’ they sound so unenthused to say? Drag Race continually tests me.
On the plus side, it was amazing to see Drag Race España‘s Arantxa Castilla La Mancha make history by becoming the first non-winner to appear as a guest judge.
It’s Aratnxa baby,,,
While Ra’Jah nabs her second win, everyone else is up for elimination. It’s difficult, as no one was particularly bad. Trinity’s fursona was a close second, while everyone else was fine: Ginger played herself, Eureka’s villain character wasn’t terribly funny, and Kylie’s witch was a little rough around the edges/hems.
Between this and Symone, convinced that Big Furry has infiltrated Drag Race.
I have nothing to say about this. Beautiful trees, beautiful trees.
Very ‘hot girl gets into Halloween’.
I was a little surprised the judges loved this look: it seemed a little simple.
Pan’s Lab, Rynth? Jealous, my landlord won’t let me get a dog.
Despite the chatter back-stage, the voting is unanimous: Eureka is going home tonight. Ra’Jah’s lip-sync to ‘Boom Clap’ is so low-energy you have to wonder if she’s throwing it, but, even while winning, assassin Kameron Michaels doesn’t fare much better.
Charli has so many other turbo tracks that would have been better (‘Royals’ is right there!), but ‘Boom Clap’ remains, unfortunately, one of her biggest songs in the US to date. It’s an appropriate end for an episode all about ‘marketing genius’, revealing that just because something sells well doesn’t make it good.
At least there are memes. I leave you with three.
The world isn’t ready for a lip sync between these assassins #allstars6 pic.twitter.com/5dR2ZbggA5
— Jordan T (@itsthatjordan) August 12, 2021
How I walk down the street at night when there’s a woman walking alone so she knows I won’t attack her pic.twitter.com/VBOLyTdNOo
— Dan (@dannah__montana) August 14, 2021
eureka at the end of that episode:#AllStars6 pic.twitter.com/29maSyyXVu
— ray (@sgtxiu) August 12, 2021
RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 6 streams on Stan, with episodes arriving each Thursday 7 pm AEST.
Jared Richards is Junkee’s Drag Race recapper, and a freelance writer for The Guardian, NME, The Big Issue and more. Follow him on Twitter @jrdjms.