This is a hill that I am willing to die on but everyone’s favourite Polish export Alexis St Pete did not deserve to go home in last week’s episode of Ru Paul’s Drag Race All Stars. After the queens were tasked with creating unique outfits out of a plethora of pet supplies, she came out in this wonderfully sparkly, blue-netted gown complete with the theatrics of a recently departed dead fish. I think that when this outfit was compared to the outfits created/worn by the likes of Tomora Thomas and Miss Noami Carter, was definitely at the bare minimum a safe look! On the other end of the competition, it was very clear who would walk away with the winner as Banksey created this gorgeous black and white houndstooth look and I have to admit to this point I had overlooked her fashion talents! I hadn’t really understood the hype around this fashion queen until she managed to transform handkerchiefs into this gorgeous outfit! One of the more intense moments of the episode saw her and Cara Mel get into an intense fight (initially in front of Ru Paul and then leaking over into the werk room) where the former said they had never seen the latter sew an outfit. This started to show a more intense and aggressive side of Cara Mel which she continued to reveal itself in this week’s episode!
This week’s episode however got off to a very unusual start as we learned about an injury that occurred after Noami and Dede decided to perform a chest bump backstage. This was initially shown as a quirky celebration between two friends but as the episode progressed we started to see the effects on specifically Noami as she was forced to perform the girl group challenge from the confines of a sofa on stage but more on that later! Ru Paul entered the werk room to announce that this week was the iconic girl group challenge which is always a highlight of the UK iterations of the world’s biggest drag conception! This show has seen the birth of the iconic Breakup bye-bye and UK Hun which are tracks that still regularly make appearances on my Spotify playlists! Both tracks were titled “Don’t ick my yum” where each group had to write, record and perform an original verse that explored their personal icks. This got me wondering what my verse would sound like and it would go something like this:
Take a shot, have some fun
On a Friday night, it must done.
But learn the rules and know the game
Tip the girls and make it rain
You may be a hun but this is a queer space
And never, ever touch my lace
She can hold her drink, she a hardened drinker (yep!)
This is years of hard work so don’t try to keep up!
The queens had to split themselves up which caused the classic group of popular queens and left-over queens storyline to begin to unfold. The first group called Fierce Force Five was comprised of Cara, Micheal, Vicki, Tomora, and Dede who decided to go for a very serious choreography-heavy number to mostly in part to the self-appointed choreographer Cara Mel who again showed a more intense and confronting side to her character throughout the episode as she began to berate Tomara for starting on the wrong leg multiples times. The first queen to share her ick was the amazing Micheal who talked about her hatred of guys with bad fashion. She really played up her scouser accent which added a sense of comedy to the number which was only exaggerated by the joke about socks and sliders! It was revealed that week one’s winner Vicki was actually in a girl band back home, has performed on the West End and has also been a supporting artist for Little Mix! While the vocals themselves were breathtaking, I have to say that there were a few occasions when Vicki’s lipsync performance was not lined up with her recording which did lose her some points during the number! I actually thought the highlight of this number was Tomora Thomas who took centre stage throughout the number and nailed the complex choreography laid out by her housemate Cara Mell. The pinnacle of her number was an incredible jump split that was a beauty to watch! The entire performance ended with every performer pulling out a stunt that added an intimidating full stop to the number visible shaking the other group of queens backstage!
The other group however named themselves the M52s which was made up of the remaining queens Kate, Noami, Banksy and Ginger which is particularly they are all northern queens. It was clear from the off-set that Naomi’s injury is taking a greater toll on her body than she originally portrayed as she spent the majority of this number sitting down on a sofa. I do have to give props to the rest of the team who were able to quickly adapt their choreography to accommodate the injury. As there were no professional dancers in this group, they went down the more comedic and camp route with the enter number starting with Ginger playing Naomi’s foot as a saxophone! Thus far in the competition, I have not been the biggest fan of Kate Butch but I have to admit that her verse was very clever. Including references to her namesake with “running up that hill”, a literary reference in “Weather Your Heights” and very a unique rap verse that ended with her instructing the listener to go to therapy. As expected Ginger went classically camp as she sang about her hatred of Tories and TERFS which is particularly powerful right now with everyone going on with Rishi Sunack and the party! I think we really missed out on experiencing a fully realised Noami Carter verse as even though she was glued to one spot due to injury, she still delivered an incredible verse. I can only imagine how impressive her Black Lives Matter verse would have been if she was able to give the high-energy productions we have come to expect from her thus far!
The runway theme this week was night of 1000 pop icons where the queens had to pay homage to their favourite pop stars. In all seriousness, if I was taking part in this runway category I think I would have paid homage to the iconic Lady Gaga and that meat dress just because I think it’s a recognisable look and has a certain sense of humour about it! I thought that it was really interesting that Vicki decided to dedicate her outfit this week to the Queen singer Freddie Mercury as she wore a wonderful cape and gown outfit. Not only is this a male-inspired look (which in itself has a storied history on drag race) but also it touches on Vicki’s own personal connections to the Terrace Higgins trust/HIV campaigning.
It came as a shock to literally no one when Cara Mel walked the runway with an outfit paying homage to Beyoncé. Just because it was expected, however, does not mean it was less impactful as she looked stunning in the black sparkly ensemble. She had looked incredible every single runway and I am beginning to think that the fashion element might be where she excels the most! The judges were absolutely in love with Michael’s look however I personally did not enjoy it. I appreciate that they were trying to create one look that paid homage to all four Spice Girls but to me, it looked quite disjointed. The iconic outfits were Frankenstein-Ed together creating an also spooky look of the iconic girl group.
When I sat down and thought about it, it was also pretty expected that Banksy decided to channel her inner David Bowie as she walked the runway in a black-and-white striped look complete with Ginger hair. The circular trousers can have a wonderful caricature-style, recognisable look. I have to admit that I was somewhat disappointed by Ginger’s tribute to the charismatic Elton John as she went for the muppet show appearance which was essentially a white outfit with rainbow feathers. Now if I had to do a Elton inspired look then I would obviously opt for the Rocketman-inspired baseball look that Harry Styles famous recreated (fun fact I did once own a replica of this outfit which I wore to town and came home with a massive rip in the backside area.)
It was announced that Fierce Force Five were the top group this week with the top two queens battling out for the overall win. Surprisingly, however, no one was sent home this week meaning that the top two battle was purely for a badge. In a delayed climax of the drama between Cara and Tomora from last week’s episode, they were both announced as the top two queens who battle in the first-ever roommate vs roommate top two lip-sync in Drag Race herstory! I thought that this battle between the top gifted performers was amazing to watch (amped by the intense drama thus far) with Tomora revealing a red bra under her Elvis costume and Cara pulling out insane choreography and an insane splits. This was by far the most even lip-sync battle this season but I wasn’t surprised when it was announced that Cara Mel would be claiming her first episode win! The fact that Tomora received fairly negative feedback from the judges on her Elvis look and Cara was positioned as the captain of her team this week, meant that it totally made sense when Cara claimed the overall win!
Overall, this week’s girl groups challenge didn’t quite match the hype of previous performance on Drag Race UK but both versions of the song have already made their way into my Spotify playlist. I thought the runway category was super exciting and fun but lots of the more obvious and recognisable looks were left out due to the fear of potential repetition from other queens. This was an episode that I personally would have loved to have taken part in (and would like to think I would shine in) which made for a very enjoyable episode for me personally. I would rate this episode 4.5 stars out of 5!
Rhysreviews 