Warning: Spoilers ahead for the first two episodes of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars.”
Start your engines! “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” is back and ready to crown the “Queen of All Queens.”
In this new season of “All Stars,” every queen competing has been a winner of a past season. This season’s lineup includes Raja (Season 3), Jinkx Monsoon (Season 5), Trinity The Tuck (Season 9, All Stars 4), Monét X Change (Season 10, All Stars 4), Shea Couleé (Season 9, All Stars 5), Jaida Essence Hall (Season 12), Yvie Oddly (Season 11), and The Vivienne (UK Season 1).
The season premiered on Paramount+ on May 20, with two episodes available and the rest of the episodes to follow. This season, the queens are competing to be the best of the best with the title “Queen of All Queens,” plus a cash prize of $200,000.
However, this season takes an interesting twist as far as the competition goes: there will be no eliminations this season. Instead of a traditional elimination, the two top queens from the main challenge will win a Legendary Legend Star, then participate in a Lip Sync for your Legacy. The winner of the lip sync will win a $10,000 tip and the opportunity to “block” one of the six safe queens from winning a Legendary Legend Star in the next challenge, even if they win the challenge.
Though only two episodes have been dropped so far, the new season has already packed a serious punch. Viewers finally learned the identity of the mystery queen in the big hat (Spoiler alert: it’s Raven) and her presence leads everyone into the first mini-challenge, called Reading is Fundamental, where everyone must read the other queens to filth. Jinkx Monsoon took home the win in this challenge, taking home a $2,500 tip.
After a brief lesson on perfecting your runway walk from Naomi Campbell, the queens are tasked to rewrite the lyrics of RuPaul’s song “Legendary” and use their verses to reintroduce themselves to the public. They then must choreograph a full dance to go with the new version of the song, and then hit the runway with the theme “She’s Crowning.” Judged by RuPaul, returning judges Michelle Visage and Carson Kressley, plus guest judge Cameron Diaz, the winners of the challenge were Monét X Change and Shea Couleé, with Shea Couleé taking home the lip sync win.
The second episode brings back the popular challenge Snatch Game, where the queens don their best character and play a “Drag Race” style version of the classic game show “Match Game.” Each queen took on two different personas this time around, and then they took to the runway with the theme “The Pleather Principle.” This time we saw Jinkx Monsoon and Trinity the Tuck winning the challenge and Jinkx taking the win for the lip sync challenge as well.
So what’s next to come for this new season? You’ll have to wait until May 27 to find out. But this season will feature a variety of celebrity guest judges, including Cameron Diaz, Daphne Guinness, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, Nikki Glaser, Tove Lo, Betsey Johnson, Janicza Bravo, Ben Platt, Ronan Farrow and Hannah Einbinder, with special appearances by Vanna White, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
To watch this season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars,” head over to paramountplus.com.
