RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars Season 10, Episode 5
"Rappin' Roast"
Director: Nick Murray
Cast: Jorgeous, Kerri Colby, Lydia B Kollins, Mistress Isabelle Brooks, Nicole Paige Brooks, Tina Burner
We need to talk about casting. We praise the queens, praise the host, praise the hairstyling and costuming, the camera work — but we need to praise the casting. Whoever at World of Wonder looked at this crop of 18 queens and said, "Mistress Isabelle Brooks and Nicole Paige Brooks need to be in the same bracket, and not just because of their surname," deserves an Emmy. Adding in Tina Burner as a chaos agent, Jorgeous as a scrappy hench-queen —
Okay, I should just shout out Drag Her's casting of Mistress as Jabba the Hutt and Jorgeous as Salacious Crumb and go from there. Tina Burner is a Rancor (a threat that demands attention yet defies all reason). Nicole is A New Hope Han Solo but wearing Leia's slave bikini (reckless, over it, foot-perpetually-in-mouth, yet all woman). Lydia B Kollins is our Phantom Menace-era Anakin Skywalker (Is she good? Is she bad? It doesn't matter, because she's first and foremost a powerful baby) and Kerri Colby is our Princess Leia (regal yet ferocious) — this sextet is a masterstroke of casting. And it's a crime that, with All Stars 10's format, we only get three episodes of it.
Or maybe that's what's going to make this trio of episodes some of the most iconic Drag Race we've seen in ages.
The episode starts with some of the most malicious faggotry we've ever seen on TV. This is a dividing line. This is a Rorschach test. What you see and how you see it says too much about who you are as a person. This moment is a trap, and not just for Kerri and Nicole. Mistress — get this bitch to Fiji, BTW — interrupts all discussion of point-swapping and hastily tells Nicole and Kerri what they're going to do. And when Nicole tries to assert some control over her fate and hand her point to Kerri, Mistress throws a [completely insincere] fit, calling Nicole's honor into question and calling shade and shenanigans — badgering Nicole into giving her point to Mistress. She relents. Kerri hands her point to Jorgeous (remember their Texas alliance?). And then — Mistress and Jorgeous swap their points with each other, leaving Kerri and Nicole with dust. Now Mistress and Jorgeous went from zero to two points, tied with Tina Burner, and Kerri and Nicole are frozen out.
This moment is now the gay version of The Dress. When you look at it, what do you see? Do you see primo reality TV, top-tier villainy, a master at her craft at work? Or do you see a person just being shitty to someone else, giving zero fucks about how their actions impact an actual person's actual feelings? You can say, "It's just a TV show!" — which, it is. And this is top-tier reality TV. But this is also a very real competition for a life-changing $200,000, and in one of the very rare moments on Drag Race, the producers are letting the queens actually pull some strings. It's a gag, to be sure, and absolutely the kind of rigor Morris that the producers wanted and failed to get in Bracket 1.
But — why do we excuse straight-up, very real, very harmful mean girl shit just because it's funny on our screen? That's my problem with Mistress on Drag Race. She will stomp on your foot and then giggle when you say it hurts, and act like you're overreacting even though your toes are throbbing. She didn't mean to crack your toes. Why are you taking your toes so seriously? Calm down. Truly the most frustrating personality type to have to deal with, and it tries me on TV too. The truth is, Ellen, that Kerri, Jorgeous, and Mistress had an alliance, and the Hutt and the Kowakian monkey-lizard are just yanking Leia around on a chain for truly no fucking reason.
But also, damn, it's good TV.
The Werk Room
The personalities in this bracket, you couldn't script group dynamics this juicy. Like, Mistress never says anything half-assed. Everything is the best or the worst, she infers meaning and says it out loud in order to provoke others. Like when Nicole says that Mistress shouldn't give out the Brooks name to just anyone, Mistress leaps to, "So you don't think the winner is worthy? That's crazy!" You know she knows she's being hyperbolic, but you can't call that out because that's playing into her game.
But Nicole, Nicole has no filter. Nicole is not playing any mind games here. She, a fellow Brooks, is calling out Mistress for playing along with this "Lydia Brooks Kollins" bit. "We don't throw our lineage around like that, but I see you," she says with a bit of deadpan snark. "Mama doesn't let me give it out like that." Nicole is the perfect foil for Mistress because everything she says is so genuine, and her confidence comes across as offensive — I mean, like, she's on the offense. Her confidence allows her to attack. NPB went out second on Season 2 and genuinely acts like she has nothing to prove. When the judges ask her for draggier makeup, unbothered she says, "sure," and carves a cheek as deep as the Grand Canyon.
Tina Burner, though? Her confidence feels defensive. It's wild: Tina went far in her season and has come back here with a to-do list as long as a CVS receipt. When the queens get the week's challenge, a rappin' roast, Tina is quick to point out that she did a rap in her season, and she "rapped the verse down, honey!" And then they show a clip and ... [squinty Thor face] did she though? But that's the energy Tina brings to everything. When Lydia assigns the running order and gives Tina what she wants, Tina looks her dead-ass in the face and is like, "those aren't points, that's just the order." Tina is here like Superman flying around the Earth in reverse, putting all her will into turning back time, except she's really (to quote Kerri Colby) just a man in a wig.
Sorry Olivia Lux, because Kerri Colby's coming for the Michelle Obama edit. She got done dirty, but she's taking the high road here — not because it's the moral thing to do, but because she knows the game Mistress is playing. She knows Mistress wants the drama, craves the reaction, and Kerri's instead playing it calm but honest; yes, she was blindsided, but she's not gonna yell about it. She's still gonna kiki with Jorgeous, too. It's the best look, and that tracks considering, y'know, look at her. Plus, the mirror chat this week allows for Kerri to get vulnerable — maybe for the first time in Drag Race? It's hard, when you watch so much extracuricular content, you forget what tea has been spilled where. But Kerri's relationship with her biological family is so hard, so cruel, it makes her strength and grace all the more remarkable. She has zero points, but Kerri's really racking up favor.
And then there's Lydia B Kollins, who is low-key the most TV savvy of them all. It's wild. She's so new to this. But Lydia came in and immediately made herself an integral part in everyone else's storyline. She's "auditioning" to be Mistress's daughter, she's making Jorgeous jealous, and she has Kerri and Tina cozying up to her for points. Hell, Chappell Roan comes into the Werk Room and zeroes in on Lydia because Lydia opened for her during her stop in Pittsburgh. None of this feels calculated, though! Lydia — while she clearly instigated the Mistress storyline and the soft alliance with Kerri — seems genuinely surprised anyone pays her a compliment, and continually baffled by her own presence in this competition. She, like NPB, feels just happy to be here — and she's also crushing it.
Jorgeous is also there.
The Maxi Challenge
Overall, I am here for the challenge producers merging two concepts — writing a verse and roasting — to create something new yet familiar. Still, Drag Race getting this deep into hip-hop drag felt kinda cringey — like, did we need the breakdancer? But hey, if you're not cringing a little, is it Drag Race?
Tina Burner did a better job here than her previous verse in Season 13, skirting a lot of traditional roast set-ups and coming up with original reads. But she was really hard to understand without subtitles, and she could've done a lot more with a little less. Best burn: "Nicole Paige Brooks / a scared straight program / Keep your kids off drag / She's the face, that's the slogan."
Nicole Paige Brooks' vocal debut! I mean, she kinda crushed it. You could understand her! Some of her bars were wobbly, rhyme schemes akimbo, and we never need to hear "charisma, uniqueness, etc." in a verse ever again. But all of her reads were either so, so right or so wrong they're right. Best burn: Hard to pick one, but, "Gorgeous Jorgeous, how'd you get here? / You been in Ross's colon this whole damn year?" (performed whilst miming spreading Ross's giant, person-sized asshole open)
As the winner of Season 17's roast, Lydia had a lot to live up to — and she did. I think she tried to be a little too clever with her flow, and that hurt the punchiness of her jokes. Best burn: "Face face body it's Kerri Colby / You'll always be the Tamar to Sasha's Toni"
Mistress Isabelle Brooks, how could she not serve? I'll be honest: I think Mistress is shadier in her confessionals than in her verses! Love that her read for Kerri requires watching and remembering Avengers: Endgame to understand. Still, she had a solid flow and — this feels like such a geriatric compliment — I could understand her. Best burn: "Now I'm moving on to Nicole Paige Brooks / I can't read the bitch / Look how Nicole Paige looks"
I'm starting to wonder if Jorgeous playing dumb for two full seasons of this show was a long con, because all the other queens making GED jokes have cratered my expectations for Jorgeous — and now she consistently blows me away. She got in a lot of solid, intelligible reads and married them to her killer moves. Best burn: "You talk the most yet say the least / To quote Alyssa Edwards [effortless drop to a ninja pose, segueing into breakdance] BEAST!"
Kerri wanted to go last because she wanted to do something different. The problem is, she made this challenge so much harder for herself by intentionally not naming the other girls and launching reads at them like targeted missiles. Her scorched earth approach, trying to read them all at once, worked as a verse but not as a roast. Best burn: "I stand 10 feet tall / God damn, I'm glad / It's the one good thing came from my dad"
The Runway
We as gay people, we have to pay attention to when our dirty puns completely wreck meaning. RuPaul called this category "Little Shop of Whores" — and then Tina Burner says, "This look is an homage to my mother, because she's the most important person to me." Jesus Christ. The category was clearly "plants," which Ru hid behind at least two layers of references and puns. Why not just call this category Plants on the Runway? It's a reference that is right there, and Tina Burner's sick mother doesn't get indirectly called a whore.
Anyway, the best Tina Burner has ever looked, as a stargazer lily. Jorgeous gives Venus flytrap, which is serviceably beautiful. Nicole Paige Brooks comes out in a cactus gown that is enough of a look on its own, but she strips it off to reveal ... the meat of the cactus. Lydia B Kollins makes an actual Little Shop of Horrors reference, which we've seen before — kinda on Suzie Toot for the Season 17 reunion, which filmed almost a year after this runway, so no claims of plagiarism! Mistress Isabelle Brooks gives Super Mario cactus and it's different for her, and good. And Kerri Colby comes out as a jewel tone Venus flytrap with a reveal into her basically naked body. It's stunning, because, her body.
The Critiques
There is a running gag this season that I'm living for: guest judges directly contradicting Michelle, and Michelle looking bothered. Michelle says she couldn't understand Tina because there were too many words. Cue Chappell saying of Tina's rap: "Like, I know it was a lot of words, but I think, um, that's rap." The unintended shade.
The judges mostly came correct this week, and the queens did too. I didn't get nervous energy from Lydia, but they needed something negative to say to her to keep her out of the top. But this was a strong showing from all the queens, with all of them slaying either the runway or the performance, or both. Love that NPB got some flowers, finally. She put on that big hair for you, Michelle!
And the top two being Jorgeous and Mistress ... feels only a little produced, considering how this episode started. I think Nicole could slot in there, just for the audacity and insanity of her performance, but you could argue that her runway reveal wasn't meaty enough. And no need to give Lydia the top spot two weeks in a row. Who is she, Irene? And Tina and Kerri's verses were pretty clearly the bottom.
The Lip Sync
Time for me to be a TV production nerd: All Stars episodes don't have to fit into a network's allotted runtime. In fact, this season's episodes have so far ranged from 62 to 68 minutes in length. With that in mind, there is no reason for us to get a lip sync number that feels as choppy as this one. Regular Drag Race, sure, it has to fit into MTV's schedule. But All Stars? No ma'am.
It felt like "Hot to Go," arguably the song of Summer 2024 (at least if you were addicted to Love Island USA Season 6), got done dirty this week. If any song deserved the Canada's Drag Race treatment (y'all know that show presents the lip syncs in full with no talking heads, right?), it was this one. But Drag Race has long tailored lip sync edits to reflect the outcome they want, and maybe "Hot to Go" got chopped up to justify the odd double win. This was Jorgeous' win, but ... sure. Mercifully, comically, MIB and Jorgeous have to split that extra point, which makes the double win not as egregious.
The villains won this week. Will Kerri and Nicole get on the board next week? Or are this bracket's winners already a done deal?
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