RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars Season 10, Episode 11
"Tournament of All Stars Talent Invitational"
Director: Nick Murray
Cast: Aja, Bosco, Daya Betty, Ginger Minj, Irene the Alien, Jorgeous, Lydia B Kollins, Mistress Isabelle Brooks
I've been covering Drag Race professionally for eight years, starting with the Season 9 finale. I've seen a lot happen between those fake brick walls, witnessed a lot of tomfoolery, experienced a lot of personalities. But All Stars 10 gave me a new sensation this week: I didn't just root for a queen to be sent home, I craved it — I craved it like Dracula craves cucu. I craved it, and I left this episode satiated. Clock that tea.
I don't really want to spend another recap going on about Mistress Isabelle Brooks, but damn. The cold open after Cynthia Lee Fontaine's elimination has to be one of the most awkward in the franchise's herstory. Not in a good way. For all the talk about how Mistress knows how to make good TV, this was not good TV. This behavior — I believe Aja said "energy vampire" — is the worst kind of TV, because it's a lack of TV. It's just Mistress sitting there, stewing and pouting, causing everyone else onscreen to retreat into themselves. Terrible. Mistress is still so young, she's conflated delusion with confidence. You can be confident and admit that you bombed Snatch Game. You can be confident without insulting other people. Saying that you actually don't need the competition, not like other girls, isn't giving confidence. It's giving insecurity. Wake that up. Or whatever.
Mistress's nasty streak continues the next day when she interrupts Aja, who's talking about her own insecurities, by brushing Aja's hair away from her ear so she can laugh directly in it. And then Mistress reacts to Aja's bothered response as if Aja is the one overreacting. Mistress says to Aja, "I don't think I'll take life advice from anyone in your position." Remember last week, when Aja was tearfully confiding in Bosco about her struggles rebuilding her career, how some months she legit worries about being homeless? If only Mistress had heard —
Oh. Oh.
I know Mistress and Aja brush past this mere moments later and the two just did a video on Mistress' YouTube channel. But. That's just a rotted thing to say, joking or not, in any context — and it's not like Mistress does anything good to balance out this shit, at least not in the edit.
Thank god RuPaul's here to open up the library! We hear a lot of original reads, the best coming from Bosco: "Jorgeous, you are such a little slut, they're going to have to rename your throat the orphanage." And, "Mistress loves to brag about driving a Mercedes. I get it. I would brag too if I had such a beautiful home." I welcome the return of Bosco's dominance.
This week sees the return of the talent show. I'm weirdly okay with all of the queens' unspoken acknowledgement of what this challenge really is: lip syncing to your original track. And I don't begrudge them this! Drag itself encompasses so many talents. Hairstyling, makeup, design, sewing, branding, choreography, songwriting, singing, video production, marketing — you have to be solidly competent at at least, what, three of those very specific talents to become a successful queen. Mastering one is enough to build a career upon. Looking at a queen who's mastered enough of those skills to get to Drag Race and saying, "What else ya got?" is kinda unhinged. So, sure, do a number and make it fierce.
This time around, though, they have the queens do a run-through of their number in front of another queen — as if any queen is going to listen to advice from their competition going into the penultimate challenge of the season. Still, we got minutes to fill and it's interesting to see who these queens trust enough to show a few of their cards to.
Ginger and Daya's friendship — professional working relationship? — is the surprise of the season, IMO. I wouldn't have seen it coming, but then again, they were both low-key self-branded as bitter betties on their original seasons. And, at least from the POV of a journalist covering the show, Daya is really nice at events and is incredibly easy to talk to!
The performances pretty clearly cleaved into three groups, and I believe were fairly judged. Bosco and Ginger landed in the top for two campy, vampy numbers — albeit on opposite ends of the vibe spectrum. Bosco's burlesque routine was sexy, self-aware, stylish, and included some sick folding-chair-ography. And after noting that she's delivered mid performances in two previous talent shows, Ginger finally leaned into her strengths (Broadway, baby) and presented a by-the-book showtune moment about — what else? — her Drag Race journey. But hey — you're not going to win a talent show doing something for the first time. Just look at Scarlet Envy and her bubble burlesque.
In the same vein, Jorgeous did exactly what you'd want Jorgeous to do: a gravity-defying, high-octane dance number built around her new catchphrase, "It's getting muggy in here." Are we glad that she didn't do that for All Stars 9's "feeling gapey" or was that a missed opportunity? Of course Jorgeous served and Ru ate it up.
Daya and Irene gave safe — I'd say top safe performances. Irene's was the stronger of the two, a cavalcade of talents fully acknowledging her first-out status. As far as original comedy tracks retelling your Drag Race journey in one minute go, which is very much a music genre now, I thought this one was pretty flawless.
Daya also had a lot to prove as another queen who was first-out on a talent show challenge (Daya was immediately brought back whereas Irene was handed a return flight to Seattle). Pretty much anything would be better than lip syncing party tricks to Pink's "Get the Party Started." Daya's "Hot Topic girlie goes wild at the office when the clock strikes 5" routine was mid until a dancer poured coffee on her jiggling tiddies, and she closed by stapling a check to her ass. That's how you end a number.
Aja and Lydia fell to the bottom of the rankings, but not for lack of trying. I mean, Aja vogued with a machete. The only problem is that there wasn't enough voguing and — proof that ultimately every combination of words will be used as a Drag Race critique — it could've used more machete. And Lydia's Humpty Dumpty striptease number needed a little bit more spice. Her reveals were a little clunky, but there's something about Lydia's quiet, earnest confidence that keeps you invested even as things are falling apart. I think it's because you know Lydia's not bothered by a mishap, that she revels in the discomfort, so you don't feel the panic you usually would when a queen trips up.
And then Mistress woke it up, clocked that tea, and tried to do her big one. Tried.
The runway category Foiled Again provided a few stunners, and ultimately I think the runway mattered for the top queens. Bosco took the win, and I think her stunning metallic Art Deco gown snatched it from Ginger. And I think Jorgeous' star-themed dress, which Law Roach called a Plastique Tiara look, kept her out of consideration for a win that you know they wanted to give her.
The bottoms, however, told a different story. Mistress' look and performance got her to the bottom, but the other spot — I think Lydia's xenomorph bodysuit could have kept her out of the bottom (even if it was heavily reminiscent of Sasha Velour's step-down look). But then we wouldn't have gotten to see Lydia, ever the assassin, straight up dominate Charlie XCX's "Guess." Mistress made the mistake earlier when she bragged about never having lost a lip sync. Girl, it's the new Roxxxy Andrews rule. You make that boast and you are toast. Mistress was sent packing, and I actually don't like how good it felt ... but it still felt good.
And then the twist. What the hell. All season long, we've been told that the regular judges would enter a queen into the wild card draw, led to believe that that meant Michelle Visage, Ross Mathews, Carson Kressley, Ts Madison, and Law Roach. We were misled. In a twist that actually errs on the side of fairness, for once, only the judges who judged all three brackets — therefore the only ones who saw all 18 contestants — picked a queen. Of course things immediately got weird when Ross's pick was Mistress, the queen who was just eliminated. And Ross wasn't even in the building. Sure. Then Ts Madison and Michelle Visage's picks both went to Kerri Colby — deservedly so, and it would be sweet justice if the queen that Mistress screwed over made a comeback. But I'm not holding my breath, because as we're reminded, to exhaustion, "Mistress is good TV." Not this week, she wasn't.
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