‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7’ Episode 8 recap: Santa, tell me if you’re really there

Is this the summer of 2019? Because I’m watching a queer reality show all about math, and I’m loving it. Sadly, this is not Are You the One? Come One, Come All, a perfect season of television (stream it on Paramount+!) It is instead RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7, and the eight returning champions are entering their mathematics era.

With Jaida Essence Hall now at three Legendary Legend Stars after her victory in last week’s design challenge, the other queens are realizing just how locked for the finale she seemingly is—and how far away some of them are. “I’m not a mathematician, but those numbers don’t look good to me!” Shea Couleé says, realizing that at one star, she effectively must win two of her next four challenges. Monét X Change, Raja, and The Vivienne are all in the same predicament, although by the end of this episode, two of them won’t be. Meanwhile, Yvie Oddly’s ascent to the top has been stopped in its tracks, as Trinity the Tuck made the choice to block her last week.

This kind of panic over numbers is what I’ve been hoping to see all season long. We are getting down to the wire here, and it is becoming nearly mathematically impossible for some of these queens to make it to the finale without further twists. Of course, watching someone compete when there’s no hope for them to win is no fun, so I have a feeling there’s a trick coming down the pipeline. But these queens don’t know that, and they’re ready to kick things into high gear. The result is an episode that feels focused in a way the past few have not, and spells good fortune for the rest of our endgame.

To get to the rest of the season, though, we must make it through the proper acting challenge of the season, a Christmas-themed skit called “Santa’s School for Girls.” Like all the latter-day acting challenges that feature a whole cast, it is long. So long. A friend texted that “it felt like a million hours” and even that seems shorter than what we got. But it’s a fun mashup of references—Ru says it’s partially influenced by Christmas films, Mean Girls, and horror movies—and everyone acquits themselves pretty well. But there’s one person I credit for that success: Janicza Bravo.

Janicza is a goddamn revelation this week. The Zola director hops into the chair next to RuPaul usually occupied by Ross Mathews, Michelle Visage, or Carson Kressley this week, and promptly shows what a real helmer should do in these situations. Her notes are near-universally helpful, positive, and speak the language that the queens themselves speak. (Yvie jokes about this in a confessional, noting Janicza’s “hippie” directions to her.) When Trinity wisely pivots away from a just-dumb reading of her character, Joy, based on notes to make her more vacant, Janicza affirms her: “I saw the pleasure in your absence.” When Jaida grabs focus by giving big reactions while not speaking, Janicza encourages her: “Jaida I just want to commend you on your physicality.”

It is such a breath of fresh air to have a real director here. She is a hero in this episode, pulling off the Herculean feat of getting everyone to turn in a solid performance with a mediocre script. That’s not to discredit the queens, who take her every note and run with it. All of them are good, and at least one of them is downright spectacular. But think about other acting challenges we’ve had, when Ru and his judges just repeatedly push the queens to go broader and broader. We get a much better range of performances here, and that’s to Janicza’s credit.

A queen who doesn’t benefit quite as much, however, is Jinkx Monsoon. In a pretty substantial upset, Jinkx doesn’t win this week’s acting challenge, nor come even close to the top. She gets thrown a curveball when Trinity, assigning the roles as a reward for winning last week, gives her none of the roles she wants, and instead throws her perhaps the worst part in the piece. Unfortunately for Jinkx, she overcompensates to try and rise to the occasion, and delivers an overly emphatic performance. It’s pretty shocking to see from Jinkx, and allows her theatrical rival Viv the chance to take the victory this week instead.

And boy, what a victory it is. The Vivienne continues her hot streak this season with a dynamite performance as “Nutmegyn Kelly”—but just call her Nutmeg. As a Christmas-obsessed headmistress determined to stomp out any Christmas-ambivalent sentiment in her school, Viv is masterful. Every bit of physical comedy is excellent. Every expression she pulls is hilarious. Every line reading is right on, adjusted to perfection by Janicza’s direction. Paired with a gorgeous knit gown for the Knitty Knitty Bang Bang runway, and this is by far Viv’s strongest week across her entire Drag Race career. She earns her third challenge victory, and her second Legendary Legend Star.

Joining her at the top is Raja, which is an odd choice to me based on her challenge performance. She very wisely goes for the goth character, Scrooge, and definitely looks the part for it. But her line readings are pretty heavily punctuated, and she lacks the natural qualities that some of her competitors (especially Shea and Monét) have. Where she does shine is on the runway, in a golden metallic knit look that is nothing short of excellent. She also earns her second Legendary Legend Star, and even wins the lip sync to boot!

The lip sync song is a dynamite choice for Raja: “Super Freak” by Rick James. From the very beginning, you can just tell that this is in Raja’s comfort zone. She slinks down the main stage, nails every word, and pulls out a delightfully shady move in which she gestures at Viv on “she’s all right.” It’s a delightful performance, and it redeems Raja as a lip syncer after that disastrous Lizzo performance a few weeks back. She earns a cash tip of $10,000, and the power to block someone. She goes with Jaida, an understandable if unwise choice considering how far in the lead she is. (Better to block someone who’s still in competition with you than someone who’s almost certainly a lock.)

I do want to talk about something that happens in the lip sync, and it’s not Viv’s near-trip that she saves. (“Nice save!” Janicza says, and it is lovely.) No, what I want to bring up is Viv lifting Raja’s arm and fully licking her armpit. Look, drag is punk and subversive at its core, and I can’t imagine Raja herself was all that put off by this — though she did look a little thrown. But once upon a time, when Mimi Imfurst lifted India Ferrah above her head in a lip sync, Ru gave a dramatic warning: “Drag is not a contact sport.”

Over the years, Ru has enforced this policy pretty loosely. Alaska licked Katya’s face in one of the All Stars 2 lip syncs—something Alaska herself has inconsistently defended since—and made other physical contact with her competitors in other performances. She won all of her lip syncs. Trinity the Tuck grabbed Manila Luzon during their “How Will I Know” lip sync in All Stars 4 and at least lost, but Ru didn’t call it out. Just last week, Trinity did a rush across the stage into Jaida’s butt, and was rewarded with a win.

I get that there’s a sliding scale with this stuff; no one’s lifted anyone since Mimi and India. And some moments of physical interaction are highly celebrated, like Raja kissing Carmen Carrera in the “Straight Up” lip sync. But it’s hard to know exactly where the line is — like where does Icesis Couture humping Pythia come in? I do think the show could stand to be a bit more solid about this rule. There’s plenty of ways to stand out in a lip sync that don’t involve body-to-body—or even body-to-tongue—contact.

Anyway, back to the season at hand: We’ve now got just two queens at one star, Monét and Shea. They both must win two of the next three weeks if they want to make it into the top, while also avoiding blocking. But here’s a question: what happens if there are ties? With the even star distribution this season, I think it’s possible, and maybe even probable, that more queens will have enough stars to qualify at season’s end. Only four can make it though—will win counts help break ties? And is there set to be another twist a la the star giveaway previously?

Whatever the case, I’ll admit I’m more invested than ever in finding out how the rest of this season plays out. The game is finally, fully afoot, and we’re in for a tight race to the finale. And then who can pull out the lip sync victories they need when they get there? If I’m a betting man, I’d go for Shea or Viv if they can get to the end—though with Jaida practically locked in, perhaps she’s the safest bet of all.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨ Lots of good jokes this season from the queens leaning on the temporally strange nature of Drag Race. Jinkx poked fun at it in her commencement speech a few weeks back, and this week, Yvie celebrates the challenge by saying, “Oh my god, it’s Christmas in a non-distinct month!”

✨ RUPAUL: “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!”
RAJA: “Halloween!”

✨ We’ve seen the trope of the queens “auditioning” for a role in a group before, but I’m not sure we’ve ever seen it used to screw a queen out of a role she’s great for! Jinkx clearly kills her Miss Toe reading, as Raja notes, but Trinity instead gives it to her twinner. The fact that this doesn’t get underlined as a strategic move by Trinity is one of the flaws of the season to me: the show is hesitating to stress just how much of a social game these queens are playing.

✨ Jaida tries to make the case to not block her since she’s likely in the finale already, to which the queens largely tune her out. (And, of course, Raja ultimately blocks her.) The thing is: she’s right! There are three other spots in that finale, and the other queens would be better-served knocking out competition who could beat them there, not stopping an already rolling boulder.

✨ One of my single favourite moments of the episode is when Ru cackles particularly loudly at something Viv does, and Viv fully breaks character to tell Ru to stop it. It’s so good!

✨ Yvie has a particularly shady confessional in which she praises Janicza’s direction, calling her “the most dedicated person” to sit in the director’s chair. The judges are shaking!

✨ My favourite single line of the skit is probably Viv’s “I wanna make your yuletide gay—as in festive, not homosexual.” But an honourable mention goes to the repeated insistence from Shea, Raja, and Jaida’s characters that “this is not a musical!”

✨ Ru goes up on her lines before the lip sync, and Michelle Visage jokes about needing to change her batteries. “Put her in rice!” Raja yells, in a line perhaps only Raja could get away with and still win the challenge.

✨ “Amazing. I thought Santa was coming.” Seriously, can we get Janicza on every season? She has revolutionized what the role of a director of a Drag Race skit can be: funny, sharp, and remarkably good at getting what she needs out of the queens. Tens across the board.

The next episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7 will stream Friday, July 8, at 3 a.m. EDT on Paramount+ in the U.S. and on OUTtv and Crave in Canada. Check World of Wonder’s streaming guide for other countries’ release plans. You can subscribe to our drag newsletter, Wig!, for exclusive Drag Race content delivered straight to your inbox every Tuesday afternoon.