‘Canada’s Drag Race All Stars’ Episode 2 recap: No one is safe

Viewers of social strategy shows like Big Brother and Survivor can tell you what it means when an elimination is decided by just one vote. On Survivor, it means that voting margins were slim, and whoever is surviving is likely doing so just by the skin of their teeth. On Big Brother, a margin like 5-4 often indicates a blindside, a changing of the vote by a specific alliance or voting group to go against the wishes of the previous “majority” thinking.

So to see this week’s Golden Beaver vote on Canada’s Drag Race All Stars come down to a 3-2, and for the bottom two we’re left with to be two former runners-up on their original seasons, speaks to the difference in strategy we’re seeing among the queens. For the second week in a row, Jada Shada Hudson and Sami Landri are on the wrong side of the vote, both choosing to save someone they feel closer to, who they deem more deserving. Everyone else listens to the campaigning and opts to save the queen who explicitly makes the argument that saving her is sending two bigger threats to battle it out in the Lip Sync for Your Life.

By the time we actually reach the lip sync, there’s no “good” outcome possible—both queens fighting to stay feel like genuine contenders for the crown, while the queen saved is all but destined to be eliminated before the finale. Make no mistake: this is not only an entirely valid way to play the game, it also makes for fascinating television. For the second week in a row, Mini-Untucked gets nasty, with one queen unloading on another in a way that makes the other queens feel a mixture of shock and discomfort. These queens want this, and that hunger has been missing in the American franchise for a while.

Still, it’s hard not to be as gagged as the judges are when the group’s vote is revealed and Tiffany Ann Co. is safe. That means landing in the bottom two is Season 2 runner-up and Global All Stars competitor Pythia, alongside Season 2 makeover-partner-turned-Season-5-runner-up Makayla Couture. And I am not exaggerating when I say that the ultimate result—Pythia’s elimination—is the most shocking departure on any Drag Race season this year. Yes, including Jane Don’t’s; yes, including Morgan McMichaels’. Those were both insane; this is basically unprecedented.

Let’s flash back to the start of the episode to figure out how we got here. The queens return to the werk room after Jackie Cox’s elimination, and Nearah Nuff pulls out the votes: four to save Juice Boxx, two to save Jackie and none to save her. In what I would describe as a necessary moment of growth for Nearah, she does not fault the others at all, and fully owns that she made her own bed by blowing up her alliances and going after Juice. (She also apologizes directly to Juice in the new day in the werk room, which is appreciated.)

Juice, meanwhile, got saved despite being one of the two clear worst performers of the week, and is still annoyed that Jada did not vote to save her. Getting mad at someone for not blindly supporting your rights and wrongs? Relatable. (We don’t see her getting similarly upset at Sami for her vote, which I’m going to generously chalk up to editing and/or Sami’s decidedly better defence of her vote.) Regardless, the result is Makayla stressing to Jada that she needs to vote strategically moving forward, and everyone is generally back on good terms after a stressful premiere.

This week’s maxi-challenge is girl groups, and there’s a lot on the line for former girl group challenge winners Makayla and Aurora Matrix. As winners of the last mini- and maxi-challenges, Nearah and Pythia are made team captains, with Nearah getting the privilege to go first. She winds up with what I would call the “pretty dancer girl” team, made up of herself, her Season 4 sister Aurora, Tiffany and Juice. This means Pythia’s team is Makayla, Sami and Jada by default. Since she’s the last to be picked, Jada gets to choose which song her group does, and opts for a “bass-bumping banger” called “Body Tea.” Nearah’s team thus gets the electro pop bop “Diva Down.”

Much like in Season 4, it is immediately clear which team is going to win this. Pythia’s team of Tea Bags—a group name chosen by Jada that Makayla clearly hates—are all decent at the challenge, but Pythia’s natural struggles with pop songs come to the fore, and Jada and Makayla come to significant personal loggerheads while rehearsing that metastasizes later. Meanwhile, throughout every step of their process, Nearah’s Kitty Katz are in lock-step. They do well in their recording session with Priyanka, their choreography is seamless and when they hit the main stage in their performance outfits, they look ready to go be a pop girl group today.

In particular, Aurora smashes it, even considering high expectations. Her whole package this week is phenomenal: her verse is strong, her dancing is sharp and her runway for the camp category is terrific—a perfect blend of polish and humour that feels distinctly Aurora. I’ll admit, I’ve never been one to think Aurora was robbed in Season 4; I really liked Venus’ run on the show, and Aurora felt like a queen who was just coming into her own. Already, we’re seeing her at another level. Compare her run so far to Nearah’s, another finalist from her season. Nearah is giving us an elevated version of her previous work, to be certain. But it doesn’t quite feel like she’s achieved her final form yet. Aurora, at least so far, does. She winds up winning the week, and it’s a well-deserved victory.

Speaking of Nearah, let’s talk about the rest of the Kitty Katz. I would put Nearah in third position amongst them, but with a pretty sizeable gap between her and Tiffany. Juice surprises me, and I’m surprised she doesn’t get a top placement for her efforts. She has a confidence about herself that was completely missing last week. Meanwhile, you can feel how nervous Tiffany is, and the judges are right that her verse is just a bit too generic. She’s the only one of the Kitty Katz who falls into the bottom three, and I think it’s the right call.

She’s joined down there by Pythia, who really is the worst of the Tea Bags, and Makayla, who seems to shoulder the burden of their group’s choreography being too much for the team to handle. Makayla doesn’t say anything about it on the main stage, but we know from her talk with Pythia the morning of elimination day and via her confessionals that Jada’s lack of responsiveness to Makayla’s choreo led to her needing to leave the room and cry for a bit during late-night rehearsals. It sucks that this happened off camera, because it’s hard to tell exactly who’s in the right here. Pythia doesn’t object when Makayla mentions tension, but later when it comes up in Mini-Untucked, she and Sami ride the fence between the two.

What adds fuel to the fire is that Jada is actually in the top two this week. I say this as a massive Jada fan: this is silly. Her best bit in “Body Tea” is when she belts a line, but she wasn’t planning on doing that—Priyanka has to prompt her to do it. Her being in the top feels like the judges praising her for following Priyanka’s advice more than anything. But putting her in the top is like lighting a match and dropping it in a pool of gasoline, because Makayla goes off in Mini-Untucked, saying that while she loves Jada, the Season 3 runner-up left her hanging multiple times.

Jada, for her part, seems very confused by this whole thing, and later when voting, she expresses real hurt. Honestly, everyone except Aurora (who’s living for the drama) seems distressed, with a lot of “that was a lot” coming up in the voting confessionals. When Nearah of all people is the one saying it’s a bridge too far, that’s when you know it’s a mess. But like Nearah before her, Makayla sabotages any chance at the group’s vote here, getting zero votes to save.

Pythia, meanwhile, is accused of not really fighting to stay, and I get the sense she feels her winning the first week should be enough to buttress her position. Here’s the thing: on most other returning queen format seasons, be they All Stars, or vs. the World or Royale, she would be right! There’s been a general understanding since strategic voting started way back in All Stars 2, when Alyssa Edwards saved Katya over Ginger Minj, that track record should matter. Granted, that was controversial at the time, but it became the norm—so much so that when queens like Pangina Heals and Naomi Smalls have gone against it, it’s been edited and treated as a massive shock.

But Tiffany, wisely, paints herself as the much smaller target, and Aurora, Nearah and Juice have the numbers to save her. Pythia misses out on her first Golden Beaver by just one vote, and she’s left facing down one hell of a lip syncer in Makayla. The two battle to guest judge Rebecca Black’s song “TRUST!”, and I’ll give Pythia this: this is easily her best lip sync ever. While she gets stuck in the same loop a bit, she pulls out good reveals, and generally is quite compelling. Unfortunately, as the song goes on, Makayla snatches back the momentum and holds onto it, still pulling out new moves as Pythia begins to slow down. It’s a closer call than I would have expected, but I do think Makayla clearly wins it.

With Pythia’s shock departure, we have somehow lost both RuGirls in the first two episodes, which speaks to this cast’s deeply cutthroat nature. (Well, not Jada and Sami, but they clearly just don’t have the votes.) It’s interesting that Makayla and Pythia’s alliance got such a featured spot in the premiere, only for them to wind up having to face off in the very next episode. It’s almost like a warning from the show that the new Golden Beaver rules do not welcome these kinds of one to one alliances; this is a social game, and you need to be good with everybody, else you might find yourself, a runner-up and Global All Stars competitor, getting eliminated before the Porkchop of the franchise.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨ Julia Grosso, Canadian soccer star and Olympic gold medalist, makes a guest appearance by video to introduce a soccer-themed mini-challenge—with only 10 minutes (!) for quick drag. They then meet a twink in a soccer kit who kicks balls at them as they tend goal. It’s funny! It’s camp! Nearah’s surprisingly good at it! Who knew!

✨ The jury’s still out on our new judges—I’m still chuckling that Priyanka gave Jada such high praise for just taking her advice, while Jimbo defaults to the blandly positive too much for me—but I do think Priyanka is great as a vocal coach for the queens. Jokes about her music aside, she clearly understands how to help them, and I think we get as good of performances as we do in this episode largely because of her.

✨ This week’s mirror moment focuses on how the queens’ lives have changed since they joined the show. Aurora’s relationship with her parents has grown tremendously, as they now support her drag (and even helped with her talent show idea!), while Juice says she and her husband have bonded as they’ve decided they want to be dads. It’s a cute moment!

✨ As mentioned, Rebecca Black is our guest judge this week, and she’s so fun! Love her hat. If you haven’t kept up with her since “Friday,” she’s become a really cool artist in her own space, and she’s clearly a big fan of drag. (Honestly, her critiques are more specific than Jimbo’s!)

✨ Props to the music team for pretty great tracks in this challenge. The songs are all a bit longer, with another group verse at the end. Good changes!

✨ Beyond Aurora’s winning lamp look, some other faves from the camp runway: Sami’s “AI-generated filter” quilt dress is a monstrosity (complimentary), Jada’s big cock—rooster, that is—look is a smash, and Pythia’s mummy/zombie Cleopatra reveal is so fucking cool. Kind of stunning that someone could be eliminated in that look.

✨ We will be on Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs. The Universe, Slaycation Edition 23, and Jada will still be getting asked about the ghost that fucked her.

The next episode of Canada’s Drag Race All Stars will be available to stream on Thursday, July 23, at 9 p.m. EST on WOW Presents Plus in the U.S. and on Crave in Canada. You can subscribe to our drag newsletter, Wig!, for exclusive Drag Race content delivered straight to your inbox every month.