‘Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs. The World’ returns for Season 2—in the shadow of ‘All Stars 9’ and ‘Global All Stars’

When we look back at Drag Race in 2024, it will likely be remembered as the year of the All Stars seasons. Already, we’ve seen UK vs. The World return for a (pretty great!) second run, while Drag Race España launched their own All Stars brand. Back in North America, the flagship series is wrapping up its ninth All Stars season, while Global All Stars still awaits us. Between those two, Canada’s Drag Race is serving up another run of Canada vs. The World—and in many ways, it’s the most intriguing.

The season premiered July 19 in somewhat quiet fashion; the initial announcement of the spin-off’s return generated some buzz, but the Global All Stars cast drop seemed to take the wind out of Canada vs. The World’s sails a bit. The question of why even have vs. The World seasons at all floated around, while the genuinely international collection of queens that Global has assembled makes the relatively un-diverse pool on Canada vs. The World (three Americans, three Canadians, two Brits, one French queen) look less dynamic by comparison.

But anyone who’s watched the last couple of Canada’s Drag Race seasons should know what showrunner Trevor Boris and his team are capable of. Unlike Canada vs. The World Season 1, which featured a carbon copy format from UK vs. The World, this season is actually playing by Canada’s Drag Race Season 4 rules—namely, that the Golden Beaver is here. Instead of Brooke Lynn Hytes and her merry band of judges choosing a top two each week, with the queens deciding who will go home, there will instead be just one winner and a bottom three. That winner will choose which of the bottom three to save with the Beaver, while the remaining two Lip Sync for Your Life.

This clearly throws the queens off in the premiere; even the Canadians in the cast haven’t played in this format. Kennedy Davenport, a U.S. Drag Race legend who has clearly not seen a single episode of another Drag Race series, has no idea what the Golden Beaver even is. Eureka!, back for her fourth run on the show, admits she was fully expecting to lip sync for the win. And if the premiere episode is any indication, throwing the queens this curveball was exactly the right call—one that makes a cast that at first seemed uneven feel a lot more competitive.

Beyond Eureka! and Kennedy, this cast also features fourth-time contestant Alexis Mateo (BAM!), three-timer returnees from UK vs. The World Lemon and Cheryl (who has seemingly dropped her “Hole” last name) and newbie returnees Tynomi Banks and Miss Fiercealicious from Canada, Le Fil from UK and La Kahena from France. A cast that features both a two-time finalist in Eureka! and a Porkchop in La Kahena seems a bit wonky, but in the very first episode, they both find themselves in the bottom.

American Drag Race has a tendency to not only protect its frontrunners from lip syncing on their original seasons, but also give them preferential treatment when they return for All Stars seasons (see: some of the specious high placements given to Kandy Muse in All Stars 8 and Gottmik in All Stars 9). Take Eureka! as an example of that: in her third season, All Stars 6, she was never up for elimination despite an underwhelming run relative to her Season 10 performance. In at least one case—the Halftime Headliners Rusical—she was scored high despite delivering one of the weaker performances. And though she was eliminated before the finale, she was immediately brought back via the Lip Sync Rudemption Smackdown gauntlet, then awarded a win to make sure she was in the finale.

You can argue that Eureka! deserved all her safe placements, or that she won the gauntlet fair and square (I agree with that actually!), but the fact remains that she spent most of her third run seemingly immune from danger. So to see her in the bottom two in this very first episode is thrilling; it shows that anything can happen in this format. Even watching her try to laugh away the idea of being in the bottom two, telling Lemon that she just doesn’t want to lip sync, only to be completely shut down by Alexis in Untucked deliberations, is wildly satisfying. This is a show and a cast that won’t let Drag Race legends just coast on what they’ve done before. This is a new playing field.

There is one pretty noticeable exception to this, though, and it has me a bit nervous about how this season is going to play out. Lemon is getting favoured-daughter treatment right out of the gate, both entering last to fanfare during the intros and later being gifted a mini-arc about winning the first episode despite doing poorly in her last two premieres. The sense here is that Lemon is being welcomed back to greatness after flopping on UK vs. The World, although it’s strange that Cheryl (who actually outlasted Lemon on that season) isn’t getting the same attention. Moreover, while Lemon does do quite well in this season-opening challenge, it’s also a challenge exactly tailored to her strengths: a girl group performance. She does well, but not so substantially better than some other queens (Cheryl and Le Fil, especially) so as to make her mini-coronation make sense.

Since this cast was first rumoured, I’ve had the same feeling about Lemon being cast as I did about Jimbo being cast on All Stars 8. There are quite a few warning signs here: Lemon being brought back for another vs. The World season on home turf, Icesis Couture’s claim that production allegedly really wanted a Canadian winner in Season 1, the editing of this first episode. I’m worried that Lemon is going to waltz to the crown this season, which would feel strange when she’s surrounded by some real heavy-hitters.

If Canada vs. The World Season 2 is going to stand out in an increasingly crowded All Stars landscape, throwing all these queens in a Beaver-fueled pressure cooker and letting the chips fall where they may would be a good start. All Stars seasons are notable for drawing criticism of favourable treatment (look at how the reaction to Drag Sethlas’ coronation run went in España), so it could be quite refreshing to see a pure competition play out.

But that only works if that treatment is applied to every queen. Yes, it’s gaggy to see Eureka! and Alexis both in the bottom three the very first week, with Lemon just one strategic Beaver decision away from forcing one of them to go home. (Love to Lemon, who saved my pre-season fave Alexis from danger, but I do think it was a real missed opportunity not to save La Kahena. Miss Fiercealicious tried her best to convince her, though!) It can’t just be the Americans who get shaken up by this format change, though. Lemon and Cheryl are also on their third runs; they have the experience that can withstand some tough scrutiny. And perhaps that’s coming in future episodes! We’ve only seen the premiere, after all.

Though we won’t be doing weekly recap coverage of Canada vs. The World—although we’ll be back with a finale wrap-up—I’ll be staying tuned in based on the promise of this premiere. I know it’s a noisy moment in Drag Race, with three franchises currently ongoing and another having just ended (France Season 3, congrats Le Filip!). Canada’s Drag Race demands your attention, though, just for being willing to try new things. A The Traitors-inspired acting challenge next week? Amazing! The “Snatch Game Rusical” and reading battle challenges promised by the trailer? Colour me intrigued! I’m very excited to see what this team has been cooking up. I just hope it’s as wide-open a competition as it can be all season long.

Episodes of Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs. The World will drop on Fridays at 9 p.m. EST on WOW Presents Plus in the U.S. and on Crave in Canada. We’ll be checking in on the show again at season’s end. If you want more Drag Race coverage, subscribe to our drag newsletter Wig! for exclusive content delivered straight to your inbox every month.