On ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars’ Season 10, it’s Mistress Isabelle Brooks’ world

For all the thrills that RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 10’s first three episodes brought us, there was one aspect of the new tournament that went underutilized. It wasn’t the potential for terrific, focused drag: Aja, Bosco and Irene the Alien all advanced to the merge portion of the season after dominating the competition. It wasn’t the condensed number of episodes allowing for more complete arcs, either—in fact, I would say being able to tell tight and compelling stories benefitted almost every single queen in the first bracket.

No, instead it was the game that got slightly short shrift in the first set of episodes. Only three queens won maxi-challenges, making it fairly obvious that they would be the three to advance. And sure, maybe there was a little bit of drama around which member of the Melanation Station—Aja, DeJa Skye and Olivia Lux—would receive the final Most Valuable Queen (MVQ) point of the bracket, thus sending them onward. But Ru even kinda cut into the drama of that by revealing that, if any of the queens tied, he would be the one to decide who moves forward to the semifinals. Phoenix seemed to be making her final decision between giving Aja or Bosco her point, but Ru would’ve likely picked Aja anyway, making it a bit less dramatic.

This points system has a lot of potential, and it deserves to have that potential tapped into. Due respect to the queens of the orange bracket and their (largely unsuccessful) alliance play, but to make this format you need a mastermind. You need someone who is willing to put it all out there and take advantage of the twist. You need a queen who is committed to mess at all costs, and is unafraid of potential damage to her reputation as a result. You need the diva who will bring the drama unashamedly and unabashedly.

You need Mistress Isabelle Brooks.

Yes, Season 15’s queen of schemes has been the star of the pink bracket, joined by Season 2’s Nicole Paige Brooks (from Atlanta, Georgia, never forget), Season 13’s Tina Burner, Season 14’s Jorgeous and Kerri Colby and the freshest queen to the pond of RuGirls among this whole cast, Season 17’s Lydia B Kollins. From the very start, Mistress pushed this game to its limits. She found reasons to ally with almost everyone in her bracket, save her erstwhile nemesis Tina. She committed to playing the game in front of her. And in the very first MVQ points ceremony of the season, she pulled off a gnarly trick, successfully earning her and Jorgeous two points each while robbing Kerri and Nicole of theirs.

“Playing fair 100 percent of the time doesn’t get you shit,” Mistress told the other queens in the final werk room segment of the bracket. Mistress understood that this format is not built for queens to sit quietly and do the best drag they can. The Drag Race producers have been trying for years to find twists that foster drama: Lip Sync for Your Legacy! The jury vote! Rate-A-Queen! This one, owing to its reliance on social and strategic game, is the ripest for manipulation. Mistress knew this, and played hard to make sure she would make it to the end. That’s why it was genius to cast Mistress for this format: Drag Race knew she would bring the antics, and she delivered.

What was perhaps most spectacular about Mistress’ work in this bracket was that she pushed the other queens to play strategically as well. In the final episode of the bracket, Nicole whispered to Tina right before the “Texas Hold ’Em” lip sync that they should pool their points and give them to Kerri to try to screw over Mistress. Was it an act of particularly good sportsmanship? No, but that’s not the point. Honestly, no one had been a good sport all bracket—except maybe Lydia, who seemed to just be going with the flow and embracing the chaos happening around her. 

Instead, these queens were fighting tooth-and-nail to make the merge, and it resulted in the most entertaining run of three episodes of All Stars we’ve had since All Stars 6. While at the end of the day, the drag is what matters, it’s nonetheless enjoyable to see some of our favourites return and play a decidedly different game than regular Drag Race. This format continues to prove it is exactly what All Stars needs to be relevant. I give major credit to Mistress for being the one to really light the powder keg.

… and yet.

Though I love the stunts and shenanigans, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed by Mistress’ approach to the game strategically. As I said, the antics were expected, and even understandable. This is a game, and Mistress committed to playing it to the hilt. Fair play to her for doing what she needed to do in the final episode of the bracket to advance to the merge. Sorry, Kerri, but you can’t complain about someone denying you a point when you also reneged on your intimation that you would give her a point. In this case, Mistress simply outplayed her, and it was wildly entertaining to watch.

My issue lies more in how Mistress came into her bracket. She didn’t win the first challenge, which perhaps made her feel like she was already at a disadvantage, prompting her chicanery with Jorgeous to guarantee them each two points. But here’s what else it guaranteed: neither of them would be receiving a single other point for the rest of the bracket, except for from each other or winning. Why would the other queens ever trust her again? The only one who might have done so was her newly adopted daughter Lydia, and in the one instance she could have, she gave her point to Kerri instead.

In my book, Mistress pulled this gambit way too early, and it could’ve backfired disastrously on her. She only won one of the remaining two challenges, and tied in the lip sync with Jorgeous. As she whispered to Jorgeous in Episode 6’s cold open, she really would’ve benefitted from both her and Jorgeous landing in the top or the bottom—and that didn’t happen. It was only through a small miracle of math and a dash of her own cunning at the end that she didn’t lose out to Kerri. (The irony of Lydia giving her only MVQ point to Kerri, thus making the margin for success razor-thin for Mistress, is not lost on me.)

Of the six to advance to the merge so far, Mistress has the lowest point total, coming in half a point under Aja. (Jorgeous has the most, edging Lydia and Irene out by half a point.) I would say that her score is a reflection of how she played the game. By starting the shenanigans too early, she narrowed her path to the merge substantially—and she didn’t have to do it. It almost looked like she was playing panicky, and at the first hurdle at that. At what point does “I will do whatever it takes to win” become “I don’t feel confident enough in my own performances and drag to think I can win any other way”?

And that’s crazy to consider, because Mistress oozes confidence! She is her own biggest fan! (And not an oscillating one, Lydia!) Her drag is nothing short of spectacular, and while she only won one challenge in Season 15, she performed consistently well throughout. Even in this last episode, she told us that she felt she was robbed of the Rusical win in her season! But despite all that, I can’t think of any other reason why Mistress would make such a risky strategic play. Sure, it worked out in the end, but that’s results-oriented thinking. She could’ve had a lot more options by playing the social game: fostering her Texas alliance with Kerri and Jorgeous, adopting Lydia and building the Brooks family with Nicole. Instead, she limited her pathways by making enemies right out of the gate. It was fun for us viewers, but as someone who loves Mistress, it made that last MVQ points ceremony stressful as all hell to watch.

Maybe that was the plan all along—after all, Mistress loves making good TV. But I have to think that a queen as competitive as she is loves winning even more, and her expression at the end of the final MVQ points ceremony did seem to indicate that she knows what a close call this was. I hope she comes back for the merge a bit more focused on simply outperforming her competitors, because I believe she can! She’s a superstar, and it should be her drag, not her strategy, that earns her the crown. After all, no one has won Drag Race primarily for their strategy. (Well, maybe Blu Hydrangea. I still think Ru was impressed with the nerve it took her to eliminate Pangina Heals on UK vs. The World.)

There were several other entertaining storylines in this bracket. We got The Education of Lydia Butthole Kollins, as she continued her growth arc from Season 17 and was tempted by both the light and dark side in Tina and Mistress. Speaking of which: Mistress and Tina’s feud was hilarious. Who knew someone could be so mad about a tweeted picture of a rainbow wig? And Nicole just being herself is a whole entertaining storyline—Ru, please bring her back for every All Stars season moving forward. Every confessional, every aside, every reaction, every thrown bit of shade in the werk room? It was all perfect.

Interestingly, the queen of the six who had the least storyline is also the one who has appeared on the most episodes of this show and advanced with the most points: Jorgeous. If there’s a subtle narrative happening with Jorgeous, it’s that on her third run, she’s fully evolved into a Drag Race titan. Remember that, for all her enjoyable moments, Jorgeous was actually pretty bad at Drag Race in Season 14. She only won one challenge—the Glamazon Prime design challenge—and she spent most of the rest of the season fighting for her life in the lip syncs. She did better in All Stars 9, but missed out on the finale. 

This time around, it feels like she’s ready to go all the way. (Though I will note that her two wins in her bracket were for music performances, already a demonstrated strength of hers. I’m interested to see if she can win a different kind of challenge in the semifinals.) Compared to Lydia, for whom advancing to the merge feels like its own kind of win, and Mistress, who scraped by on half a point, Jorgeous feels like someone who can really put up a fight with the orange bracket queens in the next stage. Though, of course, her competition really depends on who makes it out of the purple bracket; we’ve still got a whole other segment of the competition to go.

But before we move into the purple bracket, let’s give thanks to our pink bracket queens for really turning up the heat, especially Mistress. This format’s success is going to hinge on whether queens want to play the game moving forward. While Mistress didn’t necessarily play it well, she played it hard. She fought to use the format to her advantage, and while it was a close one, she got there. I can only hope that the queens in the last bracket—not to mention the queens who will hopefully play in this format in future seasons—follow in her footsteps. Just maybe leave the shenanigans for a safer point in the game.