Welcome to RuPaul’s Drag Race Power Rankings! Every Friday, we’ll debrief the week’s new episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 6 to determine which queens are riding high, and which need she-mergency care. For the last time this season, let’s break down the final four, and celebrate the newest member of the Drag Race Hall of Fame.
RUNNER-UP: Eureka! (last week: 1)
All season long, Eureka! demonstrated how far they had come since Season 10, both as a drag queen and as a person. They were positive and fun, gave us some of the best small moments of the season (I still quote them saying “You better walk, bitch!” to Trinity K. Bonet during the “Physical” lip sync) and gave us a refreshingly real take on queer affection through their bond with Trinity. I feel like the tide in public opinion has really turned for them—I certainly enjoyed Eureka! both as a competitor and a personality much more this season than in Season 10.
But to be frank, I think the show did Eureka! a disservice with the game-within-a-game twist. While there’s no doubt they won their “Since U Been Gone” lip sync against Silky Nutmeg Ganache, their return felt deflated after Silky’s improbable six-win run. Then they won the final challenge—which, whether you agree with the win or not, felt like it had to happen to avoid Eureka! not being eliminated again. And then Eureka! tied in the final Lip Sync for Your Legacy with Jaida Essence Hall, making it their third lip sync tie in their career. All added together, it felt like Eureka!’s comeback arc was shoehorned into a single episode. It’s ironic: in giving Eureka! their triumph with them finally winning a challenge this season, the show actually hampered Eureka!’s overall storyline.
But production circumstances do not change what a strong season Eureka! has had. They made it to the finale once again, making them one of just a dozen queens to do so twice. They made one hell of a case for the win in their final speech, delivering an impassioned monologue about how, as a plus-size person, they never fit in—but they fit in drag. It was a barnburner of a speech, and for a moment I wondered if we were heading toward a surprise Eureka! crowning. They showed tremendous growth this season, and they’ll take this experience with them to another season of We’re Here! The Elephant Queen may not have won, but they keep on thriving nevertheless.
RUNNER-UP: Ginger Minj (last week: 3)
Though I did end up predicting Kylie for the win, I also thought Ginger was the smarter bet. Ever since she re-entered the workroom for her third season, becoming the first queen from an All Stars season later than AS1 to return, it felt like this was her time to take the crown. She got so close to the title in Season 7, and then her journey was cut short in All Stars 2. But this season felt like Ginger’s to lose—especially amid a cast of largely lower-placing performers. And despite some shaky early weeks in the competition (remember those first few runways?), Ginger rallied to ace the latter two-thirds of the competition.
But the reason I never quite bought into the idea of Ginger winning, despite it feeling inevitable from the word “go,” is that Ginger never got an edit befitting a winner. In the episodes, we saw her more often commenting on others—praising Kylie Sonique Love as competition, noting Trinity’s weaknesses—and only in Untucked did we really hear her open up about what this season meant for her as a returning queen. It just never felt like we were seeing a case for Ginger to win, other than her doing well in the competition. Ordinarily, that’d be enough, but against expectations, this cast came to play. Ginger was one of three queens to win two challenges this season, and even her competitors with just one win did well enough in both Pink Table Talk (Eureka!) and Snatch Game (Kylie) to potentially beat her.
So without an air of dominance to her reign, and with no real narrative presented in the edit, a Ginger win would have felt incongruent. That’s not to say she didn’t deserve the crown: I actually thought several queens had done well enough to be victorious, even including those not in the final four. But recent American seasons have repeatedly proven that when it comes to winning Drag Race, narrative is crucial. Shea Couleé and Symone were absolutely the main characters of their season; Ginger, by contrast, never felt like the driving force of All Stars 6.
I know it must be disappointing for her fans to see her walk away without the crown once again, especially after she did consistently well in the finale. She had my second-favourite final verse, with some very clever wordplay (“My country ‘tis the tea”), and she once again camped up the final lip sync. Where I think she fell short was in her final speech: like in her monologue from last week’s challenge, she came across a bit too performative in what should be a heartfelt moment. But Ginger is more than fine without the crown. She’s got a great career as an actress, has musical talent for days and a professionalism that will serve her well. The self-described glamour toad is surely going to leap to new heights after this season.
RUNNER-UP: Ra’Jah O’Hara (last week: 4)
Few queens have ever had a Rudemption quite like Ra’Jah’s. We’ve seen queens with more modest fan bases expand them wildly in All Stars, like Tatianna in AS2. We’ve seen queens who faltered in their original seasons come back and improve, only to be robbed by the format, like Aja in AS3. And we’ve had queens with large, vocal fan bases come back and get the fair shake they deserved the first time, like Monique Heart in AS4.
But Ra’Jah came out of Season 11 with the fandom largely against her: she had an underwhelming track record in the competitions, a harsh edit, and, by her own admission, got in her own head on Drag Race. “Ra’Jah is a bad bitch,” she said in her intro during the AS6 premiere. “But on Season 11, she was just a bitch.” All the kudos in the world to her for coming in with a new perspective on the competition, sticking to her guns even in the most difficult of moments (being in the bottom against sister A’keria C. Davenport most of all) and proving that she had so much more to offer than we saw in her previous appearance.
Depending on how you measure, Ra’Jah either had the best track record of the season, or the second-best behind Eureka! (I’d say Ra’Jah not being eliminated gives her the edge, but to each their own.) As we’ve said many times, though, Drag Race has all but abandoned track records when it comes to picking winners. You can argue whether you like the show’s new approach to choosing champions—personally, I appreciate the focus on narrative and a queen’s entire body of work over checking report cards—but nothing takes away from just how dominant Ra’Jah was this season.
That didn’t change in the finale, in which she showed off a sexy final runway, performed a moving and fast-paced final verse (one which brought gravitas to an otherwise pretty light Rumix) and did solidly in the final lip sync. It’s easy to envision an alternate timeline with a double crowning of her and Kylie: two former ninth-placers earning their victories side-by-side. Alas, that wasn’t to be this go-around. But regardless of the result, the queen of purple excelled throughout this competition, and earned herself a huge legion of new fans. She can walk awaya from All Stars 6 incredibly proud.
WINNER: Kylie Sonique Love (last week: 1)
She did it! Kylie Sonique Love won RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 6! In doing so, she sets a whole raft of records: she becomes the queen from the earliest season to win All Stars—all the more impressive considering she won the sixth season—and only the second queen from Season 2 with a crown. Raven, Tatianna, Shangela and Jujubee all got very close, but it was Kylie who finally earned one of the best seasons’ cast another crown.
She also holds the distinction of the first woman to win a RuPaul’s Drag Race season (Angele Anang from Drag Race Thailand Season 2 was the first in the greater Drag Race franchise), 11 years after she became the first queen to come out as transgender on the show. She is a herstorically significant winner in many ways, adding all the more resonance to her spot in the Drag Race Hall of Fame.
That herstory is vital, but Kylie’s performance this season alone deserves great praise. She was consistent in terms of track record, and stunning week in and week out on the runway. Most impressively, she surprised us in the challenges over and over again, even when she didn’t win. She dug deep and gave the judges what they were looking for in an acting challenge; she shocked us all with a delightful Dolly Parton in Snatch Game; she shined in the girl group challenge as team leader; and proved herself a remarkable storyteller in the Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve and Talent monologues. Even in her one true bottom-placing performance (i.e. not “if you’re not in the top, you’re in the bottom”), during Pink Table Talk, she offered up some sage wisdom that earned huge plaudits from fans.
Hell, even in the social game, Kylie performed superbly. She was the only queen to vote correctly every single week; every time Kylie voted for a queen to go home, they left. She also, alongside Ginger, never had her lipstick chosen by another queen—apart from those two, everyone else had at least one vote against them this season.
In the finale, she embraced her Southern twang to great effect, leaning into the country vibe of the Rumix song. Her final runway may have been simple, but her story of reclaiming the flag as a trans woman was moving. And in the final lip sync’s best moment, she tripped on her coat, only to recover into a somersault. Until the very end, Kylie played All Stars near-perfectly. She found all kinds of ways to share her personal story, and made her case for the win throughout. (Just think of how many times she repeated that it had been 11 years since her first season, and how badly she wanted this second chance.)
I’ve been rooting for Kylie to be on All Stars since she came back and stunned in the Holi-Slay Spectacular. She showed such development in her drag from her original season even in that short special, so seeing her in the All Stars 6 cast gave me hope that she’d smash it this season. Like Symone, she was my favourite from the very start, and I’m beyond thrilled to see her take the win. Kylie earned this crown for showing such grace and growth all season long, and she deserves her spot in the Drag Race Hall of Fame. Congrats to the new queen: from bombing Snatch Game as Lady Gaga to triumphing after the final lip sync to “Stupid Love,” she has truly found Rudemption. Trust.
Why you can trust Xtra
