‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 11’ plays it safe for the first bracket—until the very last minute

If I had any major fear about RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 11 using the bracket format once again, it’s that it would feel like an underwhelming rerun. When the “Tournament of All Stars” debuted in All Stars 10, it was such a drastic change that part of what proved compelling about it was simply seeing how the queens would respond to it. Would they mostly play fair when distributing their Most Valuable Queen (MVQ) points, like the introductory orange bracket did? Or would strategy and chicanery rule the day, as it did in the pink bracket thanks to Mistress Isabelle Brooks?

Unlike last season, the queens now have blueprints on how to play. The appeal of seeing the cast tackle something new is gone, and second attempts at All Stars formats tend to flop (All Stars 3 with Lip Sync for Your Legacy, All Stars 9 with non-eliminations) more than they do succeed (All Stars 6 with Lip Sync Assassins). Moreover, there were other reasons to fear that this season might be a retread: any hopes for some kind of casting gimmick to freshen things up were dashed when the 18 queens were revealed, following almost all the same casting principles as we saw in AS10. Even cosmetically, simply repeating the orange-pink-purple colour scheme for the brackets and corresponding promos felt repetitive.

The first two episodes of AS11 did little to quell my fears. Just like the last orange bracket, the queens played nice at the first MVQ points ceremony, trading points evenly to keep things calm. Just like last time, one queen who previously never won a challenge (Irene the Alien in AS10, Dawn now) began sweeping every challenge. And just like last time, it was pretty obvious by the end of Episode 2 which three queens were in the best position to advance to the semifinals. By and large, business as usual.

But this is what makes the one major rule change of AS11 so important. Instead of all three of those obvious choices to make the merge (A’keria C. Davenport, Dawn and Morgan McMichaels) being able to do so, only two will progress. And that raises the stakes considerably in Episode 3, where despite her dominant streak so far, Dawn is suddenly faced with the very real possibility that she may not make the merge—even if she wins the last challenge. This shake-up is what AS11 desperately needed: a jolt of electricity that makes the episode tense until its very last moments.

AS11 shares much in common with Are You the One? Come One, Come All, MTV’s all-sexually-fluid dating experiment from 2019. For one, it features an entirely queer cast; for another, it makes math exciting. In AS10, the realities of the point margins meant winning two challenges basically guaranteed your spot in the semifinals. (In fact, only two queens with one win failed to qualify: Denali and Tina Burner.) With only two queens advancing, however, you can win two challenges—and potentially even all three!—and still fail to advance.

That’s the reality that has Dawn somewhat panicked in Episode 3. After winning the first two challenges, she has four points, which puts her in a tie for first with A’keria, and Morgan just behind them with three. However, because she helped them with their outfits for Episode 2’s sewing challenge, both Season 2 queens, Morgan and Mystique Summers, give A’keria their MVQ points. Because A’keria won not only the challenge, but the Lip Sync for Your Legacy, this equates to a five-point swing in one night. A’keria now leads the pack with six points. Behind Morgan with three, Morphine Love Dion and Lucky Starzzz each have two, and Mystique has just one.

Mystique is all but out of the running; she would need to win a challenge and lip sync, plus get some MVQ points, to qualify at this juncture. But Morgan, Morphine and Lucky would all surpass Dawn in points if they win the challenge (and the lip sync, in Morphine and Lucky’s cases) and Dawn herself doesn’t place in the top two. Even if she does win the challenge again but not the lip sync, a Morgan lip sync victory plus two MVQ points would box Dawn out from advancing. Even one MVQ point would leave the tiebreaker in Ru’s hands, and who knows how that would go down.

This isn’t just interesting to consider from a game perspective, it also drives drama among the queens. Dawn is scrambling, determined to not be edged out. Formerly fast friends Lucky and Mystique are at odds for most of the episode over their conflicting MVQ point strategies. And Morgan and A’keria, best friends in the bracket, are just trying to figure out how they can both make it together. It’s better TV than we’ve seen in the first two episodes, and it’s a promising sign that these kinds of mathematical dilemmas will continue to drive interest in the next two brackets.

A’keria and Morgan’s friendship has been a real delight of the orange bracket, and it’s hard not to root for them to be our two semifinalists among the crop. Both have great underdog stories: A’keria wasn’t ready to come back in AS6, and it showed in her performance and unwillingness to play the Game Within a Game. Morgan, meanwhile, has never performed on Drag Race at the level her legend status would promise, with AS3 being particularly underwhelming. Seeing them both come back at their full power, and slay the competition, has been a delight. The fact that they’re doing it as a pair of pals is even better.

Meanwhile, Dawn has a unique predicament: she’s doing well, but her Jimbo-esque inability to win a lip sync is jeopardizing her spot in the merge. It’s really interesting to see in Episode 3 that she is not just trying to win the challenge—when she does, it almost feels like an afterthought—but to win the lip sync or at least one MVQ point. This means she can’t just ignore, say, Mystique, who is decidedly not a fan of the elf queen. A point from Mystique could secure her spot in the finale, so she has to at least try to nurture that relationship. It also makes her tight bond with Season 16 sister Morphine all the more important. So far, Morphine hasn’t needed to give Dawn any points since she’s been winning, but it could be important in the last MVQ ceremony.

Poor Morphine has had a rough go of it in AS11. Despite choreographing the group’s number and having one of the best verses in the premiere, she not only didn’t win, but didn’t get a lot of points from her fellow queens. (Only A’keria gave her one.) She’s had a mild feud with fellow Miami girl Lucky, has had an outfit compared to Snow White’s and had bestie Dawn fully ignore her request for specific materials during the design challenge, with Dawn instead taking them for herself. The bad vibes came to a head in this episode, as Morphine got some praise from the other judges for her genuinely solid improv performance … only for Ru to knock her down a peg. I can’t imagine how deflating that experience is, to know that you’re mathematically already disadvantaged and then hear a near-guarantee that the person who chooses the winners each week won’t be picking you. It’s been a rough road for the queen that I had very high hopes for pre-season.

I had less high hopes for Lucky and Mystique, and they have done little to prove me wrong in that regard. While I’m thrilled we finally got the last eligible Season 2 queen back for All Stars (Sahara Davenport sadly passed in 2012, while Tyra Sanchez … is Tyra Sanchez), Mystique has occupied a similar role as Phoenix did in AS10’s orange bracket. Both are early-outs from two of Drag Race’s earliest seasons, but neither could quite adapt her drag to the modern format of the show. Lucky, meanwhile, has done okay for herself, but I think her performances and drag being solid at best has put to rest any idea that we missed out on real winning potential from her in Season 17.

So we come to the end of Episode 3, as Dawn and Morgan prepare to face off to Lady Gaga’s “Zombieboy” in the last Lip Sync for Your Legacy of the bracket. At this stage, Dawn sits in a tie for first at six points with A’keria. Morgan, who has already beaten Dawn in one lip sync, is at five points. Simply because of their relationships on the cast, A’keria and Morgan are far more likely to get MVQ points than Dawn, meaning this is her last chance to secure her own spot in the semifinals. What follows is definitely Dawn’s best lip sync performance—maybe not great in its own right, but you can tell she’s doing whatever she can to try and make the merge. It pays off: she wins the lip sync, earning the extra point.

As if that weren’t enough, Dawn gets a boost from Morphine to guarantee her spot, putting her at eight total points. A’keria, wanting to give her bestie as much of a leg up as possible, gives her point to Morgan … as does Lucky. This actually puts Morgan above A’keria, which means A’keria must be really kicking herself. But then Mystique throws one last curveball, giving A’keria her last MVQ point. Unlike Phoenix, who broke the tie to send Aja to the merge, Mystique actually creates one.

Now, we see a game mechanic that we never experienced in AS10: a tie. Ru must choose between A’keria and Morgan to decide who will go to the semifinals. A’keria is a superstar—“a power hitter in this competition,” as Michelle Visage once memorably called her—but Morgan won two challenges to A’keria’s one. What’s the more fair decision? Should A’keria be rewarded for sticking by Morgan and giving her a point, or penalized for not playing the game correctly and putting her own spot at risk? Who would make the more compelling winner of All Stars?

Ultimately, Ru chooses A’keria to advance. In all honesty, it’s the same choice I would’ve made. While I love Morgan, an entertainer who encapsulates everything it means to be a “drag queen” in my mind, I don’t think Morgan can win it all. I do think A’keria can, more so than even Dawn. So while it’s mind-blowing to consider that Morgan won two challenges and seven points, she nonetheless falls short of the merge.

It’s a brutal ending, but an incredibly interesting one. Throughout the third episode, it’s Dawn who’s most stressed about the numbers—but she actually sails to the merge. Instead, the two besties we wanted to go all the way are split up, not by each other, but by Ru himself. This is the kind of gameplay and drama that makes for compelling reality TV, and it’s nice to see after Season 18 showed some real incompetence in the storytelling department. And again, this new setup means these kinds of dilemmas are going to keep coming up in the rest of the season.

AS11 may have gotten off to a slow start, but this first bracket ended strong. Now it’s time to see if the other two can raise the stakes even further.