‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 6’ Episode 4 recap: Let’s play some football

Suffice it to say that the reception thus far to RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 6 has to be what ViacomCBS was hoping for. When they moved the All Stars spinoff of one of the most popular, award-winning reality series on the air to new-ish streaming service, Paramount+, there was some risk involved. Season 13 of the flagship series was widely deemed mediocre, and the 3 a.m. EDT episode release only annoyed fans further. Anything less than a terrific All Stars season would be bad for the brand at a fragile time.

But after Laganja Estranja’s instantly legendary lip sync to Dua Lipa’s “Physical,” which all but took over the internet over the last week, enthusiasm for All Stars 6 is at a fever pitch. Any fears that the premiere episode was a bit cautious have been assuaged, owing to a terrific cast receiving fair, favourable edits, and some genuinely great performances and runways across the board in the past two weeks.

The judging remains a mystifying puzzle box of decisions, as seen with some of the calls made this week. But that’s part and parcel of the Drag Race experience: drag is not an objective art, and there are always going to be disagreements about what is worth a win and what misses the mark. Though this week’s elimination is a painful one, and a huge part of that is how we might have judged differently, it’s an acceptable part of the game. All Stars is a different beast, and gags and shocks are expected.

As a reality show, All Stars 6 is a smash so far. As a competition, it’s very good—the queens are really all competing on the same, high level—but it’s a bit more frustrating. Only one queen can win, which means a lot of our beloved favourites are going to have to head home, some much sooner than it seems they should.

In the workroom after last week’s elimination of Silky Nutmeg Ganache, Trinity K. Bonet is lamenting losing to Laganja, but also understands. “How dare I come here and not assassinate a lip sync?” she says in confessional. “The nerve!” Also the nerve: the 6-4 vote between Silky and A’keria C. Davenport that the show reveals. It’s by far the closest vote margin we’ve seen on All Stars so far; had two Silky votes gone to A’keria, the result would have changed.

All the queens who voted for A’keria (Ra’Jah O’Hara, Ginger Minj and Eureka!) explain why they voted the way they did, and A’keria immediately forgives. But it clearly shakes her up, and she seeks redemption this week. Meanwhile, Jan is a bit unsettled after her brush with the bottom, and wants to use this challenge to make her comeback. Luckily for her, it’s right up her alley: it’s the Rusical challenge!

This season’s iteration of the Rusical is based around Super Bowl halftime show performances. Each queen picks one performer to impersonate, and sings a RuPaul song recorded in that artist’s style. It’s very much of a piece with the All Stars 3 Divas Live challenge, although with (seemingly) a bit more creative control in the queens’ hands. They aren’t singing their own tracks, however, which is a disadvantage for the queens who can sing in this group—including Jan.

Jan has figured out a pretty clever way to take the judges’ critiques in mind and loosen up: she picks Lady Gaga. Props to Jan for avoiding the obvious trap of doing Madonna again—the judges absolutely would have knocked her for not getting over her Season 12 Rusical loss. Instead, she picks a performer with distinctive steps she can perform, but also someone with a free attitude as an artist. It really lets Jan unleash in all the right ways, and even get a little messy. It’s not my favourite performance of the night (we’ll get to her in a second), but it’s a very good response to her critiques. And she also looks stunning in a saloon girl fantasy on the runway. No, this is a fair win for Jan, her first ever.

That said, I would have given the win once again to Trinity. (I’d have given Ra’Jah the first two wins and Trinity these past two wins—my judging would not make for the most interesting results!) She takes on Beyoncé, fulfilling a story arc about wanting to impersonate her from way back in Season 6. She even reminisces on Bianca Del Rio saying she looks like “Sammy Davis Jr. in a Beyoncé wig.” But she doesn’t let the challenge daunt her, nor does she sweat that all three Beyoncé impersonations in Snatch Game have been awful.

Instead, she goes out and absolutely slays. You get a sense of just how good she’s going to be in rehearsal with the still-perfect choreographer Jamal Sims, as she picks up her moves with no sweat. But the energy in her final performance is just on another level: it’s the performance that feels the most like a halftime show, and it is by a mile the best Beyoncé we’ve seen on this show. Trinity’s runway is a bit understated, but still gorgeous, so I’d have absolutely gone and given her a second win.

Other standouts: Kylie Sonique Love chooses to do male drag by picking Steven Tyler, specifically relating her choice to her experience prior to coming out as a trans woman. She understands Steven’s movements so innately that even though it isn’t a very big performance, it really works. Scarlet Envy also manages a pretty amazing Katy Perry, complete with a Left Shark gag in her costume. The judges go for Eureka! in the other top slot, but I’d actually have put Eureka! in the bottom for their barely recognizable Madonna.

The judging of the bottom is pretty wonky. While I agree that Ginger’s take on Fergie wasn’t the best, Yara Sofia gets some of the harshest and most misplaced critiques for her Shakira. The judges make a big deal of her facial expressions during the performance, but her dancing is so strong that it feels like nitpicking. A’keria is a clearer choice for the bottom after her muted performance as Prince, though you’d think her stunning runway would have saved her. It’s a mystery to me why a queen like Pandora Boxx, whose Carol Channing is pretty one-note, gets waved to safety over Yara.

But once we hit deliberations, the writing is on the wall for Yara. While Jan actually seems more inclined to keep her, citing A’keria’s lack of spark, Yara not fighting for her spot in the competition locks the rest of the queens’ votes in to eliminate her. We get yet another split decision, where a different queen will go home based on the lip sync results.

Jan gets to lip sync to Britney Spears’ “Womanizer” (the ninth Britney song featured on Drag Race!), and goes for a comedic, robotic take on the song. It stands in stark contrast to the hairography-based, high-energy performance that the Lip Sync Assassin gives. That LSA is not really an assassin from her original season, but I love her so I don’t care: it’s Jessica Wild! So exciting to see her back, and she’s just as delightful as ever.

Jessica wins the lip sync, and thus the cash tip pot for next week is $30,000. It’ll be a real arms race to win it, but unfortunately Yara won’t be here to compete for it. She sashays away after a unanimous vote from the other queens. It makes Jessica sad, as the two Puerto Rican queens are close friends, but an Assassin’s job is just to be a messenger. Yara, for her part, takes it a little hard, saying “Fuck you all!” to the queens on her way out the door.

I’m split between feeling sad for Yara, who I don’t think should have been in the bottom, and appreciating that this group is here to play. They’ve sent out one of the maxi-challenge winners by the fourth episode, with plenty of room to go. Yara being out of the game (at least for now) clears the way for others to thrive. And as Jan shows this week, it’s never too late to get your spotlight—or your Rudemption.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨Eureka! notes that we’re down to two big girls after just three boots. It’s an interesting sound bite to include, especially with Eureka! using it to say they hope Ginger gets it together. I could definitely see a storyline between those two on the horizon.

✨Jan arguing that she and Ginger shouldn’t have been “lipstick-eligible” last week is the funniest turn of phrase. The other queens quickly laugh her off. “You were in the bottom, Jan,” A’keria says matter-of-factly. Kind of a gag, then, that Jan actually picked A’keria’s lipstick to send her home!

✨Note that not once does Ru or anyone say the words “Super Bowl” in this episode. This is a copyright thing that you can see everywhere in ads—it’s always “the Big Game” instead.

✨It’s a small thing, but being honest that the queens’ choices for this challenge are selected ahead of time is a bit of transparency I appreciate. This show has not been similarly transparent in the past.

✨Ginger rattles off some Fergie-isms to work through her fears in a confessional. “I feel Fergalicious! ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry!’ ‘London Bridge.’ All the references.”

✨There is an absolutely lovely bonding moment in this episode between Trinity, Ra’Jah and A’keria, during which Trinity notes she didn’t make friendships a priority in her season. More than anyone, Trinity continues to be the person who seems to want to make the most out of this opportunity, and is thinking about every single way she could do that.

✨Note the Halftime Show Ruscal being sponsored by RuPaul’s Drag U and RuCo Labs from the Season 10 “PharmaRusical” challenge!

✨Eureka! when Yara picks Shakira: “Your hips are moderately honest.”

The next episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 6 will be available for streaming on Thursday, July 15, on Paramount+ in the U.S. and on Crave in Canada.