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. Pink Table Talk, a new challenge design, tasked the queens with opening up. For those who did, this was a great week; for those who struggled, their weak points in the competition were revealed.
9. Scarlet Envy (last week: 5) — ELIMINATED
Based on this week’s performance alone, Scarlet’s elimination was fair. She misunderstood the assignment, and served character when she needed to serve relatability. Her Clash of the Patterns runway look was touching, made out of her grandparents’ letters, but the construction made it look a bit too flimsy. Her mug, as always, was stunning, but for whatever reason, Scarlet’s looks never connected with the judges. In general, she wasn’t getting the attention she deserved this season, which is a shame. Scarlet can sashay away quite proud of herself, and with the knowledge that she’s earned a whole new legion of fans. Envyrinas rise!
8. Jan (last week: 1)
Had I gone into the Ladies’ Room to plop a lipstick into the box, I would have voted for Jan to go. She got her win last week, completing her arc that started when she lost the Rusical in Season 12. There’s just not much else for Jan to give this season, and Scarlet was more consistently stunning in both the challenges and on the runway. While I do think Jan’s performance was better than Scarlet’s in the Pink Table Talk challenge, it was still pretty poor. She opened up about fans noticing her weight gain during the broadcast of Season 12, but didn’t share much about how she actually felt about it. On the runway, she was the worst of the week, in a Clash of the Patterns look that really only clashed with some printed shopping bags she was carrying. A rough week for Jan, and considering the group vote was a tie, it could’ve been a lot worse. She was one more vote and a Mayhem Miller lip-sync win away from going home.
7. Kylie Sonique Love (last week: 4)
The edit is investing in Kylie in a way that makes me pretty sure she’s going to go far in this competition, but I expected her to do better in this challenge. Scarlet’s worry that Kylie can be soft-spoken felt like fodder for a surprise win arc, but Kylie struggled to open up. It felt like she was disconnected from the topic at hand, which is understandable, but she should’ve taken the chance to stop Scarlet from fighting for motherhood and let the team take another subject instead. That’s where Kylie’s soft-spoken side is really coming back to bite her: she needs to be opinionated with the other dolls as well. I appreciated that she fought hard to stay, and I hope this lights a fire under her ass moving forward.
6. Pandora Boxx (last week: 7)
Michelle Visage calling Pandora out for not being her true self was interesting. They’ve been on tour together plenty of times before, so despite Michelle not judging Pandora in her season, they’ve got a great rapport. And it does put Michelle in the position of being able to speak to what’s happening with her more specifically than Ru or the other judges ever could. Pandora did fine in the challenge, but needed to dig a bit deeper about ageism in the gay community. She redeemed herself on the runway, though, in the best garment she’s ever worn on Drag Race. I’m not ready to count Pandora out just yet, particularly since we still haven’t seen Snatch Game.
5. A’keria C. Davenport (last week: 9)
Very nice to see A’keria back on the high-scoring side of things. It’s been a rough ride for her so far on All Stars, but her opening up about her experiences living as a trans woman, then detransitioning, gave us the chance to get to know her in a whole new way. She approached this challenge exactly right, looked the part on the main stage and also served an elevated version of her Season 11 facekini look on the runway. It was a very good week for her. So why don’t I have her higher? Simply put, without some confessional about how glad she was to be on top finally (which did air in Untucked, but not on the main show), it’s hard to put this high placement in an overall trajectory for her. I think it’s entirely plausible that she goes out next week or the following. She did okay in acting challenges in her season, but with this group in particular, I wouldn’t be shocked if she struggles—but I certainly hope I’m proven wrong.
4. Ra’Jah O’Hara (last week: 6)
Despite staying on the main stage for critiques, everything Ra’Jah heard both about her challenge performance and her killer runway was positive. She looked the part both in the challenge and in the Clash of the Patterns category, and her opening up about her relationship with her mom was the highlight of her group’s performance. She also shared her concerns with A’keria and Trinity K. Bonet about divulging too much, in what has become one of my favourite friendship dynamics of the season. I’m slightly concerned going into next week, as Ra’Jah’s edit in the preview for the acting challenge seems to indicate she underperforms. But she seems to have the social bonds to survive a vote even if she winds up in the bottom—she just needs to make sure no one takes the opportunity to get rid of a frontrunner if she ever does fall into danger.
3. Trinity K. Bonet (last week: 2)
Trinity has fully found her groove. Be it a commercial, a Rusical or a talk show, she is excelling in all kinds of performance tasks. Trinity of Season 6 would be shook to watch this happening—the growth is real. On the runway, she was positively radiant in African print and paint. And in the maxi-challenge, she looked gorgeous in talk show garb as well. She’s firing on all cylinders this season, and I think she’s a clear frontrunner to the very end at this point, but I’d have stopped short of giving her the win this week.
2. Eureka! (last week: 3)
It’s funny: just last week I was arguing that Eureka!’s critiques so far have been too positive, and here I am arguing that they were robbed of the win this week. How quickly things change! Truly, I don’t get why Eureka! didn’t get the win—they were on point in the challenge, effective at moderating and sharing their own story. They were funny without getting too jokey, generous with their time and had great chemistry with their co-hosts. On the runway, I loved their garment more than their hair, which felt like a mismatched choice. But still, they were the clear winner of the week for me.
1. Ginger Minj (last week: 8)
Ru was feeling a bit spontaneous, so Ginger—a queen not even on the winning team—got the win instead. This frustrated me for a couple different reasons, although Ginger’s subsequent lip sync to “Phone” was such a joy that I couldn’t help but applaud. Still, Ginger’s win feels more like a reward for standing out in a mediocre group (plus an appreciation of her best runway of the season) than anything else. She won her $30,000 tip in the lip sync, not her challenge performance. She absolutely deserves all the credit in the world for that lip sync, though. Way to show the girls what a camp performance really looks like—and why, when done right, comedy is just as valid a strategy for winning a lip sync as any other.
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