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. The girl group challenge tasked the queens with writing and performing inspiring verses for the new song, “Show Up Queen.” Which queens showed up—and, most importantly, who showed out?
7. Jan (last week: 2) — ELIMINATED
Man, what a brutal way to go. Jan’s elimination is destined to go down in the record books as one of the harshest we’ve ever seen. For Alexis Mateo to pull out Pandora Boxx’s lipstick, then fake out and reveal a tie, only for Trinity K. Bonet to then send Jan home? A nightmare!
It made for absolutely incredible TV drama, but no doubt took a toll on Jan. She’s someone who very much leads with her emotions, and I hope she can at least take comfort in being part of an iconic Drag Race moment.
In terms of her performance this week, Jan’s bottom placement was legitimate based on her lyrics, but there’s no question Pandora performed worse overall. However, considering Jan had struggled previously, it’s hard to feel like she was truly robbed. Trinity’s choice was entirely fair, and if nothing else, gives those Jan fans who feel passionately about her run on Drag Race all the more reason to campaign on her behalf.
And who knows? Maybe she’ll win her way back in through the game-within-a-game! Something tells me we may not be done with Jan’s journey.
6. Pandora Boxx (last week: 5)
The Boxx that rocks, as she’s now been deemed, had a rocky time this week. While Pandora has mostly been competent this season, at times even strong, she’s not had a major standout moment. I think part of this is that we’ve waited to do Snatch Game for so long, which was Pandora’s star turn back in Season 2 (although she didn’t actually win). A girl group challenge just wasn’t going to be up her alley, as the other queens realized when they picked her last for the groups. You’d think she could at least write strong lyrics, but as the judges noted, she wasted too much of her space on laughter and cut herself off from greatness.
She stayed in an incredibly tight vote, thanks to Trinity, but I’m not sure how much longer she can survive. Luckily, with Snatch Game of Love around the corner, Pandora’s biggest chance to shine is on its way. She may be able to turn things around.
5. Eureka! (last week: 6)
How many times can we think, okay, this is the week Eureka! finally wins? We’re nearly eight episodes in, and while they did well as Honey Boo-Boo in their original Snatch Game, next week they’re going up against Snatch Game titans Pandora and Ginger Minj. If they still haven’t won a challenge by Top 5? Then I don’t know what the argument is to send Eureka! to the finale.
Everyone else (save Pandora) has found their moment to snatch a win, and while I can quibble and say Eureka! should’ve gotten the Pink Table Talk win, the fact of the track record remains. Eureka!’s been performing at a higher baseline than A’keria C. Davenport was, but like A’keria, it’s possible this may just not be Eureka!’s season.
They’ve clearly come a long way as a queen and as a television personality, but the TV show is just half of Drag Race. It’s also a competition, and while they’ve done well, at this point seeing them in a crown at season’s end feels like a near impossibility.
4. Ginger Minj (last week: 3)
We’re starting to see Ginger fall back into some of her patterns from the start of the season, namely turning out a couple of lackluster looks on the main stage this week. The problem with her runway look was one of volume—just too much fabric—while her performance outfit was a real miss.
Still, she had some of the best lyrics of the lot in “Show Up Queen,” and she performed the hell out of it. I’d call this a solid-but-unspectacular week for Ginger. And considering how well she’s turned things around after her early-season struggles, that’s an okay week to have. I’m hopeful for her sake that Snatch Game sends her right back to the top.
3. Kylie Sonique Love (last week: 1)
What struck me most watching this episode was just how much of the narrative seemed focused on Kylie. She was a team captain, worked with her teammates on the choreography (and expressed her frustrations in confessional when they had communication issues), looked stunning on the runway and overall felt like the star of the show. It’s no wonder Ginger noted that Kylie is competition at the start of the episode: her win last week, no matter how dubious, has carved out a spot for Kylie in the frontrunners’ circle.
Lyrically, Kylie’s performance wasn’t the best, but she was high-energy and invested throughout. She also looked nothing short of perfection in both her girl group and tropics outfits. With A’keria gone, Kylie is the reigning runway queen of this season (though Ra’Jah O’Hara gives her a run for her money).
In an era when looking great can earn you a huge fanbase, and fan favourites tend to win at the end, that’s no small thing. I’m beginning to think Kylie could really win this thing—and considering she’s my favourite, I’m hoping so, too!
2. Ra’Jah O’Hara (last week: 7)
Ra’Jah’s verse was a smash, and she performed it incredibly well. She also looked great in her bikini runway for the tropics category, and save a bad boot choice, she served fashion-wise in the girl group challenge, as well.
Truly, there’s not much more she could have done to excel this week. She just faced down a killer performance from Trinity. The pals have been forces to be reckoned with all season long, save for Trinity’s initial bottom two appearance and Ra’Jah’s dip last week. But overall, this season has largely felt like theirs to lose—which is why I’m suddenly worried that one of them might go next week.
A big question mark is how Ra’Jah will do in Snatch Game. She’s the only queen of these six to not make it to that challenge in her season, and her work in comedy and performance challenges has been inconsistent. If she can serve and surprise us, she may firmly reestablish herself as a frontrunner. But if she fumbles on Snatch Game, she may run afoul of the vote.
1. Trinity K. Bonet (last week: 4)
Your new frontrunner, everyone. Trinity got the crucial second maxi-challenge win this week, firmly placing her at the front of the pack of the remaining queens. Most importantly, she got a lot more credit and screen time associated with her win than she did the first go-around. This felt like the triumph that Trinity didn’t get for her commercial challenge win, and it’s well deserved.
That said: once again, Trinity lost the lip sync, and in losing her wig, she lost it in a pretty mortifying fashion. That’s some Monique Heart mess right there, and it’s something we’ve never really seen from Trinity. She looked pretty embarrassed about it, although I’m not totally ready to rule out that she might have been throwing the competition.
Regardless, Trinity’s lip sync record on Drag Race is now 2-3, which is uniquely unreflective of her status as a Lip Sync Assassin. If she can shake off her loss and keep her eyes on the prize, I think Trinity’s still got this. That said, she was lucky to scrape through Snatch Game in Season 6 with a safe score after her lacklustre Nicki Minaj; how will she tackle it this time around? If her performance this season so far is any indication, however, I’m ready to be pleasantly surprised.
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