‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7’ Episode 7 recap: Designing Women

There’s a lot to recommend the extravaganza of drag talent that is RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7. There are jaw-dropping fashions, hilarious performances and a real sense that these champions have brought their best to the table. Getting to spend 12 weeks with these eight powerhouse queens has been a joyous treat in decidedly non-joyous times. But I’ll admit: if we ever do get an all-winners season again, I think the format might need a bit of tweaking to keep things firing on all cylinders.

The non-elimination format and all-positive critiques have led to this series feeling more like a showcase and not what Drag Race typically is: a reality competition. I’ve written about this tension before, and the ways in which the various iterations are splitting when it comes to embracing or turning away from the series’ reality roots. For every UK vs. The World that features brutal eliminations, you’ve got a Season 14 that hesitates to eliminate anyone at all. To its credit, All Stars 7 was upfront from the jump that no eliminations would happen, and it’s been a strength of the season that we’ve had the whole cast here.

What I didn’t anticipate was the ways in which no low-scoring queens or fights for survival in lip syncs would drain the story of narrative fire. Week after week, we have Shea Couleé announcing that she’s ready to be back on top again. And week after week, she lands in the higher-scoring group without a win. It’s not really going anywhere, because owing to the structure of the judging, she’s doing well! She’s just not among the two best of the week, according to Ru. And even the queens who are just scoring safe are getting such fawning praise that it’s impossible to build potent comeback arcs. Even Yvie Oddly, who went from zero stars to two and blocked in the course of two weeks, doesn’t feel like an underdog rising so much as someone suddenly launched into a better position.

This episode is a good example of the contrast All Stars 7 offers: this week’s design challenge produces some stunning garments, including a major surprise from one queen not known for her self-sewn looks. But the attempts to draw out intrigue over who the winner will block, or set up tension over the selection order for who gets to pick looks for inspiration, mostly fall flat. At this point, I almost wish that All Stars 7 would dispense with the competition entirely and just let the queens goof around as they complete the challenges—as we see with Jinkx Monsoon as she flounders through another design task; they’re such a funny group off the cuff. It’s more enjoyable to just watch the queens succeed or laugh through trying than to remind us that there’s a game afoot.

We join the queens after The Vivienne chose to block Jinkx once again, and let me tell y’all: the vibes in this room are rough. Jinkx tries to play off her irritation, but she’s not thrilled, and neither is Viv herself. Owing to Jinkx’s blocking of her, she missed out on a second Legendary Legend Star. And Jinkx blatantly says she’d block Viv again! Honestly, while I get the two’s strategy, this doesn’t end well for either. The other queens are catching up, and all they’re going to do is guarantee that neither of them makes the finale.

Making matters worse for Viv is that she’s blocked Jinkx at exactly the wrong time: we’ve got a design challenge this week. The task this time is to make a look inspired by—but not a re-creation of—one of RuPaul’s previous looks. The selection the queens get to choose from is a mixed bag: a couple of Drag Race promo looks, three she’s worn on the show and two from well before Drag Race, including her “Supermodel (You Better Work)” ensemble. As the blocked queen, Viv gets to choose hers first, and also gets to choose who goes next. There’s some mild drama here, as Raja is left for last again, but the picking goes basically as you’d expect once Viv chooses Trinity the Tuck: Trinity chooses Monét X Change, Monet picks Shea, Shea goes with Jaida Essence Hall, and so on.

Of the choices, I’d say the big winners are Jaida getting a VH1 Divas 2000: A Tribute to Diana Ross look and Monét getting Ru’s infamous facekini from Season 10. For the former, Jaida gets to both interpret Ru herself, and also Ru’s all-time favourite: Diana—a safe bet to win the host’s favour. For the latter, Monét has a particular connection to this look: Ru wore it when Monét delivered her all-time iconic “Pound the Alarm” lip sync performance. It’s also a look that gives her a lot of range to explore in her inspiration, although obviously it’ll be harder to construct than others.

Jinkx, of course, struggles in this challenge once again, as evidenced by her determination to break her “curse of designing crap” being quickly followed by realizing she can’t fit into what she made. Kudos to Jinkx: she makes her failure hilarious as she goes to drink a “non-specific energy drink” and cry. The segment quickly devolves into absurdity, including Yvie Oddly spanking Jinkx (?!), but in the end, she actually manages to turn out a decent garment! It’s not a great garment, and I’d say it’s only loosely inspired by the Drag Race Down Under promo look it’s supposedly based on, but hey. It’s good for Jinkx.

Faring worse, in my opinion, is Raja—and this is a shocker to me. Her gold handmade look in the ball challenge was stunning, but her deconstructed take on Ru’s Season 7 promo is a miss. The fit is off, and it barely registers as inspired by the original look. (Though I do love her describing it as “Bed, Bath and Beyond Thunderdome.”) Yvie similarly underwhelms, but she does pull out a damn impressive pair of pants for her take on the “Supermodel (You Better Work)” look. The top is just too unresolved to get her the win. Viv joins them all in the safe crowd, basically just re-creating the top of Ru’s Season 7 DESPY Awards look and chopping the bottom half off.

There’s a pretty big gulf between the top and safe four this week, and I could’ve seen any of the four in the top two. My personal least favourite of the lot is one of the two winners: Trinity, in another gown with a huge skirt. It’s not a train this time, at least, and the dress does have some fun details that recall Ru’s Season 8 promo look. And in terms of the construction, you can see just how much work Trinity put in. But I’d argue that compared to the other three, it’s just not quite as inspired. The judges—obviously— disagree, however, and Trinity snags her third challenge win and second Legendary Legend Star.

Occupying the high-but-not-winning slots are once again Monét and Shea, and I’d have picked either of them over Trinity just for how inventive their looks are. Shea paints a pink fabric to mimic Ru’s Season 5 Sugar Ball look, but instead of making it into a gown like he wore, she instead renders it as a jacket. It’s so cool, and she styles the shit out of it. The bottom half feels a bit less exciting, but the top is the star of the show.

Edging Shea out for me, and pulling out a huge surprise, is Monét! Self-made looks have never been Monét’s strong suit, as she admitted in the ball challenge. But what she produces this week is pretty unbelievable. She not only does a whole-body take on Ru’s facekini look, she also manages to blend different wild prints in a way that makes them all look great. And the fit! The fabric hugs her body in all the right ways, which is really impressive as a feat of construction. For all these reasons, she’d be in my personal top two over Trinity. Alas!

The one queen indisputably in the top this week is Jaida, who suddenly becomes our frontrunner with her third Legendary Legend Star. Her look is glorious, a nod to her pageant roots while still perfectly interpreting Ru’s look. Again, she gains a huge benefit by also getting to channel Diana Ross, and she pulls it off with aplomb. This is a very deserved second challenge win for Jaida, and quite significant in terms of the competition.

Mathematically, it’s hard to imagine Jaida doesn’t get to the end at this point. There are a maximum of eight stars still on the board, which means Trinity, Yvie and Jinkx would all need to get at least one more to tie Jaida, and two to beat her. That would leave just two stars left over, and even if one queen got both, they’d then just be tied with Jaida. Still, we’ve already seen bonus stars given out once this season—I don’t think Jaida should count her chickens before they hatch.

The lip sync is to a Jessie J deep cut called “I Want Love,” and if I may ask: why? Why, on a season of legends, have the song choices been so all over the map? For every surprisingly genius “Old McDonald” or modern classic “Green Light,” there’s been a badly arranged “Rumour Has It” or bizarre “I Want Love.” Trinity and Jaida both do their best despite the odd song, including two dashes across the stage. Jaida’s goes into a split, which looks fab; Trinity, oddly, launches into one straight into Jaida’s ass. It’s kind of uncomfortable, actually! But Ru eats it up, and Trinity wins this lip sync rematch.

With the power of the Platinum Plunger, Trinity goes for a previously unblocked queen: Yvie. This is, to me, exactly the right choice. If we consider that Jaida and, at this point, probably Jinkx are locked for the finale, this becomes a battle to get into one of the other two slots. Blocking Jinkx again isn’t going to do much for Trinity. Blocking Yvie, however, knocks someone who’s quietly slipping into the top from contention. That’s the kind of move we’ve been missing this season, amid a lot of talk about gameplay that wasn’t coming to fruition. And if Trinity can pull off another win next week, it’ll be a move we remember as the start of her launch to the finale.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨ Betsey Johnson is perhaps the most perfect guest judge they could’ve gotten for a challenge like this. As a designer, she can speak to the technical work in the garments, but her appreciation for the whimsical and dramatic also gives her an eye for who approaches Ru’s looks from a place of real reinvention. It’s no surprise then that even as her critiques skew positive, they’re informed, sharp and witty (love her calling Monét’s look a “Day-Glo marble cake.”) The other judges could take some notes from her on how to be celebratory but still incisive.

✨ Theoretically, this episode is where the Plunger Lie should’ve died. Though she never explicitly explained what she was suggesting, Shea’s idea was that the plunger gave power that would’ve been unlocked had a blocked queen won a lip sync. Viv did just that last week. However, it goes unmentioned, I imagine because the group doesn’t seem in much of a joking mood considering how frosty Jinkx and Viv are to each other about their blockings.

✨ RuPaul was vindicated in terms of name pronunciation after Tove Lo revealed he said her name correctly in a Tik Tok. With that said: is the pronunciation of the image board social media site really “Pin-teh-rest”?

✨ Yvie tells Ru that she was born the year he released “Supermodel (You Better Work).” His response? “Fuck you!”

✨ Utterly flummoxed that Yvie chooses to let Jinkx pick after her in the look selection order. Raja is right there! She gave you a whole Legendary Legend Star! And this is how you repay her?

✨ “This is precisely why I don’t drive. The Man knows better than to give me my licence back.” I want not a single further detail about this story from Yvie; this is perfection out of context.

✨ While her number of victories depends on how you count the various lip syncs in the Season 12 finale—I’m choosing to count just the final “Survivor” lip sync because no one was cut from the first two rounds—Jaida’s lip sync winning streak finally snaps with her loss here. Previously, she had won against Sherry Pie in a Lip Sync for the Win, Heidi N Closet in a Lip Sync for Your Life, Crystal Methyd and Gigi Goode in a Lip Sync for the Crown and Trinity in a Lip Sync for Your Legacy. She also tied with Eureka! when she came back as a Lip Sync Assassin in All Stars 6.

✨ Quick update on the Lip Sync Outfit Change Roulette: most change outfits this week, although Monét does not (perhaps because it would be the most difficult to get out of?), and Yvie appears to throw a jacket over hers. Raja’s lip sync outfit is my favourite, with a wig I’d love to see her bring to an actual runway look this season.

✨ Ru telling The Vivienne she looks like Bella Hadid is one of the wilder comparisons Ru’s ever made on the runway!

✨ With Drag Race France just around the corner, Canada’s Drag Race debuting next month and Drag Race Philippines on its way as well, you might’ve thought that was it for the Drag Race machine. Nope! This past Tuesday, we got the announcement that RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under is coming back at the end of July for a second season. We covered the first season here at Xtra, and to call it an unprecedented mess would be selling it short. Hopefully the second go-around will be better—but I’ll admit I likely won’t be watching to find out.

The next episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7 will stream Friday, July 1, at 3 a.m. EDT on Paramount+ in the U.S. and on OUTtv and Crave in Canada. Check World of Wonder’s streaming guide for other countries’ release plans. You can subscribe to our drag newsletter, Wig!, for exclusive Drag Race content delivered straight to your inbox every Tuesday afternoon.