‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7’ finale recap: Another one in the basket

I mean, do we really want to talk about this?

Do y’all really want to read me talk about the ways in which this RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7 finale is a spectacular failure? Do we need to go through how almost every lip sync is so clearly selectively edited to favour one outcome? Do I need to rant at length about how Yvie Oddly pulled off one of the coolest wig reveals we’ve seen in years, only to nonetheless lose her lip sync for the She Done Already Done Had Herses crown to Raja? Is it really necessary to explain just how badly Drag Race has screwed up what should be a triumphant crowning moment this season?

I’m happy to write at length about any and all of those things, but I also feel like it’d be shouting into the void. The fan base, as far as I can tell, seems almost uniformly frustrated with this finale, and for good reason. Meanwhile, Paramount and World of Wonder are enjoying a largely well-received season that is now earning a lot of buzz for its finale—what incentive do they have to listen to critique? On the whole, All Stars 7 was a success, and the most popular queen with fans won the crown. That’s the end result, no matter how infuriating the ending might be to some.

So I’d instead rather use this space to celebrate the eight crowned queens of All Stars 7, as they were what has made this season so spectacular. Amid production tomfoolery with Legendary Legend Stars and selective editing of lip syncs, they stayed consistently great. They deserved a finale that befitted them—and also trusted them to be as excellent as they’ve been all season.

After a Grand Finale Extravaganza runway—favourites are Jaida Essence Hall’s Hollywood starlet glamour and Monét X Change’s fabulous “Neo African Futurism” look—and some final plaudits from the judges, we launch right into the lip syncs. I’ll give you some basic details about each as we go through them, but in short: song choices great, lip syncs okay, editing terrible, decisions largely questionable.

First up is the Queen of She Done Already Done Had Herses semifinal rounds, including an Yvie Oddly vs. The Vivienne rematch. Viv really aced her Dolly Parton lip sync against Yvie in the girl groups episode, but that was an extraordinarily favourable song choice. She picks wrong this time, selecting the briefcase with Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It.” Yvie decimates her in what is the clearest and most correct victory of the finale.

The Vivienne was not my favourite in UK Season 1, largely because of her tight, bitchy bond with Baga Chipz and a feeling of inevitability around her victory. But this season, as someone a bit more out of her depth, Viv became an underdog. She won three challenges, with her acting challenge victory ranking among the best of the season, and even racked up two lip sync wins and $20,000. She stunned nearly every week on the runway, and she was a delight in both the workroom and confessionals. I can’t imagine having experienced this season without her.

Next up are Jaida and Raja, who get a song I’ve wanted as a lip sync for forever: “Let’s Hear It for the Boy”! This is a terrific track, and it seemingly favours the ’80s-inclined Raja. But I actually prefer the spirit Jaida brings to the song, and it looks like she’s going to be the victor. Instead, Raja wins, pulling out her second lip sync victory of the season. I’m sad for Jaida, who has been such a breath of fresh air all season long. She admitted repeatedly that her focus on the competition limited how much she could show her personality in Season 12, but this time around, she was just as hilarious and unique as she is on social media. I wish she could’ve been fighting for the top prize this week, but she’s done plenty to be proud of throughout this whole season.

Onward we move to the Queen of All Queens smackdown semifinals, first seeing Jinkx Monsoon battle Shea Couleé. There’s something actually kind of disarming watching Shea once again face off in the first round of a lip sync tournament against a redhead with a red floral pattern on. Jinkx doesn’t throw rose petals or anything, but she does do a better job than one would expect on Lady Gaga’s “Judas.” Shea pulls out choreography and actually starts going faster than the song itself, leading to a disjointed lip sync. Jinkx ultimately wins, advancing to the final round.

Meanwhile, we finally get the battle of the twinners, as Monét and Trinity the Tuck face off one last time. The song is P!nk’s “So What,” and I’m going to break my anti-ranting guideline for this one. Because what the fuck is this editing? The cuts are manic, the cropping is awkward (for some reason Monét humping Trinity is shown from too high), and there’s one shot of the judges that goes on for far too long. It’s actually an incomprehensible lip sync edit, and as a big fan of the song, the arrangement that results is equally flabbergasting.

Monét wins, but it’s not exactly a good feeling. What we see of Trinity’s lip sync seems like a much better fit for the song, and the editing is just too jumbled to get any real sense of her performance. As someone who has really been enjoying Monét these last few weeks and is notably not on the Trinity train, I’m happy with this result—I just don’t think the show itself justifies it.

Shea and Trinity are two of our three Season 9 champions, alongside the season’s winner Sasha Velour. As a Season 9 stan, I’ve been thrilled to see so many of its queens do well, and I hope they only continue to do so. (Peppermint, come back for your crown!) I’ll admit that I perhaps enjoyed Shea and Trinity both most in Season 9, but they’ve provided enough pleasures across their two All Stars seasons that I’m glad we had them back this go-around. They’re consummate Drag Race pros, and it’s a bummer to think we’ll likely never see them compete again.

On to our final two matchups: Raja vs. Yvie and Jinkx vs. Monét. The first I actually cannot talk about without descending into a rant, so let me just say that Raja is a fucking legend who deserves whatever the show wants to give her. I’m much happier thinking about her with a crown than I am remembering the calls the show made to get there, including ignoring her early strong performances only to give her a dubious acting challenge win later. To then beat Yvie in this final lip sync, when Yvie absolutely smashed “Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves”? Maddening! And sad for Yvie, who sees her run end without a prize she absolutely deserves. But I do think it’s fitting that the Lip Sync Assassin’s final act on the show is absolutely slaying a main stage performance.

Finally, we have our top two lip syncing for $200,000 and Queen of All Queens. Anyone with eyes can see this lip sync to Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj’s “Swish Swish” is edited to favour Jinkx—I have to imagine even Jinkx herself would agree with that. Just like with “So What,” the cuts are choppy, and even in what we can see, Monét just has a much better grasp on the song. Ru and some hastily added-in ADR try to excuse this: “Based on this lip sync, and your performance all season long,” he’s decided to crown Jinkx. And as a Jinkx fan, I’m happy! As a Monét fan, I feel like nothing she could’ve done in this final performance would’ve given her the crown. It’s a massively underwhelming ending, and a disservice to two terrific queens.

Lip Sync for the Crown has gotta go, guys. It’s obvious decisions are not actually made based on the lip syncs unless they’re such blowouts (see: Sasha and Shea) that the show has no choice but to go with it. Otherwise, they just edit around to ensure a certain outcome. Jinkx was always going to win this crown, and it’s likely that Raja was always going to win the lower bracket. The Logo-era champions won, and as a major fan of that time of Drag Race, I should be ecstatic! But it says something about how poor this finale is that I’m left incredibly underwhelmed.

This finale aside, how do I ultimately feel about All Stars 7? I’ve appreciated it for what it is, but I also think what it is is not what I like in my Drag Race. The removal of any real competition—especially after the arbitrary three-star twist—plus the absence of any substantive critiques made this feel more like a 12-week drag variety show. And if I’d been sold that at the start, I would’ve enjoyed it! But I can’t lie, it feels weird to be ending what has never truly felt like a fight for the crown with a crowning. I’m happy for Jinkx to have two Drag Race victories, but this can’t possibly live up to, say, Kylie Sonique Love finally getting hers after 11 years of waiting.

As such, I’m thrilled that all the current casting rumours indicate All Stars 8 will be a return to the normal format. I wouldn’t mind another all-winners edition in a few years, but I have a couple recommendations if they do: Cast from a greater variety of shows. Let’s get Priyanka on here, and Carmen Farala! Maybe just one or two former All Stars winners; I’d love to see Chad Michaels back, for instance. And the star system should be completely overhauled to either give more opportunities for stars, or simplified to be a simple challenge win count. This middle ground option felt underbaked and ultimately robbed two stars of the season (Jaida and Viv) from being in the final four. Naturally, I also very much hope the Lip Sync Smackdown for the Crown format is gone as well.

One thing I’m looking forward to watching further is the tension between Drag Race as a competition and Drag Race as a platform for positivity and showcasing drag artists. Both Season 14 and All Stars 7 heavily prioritized the latter, to great effect for the queens themselves, but at the expense of the standards of reality competition, particularly in terms of eliminations. I’ve said before that I am just too big a fan of this genre—I grew up on Project Runway and Top Chef—to enjoy watching Drag Race discard it entirely. I’m hopeful that Season 15 and All Stars 8 can strike more of the tone that All Stars 6 hit: positive, but still very competitive.

For now, let’s do what we can bask in Jinkx and Raja’s victories. The circumstances behind them may be mighty suspect, but this is still a win for the Logo era of Drag Race. And if we want to see Drag Race get back to its roots, this is a start.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨ Ru makes the queens get into 15-minute quick drag for one final mini-challenge: a Soul Train-inspired dance task. There’s no winner or anything, it’s just a chance for them all to cut loose. It’s cute! In a finale that I didn’t hate as much as this one, I’d have liked it more!

✨ Raja gives a couple of beautiful speeches this week, but my favourite is her confessional celebrating this cast: “I think it was meant to be us. It was meant to be the eight of us. And there’s not one thing I regret about doing this.”

✨ We get a Ru performance of his song “Smile,” and it is exactly as dismal as the rest of this finale is. Look, I love that Ru is enjoying performing again, but we really could’ve just made this a 45-minute episode instead of throwing in a bunch of filler.

✨ Kudos to the music supervision team on their choices of lip sync songs this week. Truly not a bad one in the bunch! (Although I will never be a big “Swish Swish” fan.)

✨ Thanks so much for joining us for another All Stars season! That was … something! The Drag Race coverage train rolls on with Canada’s Drag Race, which we’re recapping every Friday here at Xtra. If you need to catch up on the first three episodes of the season, you can find those recaps here!

The next episode of Canada’s Drag Race will be available to stream Thursday, August 4, at 9 p.m. EDT on WOW Presents Plus in the U.S. and on Crave in Canada. You can subscribe to our drag newsletter, Wig!, for exclusive Drag Race content delivered straight to your inbox every Tuesday afternoon.