Welcome to RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Power Rankings! Every week, we’re debriefing the week’s new episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 8 to determine which queens are riding high, and which need she-mergency care. We still have two weeks’ worth of episodes left, but we could crown the winner right now—it’s a very obvious decision based on the story of the season.
3. Jessica Wild (last week: 2)—ELIMINATED
Jessica wound up in one of the few situations that should’ve seen her stay this week. Jimbo, a self-professed “man of my word,” was likely always going to take Kandy Muse to the finale. So Jessica, theoretically, needed either herself or Kandy to win to get her to the endgame. While her work on Kitty Wild was cute, it was not at the level it needed to be to beat out Kandy. And while Kandy would’ve been wise to take a queen she could win out over in some metrics, she instead chose to take impossible competition to the end with her. So Jessica lands in third place—an improvement from her season, but not reflective of the season we’ve seen so far.
I’m genuinely so proud of Jessica. She has surprised, and more than that, she has thrived. I’d argue she genuinely underperformed in … one challenge? (That being Snatch Game.) Otherwise, she has done quite well, and was often my favourite of the week even when she didn’t win—the Rusical and arguably the improv challenge immediately springing to mind. Were this season in the top two format we saw on All Stars 2 through 4, Jessica would have several wins, and would likely be a real threat to take home the crown.
I do very much hope Jessica can triumph in the Fame Games. She’s put her heart and soul into this season, and has demonstrated just how damn good she is at Drag Race. She deserves to walk out of this season with a grand total of $97,500—nearly the previous $100,000 grand prize!—and the title of Queen of the Fame Games.
2. Kandy Muse (last week: 3)
Kandy truly put herself in a no-win situation. Who knows if she actually said what Heidi N Closet accused her of once upon a time, but her denial of any plan to eliminate Jimbo left her with no good options this week. Had she chosen to eliminate Jimbo, she would’ve proven Heidi right, and drawn all kinds of ire her way for her supposed deceit with the Season 12 fan favourite. This would’ve left her and Jessica in the final two, and Jessica’s fan support would’ve likely left Kandy at a disadvantage.
But at least in that case, she’d be able to boast a better track record than Jessica, as well as (by my perception) Ru’s preference for her. Against Jimbo, she will lag far behind in the fan vote, have two fewer wins and one more bottom appearance, and will struggle to win Ru’s favour over the Canadian queen. There’s basically no justifiable reason to crown Kandy over Jimbo based on this season.
It’s rare that I don’t make the eliminee the lowest-ranking queen of the week on these power rankings. Honestly, I even considered ranking her at the very bottom. True, there’s no denying that Kandy deserved her win in this challenge. It was perhaps the clearest victory we’ve seen all season, honestly. But the win did little for Kandy’s standing in the competition, especially with the lip sync loss. She lost out on $10,000 and still had to choose the eliminee. Good luck to Kandy in the finale because I think she’s looking at an inevitable loss.
1. Jimbo (last week: 1)
She’s going to win. Do I need to write more than that? Jimbo was vulnerable for elimination exactly once this season, and Kandy didn’t take the shot. That’s it. It’s over. She has four wins, the fans’ support and Ru’s adoration. It’s a wrap.
What’s remarkable to me about this season is how much it was about Jimbo. Think of how many story arcs—such as they were—fully hung on questions about either what Jimbo would do (will she eliminate Kandy?) or what would happen to her (will the other queens take her out?). Effectively, the narrative this season presupposed that Jimbo winning was the “correct” result, and framed all of its questions around whether that would happen. I’m not sure we’ve seen such singular focus on one queen’s POV in the edit since Jinkx Monsoon’s in Season 5. And even then, while the story was all about her, she had true powerhouses around her (Alaska! Detox! Roxxxy Andrews! Alyssa Edwards! Coco Montrese!) to keep the competition tight. With four wins to everyone else’s one (except Kandy, now with two), there was no competition here.
All the flowers in the world to Jimbo for her dominance this season. It has not been unearned, and she’s proved much more endearing as a character this go-around than on her previous seasons. She will make for a more-than-deserving entrant into the Drag Race Hall of Fame. It just wasn’t the most interesting path to get there.
Why you can trust Xtra
