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. The Roast of Carson Kressley produced strong results across the board among the final four, but one queen still had to go—while another made her best case yet for the crown.
4. Alexis Michelle (last week: 1)—ELIMINATED
Alexis made her bed with her decision last week. If she’d eliminated Kandy Muse, she would’ve broken up Kandy and Jimbo’s tight alliance, leaving this week in a true anything-can-happen position. (Granted, the fact that Alexis was genuinely the worst in the challenge this week meant she was likely doomed, regardless, but that’s results-oriented thinking.) As Kandy’s vote this week showed, no one was going to trust Alexis any further, so she was going home in basically any scenario.
I’ve enjoyed Alexis as a character this season, and am glad she made her return to the Drag Race stage. Her drag has levelled up in a major way over the past five years, and for the most part, she made for great TV week in and week out. I do think her betrayal of LaLa Ri was a bridge too far—if mostly for her nonsensical judgment—but we’ll always have “I hoped that it would be well.”
3. Kandy Muse (last week: 4)
Despite the hype of the “previously on” and Jimbo’s voting message, I had no concerns about Kandy being sent home this week. How many times have we seen Jimbo call herself “a man of my word”? She was sticking with that deal no matter what, and with Alexis voting to eliminate Jessica Wild, there was no mathematical way Kandy was going home. The one real moment when Kandy could’ve been sent home this season was specifically Alexis winning the lip sync last week—and then Alexis went against common sense in her decision-making.
More surprising was that Kandy seemed thrown off by the roast challenge this week, despite that being the one challenge she won in Season 13. Her set was good, but Carson Kressley complimented her more on her command of the room than on any of her punchlines. And as Michelle Visage noted, despite being given the advice to slow her delivery down, Kandy still lost a lot of her set-ups amid audience laughs. She was nowhere near the worst this week, and as I said, she wasn’t going home. But without considering Jimbo’s performance, it’s a bit shocking this wasn’t Kandy’s second win—and even more so that I wouldn’t even have called her the runner-up.
2. Jessica Wild (last week: 2)
I was really glad to hear Jessica get her proper flowers from RuPaul this week. Despite Jessica’s dominance in the competition so far (she arguably could’ve placed in the high-scoring group for every single challenge except Snatch Game), it hasn’t felt like the edit has treated her like a real threat for the crown. Part of that is because Jimbo has been crushing it, but even Kandy has gotten more narrative attention than Jessica. This week’s praise from Ru doesn’t necessarily change Jessica’s trajectory, but I like that the show is finally acknowledging what Jessica has done this season.
Part of my concern about Jessica’s trajectory is that, with three episodes left, I just don’t know how the finale is going to look. Next week’s makeover challenge appears to just have the top three involved, so will there still be an elimination? And what about the week after that? If there is an elimination, I could see Jessica being the one left on the outside. Ru’s kind words this week could be seen as the resolution of her arc up to this point. I just don’t see Jimbo not bringing Kandy to the end, and if Kandy takes out Jimbo, it will be validating what Heidi N Closet claimed about Kandy all those weeks ago. So I think, assuming there is an elimination like normal at the end of next week’s episode, Jessica’s best chance of survival is winning the challenge. (Or, if there’s some kind of returning challenge after that, winning that instead.)
1. Jimbo (last week: 3)
I have little else to say about Jimbo after this week’s recap. This was a triumph for her, in every way imaginable. Reviving Joan Rivers for an all-time great roast set? Check. Finally winning a lip sync, and doing it in her own way against a remarkably tough opponent? Check. She even got a mini-redemption with her Snow Bunny look, after being eliminated on a winter-themed ball during her Canada’s Drag Race run!
I’ve never been the biggest Jimbo fan, but there’s just no denying her story this season. She is the rightful champion, and while I’m not sure how it’s going to take us three weeks to get to that result, all the time in the world couldn’t change that. It may have been an inevitable crowning, but Jimbo has proven she more than deserves the grand prize.
Why you can trust Xtra
