‘RuPaul’s Drag Race Global All Stars’ Episode 3 recap: The queen who dragged me

Editor’s note: You can get early early access to our exclusive analysis of each ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race Global All Stars’ episode by subscribing to Wig!, our all drag newsletter.

The debate over whether RuPaul’s Drag Race should be more interested in creating good TV or giving drag artists as grand a showcase as possible is coming to a head with Global All Stars.

This third episode of the season, featuring the International Queen of Mystery Ball challenge, is just 44 minutes long, either cuts down (runways, cold open) or entirely removes (deliberations, lipstick message) regular parts of the typical episode format and features some wonky judging that you can’t help but think is done to benefit certain queens. This is basically a recipe for pissing off a major segment of the Drag Race fanbase: those viewers invested in giving queens as much opportunity to shine as possible.

But as an episode of television, this is also a tight, effective installment, one that manages to make even a dreaded mega-ball—a format that often drags—feel light and quick. There’s definitely some wonky judging, but the right queen takes the prize and, in truth, anyone going home this early is going to sting. With two exceptions (one being literal legend Alyssa Edwards), everyone was a finalist in their original season. Every cut is going to hurt, especially when fans from the queen’s home country are particularly invested in their success.

I don’t think it will surprise readers of my recaps that I tend to prefer the good TV version of Drag Race to the everybody-say-love version. And even the most stalwart viewers have to admit that no eliminations made All Stars 9 an underwhelming affair. So I appreciate that Global All Stars is turning out to be a sharp, easily digestible version of the show, with shady reads from the queens and some really interesting drag.

That said: the judging this episode regarding who is declared safe and who is in the bottom is a bad sign of things to come.

Let’s rewind a bit. The International Queen of Mystery Ball features three categories: Boss Lady in Charge, She-vil Villain and for the self-made look, the titular “International Queen of Mystery” category. I could quibble with these categories (hate how “Executive Realness,” an actual ball category, has been replaced in recent seasons by a non-real “boss” look), but this is overall a pretty creative concept and reminds me of the terrific episode of Legendary Season 3 that gave us the House of Juicy Couture’s iconic Pink Panther number. God, I miss Legendary.

With someone finally going home this week in a Lip Sync for Your Life format, tensions are high. Queens like Miranda Lebrão, who won their design challenges in their season, see this as an opportunity to snatch their first win. Chief among them is Pythia, whose storyline in Canada’s Drag Race Season 2 was often about her love of design and wanting to be recognized for her work.

But this is not exactly an even playing field, some of the queens note. Miranda mentions making most of her own clothes thanks to the limited resources in Brazil, while Vanity Vain says that “there’s no talent to opening a wallet.” The cut immediately to Alyssa is not exactly subtle, as she admits she doesn’t have the capacity or skills to make all her own stuff. But as one of the most successful queens to appear on the show, she has the finances to turn out really impressive garments brought from home.

That’s exactly what she does in this ball, with a jaw-dropping LED look for the first category and an exciting evolution of her Season 5 Black Swan look for the second. By the time she gets to her fine-not-great self-made look, she’s just so thoroughly impressed that it would take a disaster for her not to make the top. You gotta wonder how fair it is, especially when we’ve seen in many previous ball challenges that the final look is usually worth more on Ru’s mental scorecard than the looks brought from home.

Luckily, someone does better than Alyssa in all three categories, with her self-made look being the best of them all: Pythia! The Canada’s Drag Race alum finally wins a ball challenge thanks to her camera-coated “Voya Rism” first look, her genuinely scary She-vil Villain look and a red latex suit that knocks the judges’ socks off. What she manages to accomplish with latex in the amount of time given is nothing short of spectacular, and it fits her like a glove. She deserves this win, and instantly joins the ranks of the frontrunners this season.

But now we must discuss the queens who performed worst in the challenge—those who underwhelmed in our own eyes, and those whom the judges called out. Soa De Muse is the only queen I would say falls into both categories. She lands in the bottom two for a couple of okay looks from home, plus a cowl-centric self-made look that’s just too simple. I really like Soa, and would’ve put her in my personal top two for the premiere, but this is a clear miss from her.

Among the others, I would say the clearly safe queens include Eva Le Queen, Nehellenia, Vanity (whose final look is a showstopper but other two are just okay) and Gala Varo. Both of the other RuGirls, Kween Kong and Kitty Scott-Claus, underwhelm, with Kitty completely missing the mark on her She-vil Villain look—as my friend and colleague Mathew Rodriguez texted me, it’s giving more Katy Perry than supervillain—and Kween’s self-made look being a bit of a construction disaster on top. You can’t help but wonder if they’re both waved to safety so that the queens Ru already knows and likes can stick around.

Ru instead, however, puts Athena Likis, Miranda and seemingly Tessa Testicle into the bottom with Soa. I say “seemingly” with Tessa because she gets a mixture of good and bad critiques. The key issue is with her self-made look, which is a strange hot pink pageant gown that is both unflattering and doesn’t fit the prompt. She’s seemingly brought into critiques so the judges can both praise her brought-from-home looks (which I personally think are fine, not great) and also give her corrective advice for the final garment. Still, in an episode with only two top queens, I can’t help but be perplexed as to why Tessa isn’t just waved to safety.

Athena and Miranda are the other two true contenders for the bottom, and I don’t really get either’s placement. Athena’s in particular seems off-base, considering how unique and creative her looks are. You can easily understand her aesthetic across the various looks, and while I do think the construction on the final look is an issue, it’s no worse than Kween’s in that regard. Miranda’s first look is one of my favourites of the night, a tribute to Carmen Sandiego that takes the look past simple reference, and while her giant mask look is a little strange, it’s at least a big swing. Like Tessa, her package suffers most from her final look, which is a mishmash of different ideas that don’t go together.

Ultimately, Ru puts Athena in the bottom with Soa, and I really don’t get this. The only clear purpose of this bottom two that I can see is to preserve someone else from winding up there whom you don’t want to go just yet. Soa demonstrates she’s a fierce performer on the “bad idea, right?” lip sync that follows—although between this one and “good 4 u” in Season 14, I’m not sure Olivia Rodrigo songs make for great LSFYL performances—so you could see someone like Kitty at risk of being knocked out. Athena has been decent across her first couple episodes, but if Ru’s not interested in seeing more, then that’s that.

Again, I do appreciate that this is such a quick, effective episode of Drag Race. I don’t mind the shorter length, and unlike most mega-balls, I was able to actually remember all the looks when I went back to my notes for them. (It helps when the runway presentations don’t go so long that the looks blend together.) But if there’s anything about this that gives me pause for the rest of the season, it’s this final judging. Ru has shown in both UK vs. The World seasons that he can be really compelled by performers he hasn’t seen before. Let’s see more of that this season, and if it means a RuGirl has to fight for her life in the competition, so be it.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨ At the start of the episode, the other queens don’t seem to think Vanity and Eva’s lip sync to the Danna song in Episode 2 was particularly good. Tessa says they performed it “so badly,” while Gala calls it “a little bit bad” to their faces and “trash” in confessional. Yikes! I didn’t think it was that bad!

✨ Interestingly, despite her proficiency as a designer, this is actually Pythia’s first pure design challenge win. She won the makeover in Season 2, but lost both the season premiere design challenge and the Seven Deadly Sins ball challenge to eventual season champion Icesis Couture.

✨ Oh, to have the confidence of Alyssa walking into her werk room chat with Ru with no sketch, just her signature on a blank page.

✨ Tessa’s pointed question to Alyssa—“Is the challenge presence or dress?”—actually raises an interesting question about the challenge type. We’ve seen very impressive garments win in the past (A’Whora’s in UK Season 2’s design challenge, Plastique Tiara’s in All Stars 9’s ball), but I can think of a lot of instances in which a queen selling a decent garment put them over the top. Remember Jorgeous’ Glamazon Prime dress in Season 14? Or how Utica’s lack of convincing runway presence actually lost her the ball in Season 13? I’m not sure the answer is as clear-cut as Tessa thinks. Judging by Alyssa being in the top over some other queens, I think Ru values both, and not necessarily in equal measure.

✨ Matt Rogers is our guest judge this week, and he’s becoming a pretty frequent guest in the Drag Race universe! Not only have he and Bowen Yang judged together before this, but he was also the interviewer in Season 16’s final maxi-challenge. I wonder if this will continue, and he’ll become a regular feature a la Leland and Jamal Sims on the main show (or Hollywood Jade on Canada’s Drag Race).

✨ Gotta love Alyssa dragging Santino Rice a decade after Season 5. When Ru mentions Santino’s infamous critique of one of Alyssa’s outfits as the worst dress to walk the Drag Race stage, Michelle Visage questions where he is now. Alyssa picks that up and runs with it: “Motherfucker, here I am—where are you at?”

✨ Love that the bottom queens are allowed to change into lip sync looks. Would be very happy if this became routine on the main series, too; we’ve too often seen queens basically taken out of the competition because of cumbersome runway outfits.

✨ Before the lip sync, Ru says, “In a moment, I’ll ask one of you to shantay, which means stay.” We are so back, baby.

The third episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Global All Stars will be available to stream next Friday at 3 a.m. EST on Paramount+ in the U.S. and on Crave in Canada. We’ll be publishing recaps all season long, exclusively here first in our drag newsletter Wig!, and then on Xtra every week.