‘RuPaul’s Drag Race Global All Stars’ Episode 8 recap: International roast

My new come-what-may approach to RuPaul’s Drag Race Global All Stars really got tested just one week later, huh? Because this roast episode is a mess, feeding into a lot of the critiques of the season so far and ending in one of the most exciting queens in the competition being sent home. Owing to the roast itself being underwhelming, the episode also drags—I can’t remember a Drag Race episode that’s felt longer in years.

So with all that in mind, let’s take a different approach to this week’s recap and check in with each of our remaining final six, plus this week’s unfortunately eliminated queen. It’s not quite a power ranking (I don’t want to bore you by putting the RuGirls in the top three); think of it as a power-level check. How much more gas in the tank do each of these queens have left?

We’ll start with one of the winners of this challenge—yes, I said one of—and the one I think actually deserved the victory: Kween Kong. I’ve been lumping Kween in with Alyssa Edwards and Kitty Scott-Claus a lot this season, as they are the three queens Ru had previously judged, and all three have been beneficiaries of some favourable judging this go-around. But Kween is the one of the three I think is living up to her end of the RuGirl bargain. She’s demonstrated real growth since Down Under Season 2, both in challenges and on the runway, and while I quibbled with her first two wins (both of which I would’ve given to my beloved, gone-but-not-forgotten Soa De Muse), this victory is for her strongest performance yet.

Kween closes the roast, and after a string of underwhelming performances before her, she just lets loose on the queens. She drags Kitty for putting the only POC last in a joke that seems to genuinely shock Kitty, she has terrific rhythm in her performance and she manages to elevate the same “if you liked my jokes, if you didn’t” closer that two other queens had already tried. Combined with a gorgeous Blown Away runway look—with gorgeous-looking gold lamé blowing in the wind—and she deserves this third challenge win.

I can’t say the same for her fellow winner, Kitty, who I am just out of patience for. With the same disclaimer as always—queens on the show are characters made in composite between themselves, producers, editors and so on—Kitty’s approach to the show has been baffling and frustrating to watch all season long. Her confessionals, once so charming and fun on UK Season 3, have become needlessly harsh. About Pythia in this episode, for example: “Whatever advice I give to Pythia is useless, because she’s not funny, full stop.” What’s funny about that? Shade can be delicious, but this isn’t shade, it’s just an insult. Kitty isn’t Bianca Del Rio; she’s not an insult comic. She’s missing the playfulness we’ve seen from her before, especially in how she talks about Nehellenia. (Granted, she actually does finally compliment Nehellenia in this episode, which means a lot to the Italian queen.)

Particularly rich in the wake of Kitty’s insults is her set, which is chock full of recycled jokes. The “Some Stars” bit is a direct lift from Jujubee’s All Stars 5 reading challenge performance, for instance. And while she lampoons that “RuPaul Is Old” jokes are tired, she still tells several of them. Her rhythm is good, which I can see justifying her getting a high placement this week. But combined with yet another blah runway (it’s wild how she’s gotten away with these all season), I just don’t get the argument for a shared win.

If anyone else should’ve gotten the win alongside Kween—and I really do think she should’ve gotten it alone—I’d make the argument for Nehellenia. The Italia Season 2 queen has a distinct delivery that really helps her stand out, and she gets off to a great start by referencing Alyssa’s iconic “BEAST!” joke. You can tell Ru is just really charmed by Nelly, and as Michelle Visage notes in critiques, she’s coming into her own more and more every week. Her fire runway is hot this week, though I agree that the hair deflates the overall impression. A good week for Nehellenia, even as she remains the only queen in the final seven without a win.

The last queen in the top scorers is Alyssa, which is frankly hilarious. Not Alyssa’s roast; honestly, it’s no better than her set in the RuPaul Roast 11 years ago. No, Alyssa’s placement is absurd, as is the edit the show uses to justify it. Her jokes lack even the distinct Alyssa delivery that we saw in All Stars 2’s comedy challenge (maybe because she doesn’t have Alaska to ground her?). While her runway is nice, albeit a bit too reminiscent of Anetra’s final four runway look, it doesn’t make full effect of the fan. Alyssa’s performance is safe at best this week, and I personally would’ve placed her in the bottom three instead.

Tessa Testicle once again barely avoids lip syncing, and once again I think this is an incorrect choice on Ru’s part. Her whole set feels like she’s just trying to get through it: every joke is belaboured, every punchline tossed off like Tessa just wants to get away from it. The whole thing is pretty bad. Her runway is better, mostly for how it makes use of the fan, but it’s not better than the queen who ultimately places in the bottom instead of her.

That queen is Pythia, who is, in my book, straight-up robbed this week. She’s not terrific in the roast by any means, but she’s better than she was in the Canada Season 2 Roast of Brooke Lynn Hytes, with more confidence and a couple of genuinely funny lines. The edit goes out of its way to make it seem like she’s performing worse than she is. Ru tells her later that she should’ve done the whole thing as Zeus, her Snatch Game character, and while Pythia does immediately demonstrate that it would’ve been funny, I can’t help but feel that her placement is partially a punishment for not leaning into what Ru likes. Especially considering her breathtaking, ethereal runway look, I can’t really understand or justify her being up for elimination instead of Tessa, or even Alyssa.

The one queen who out-and-out bombs the roast is Vanity Vain, who makes the truly ill-advised decision to sing her entire set. Again, the editing is egregious, with queens’ confessionals immediately cutting in to tell us how bad it is. Here’s the thing: we can hear this is bad. We know this is bad. We don’t need you to yell at us that it’s bad. Her jokes not landing and her singing being off-key is more than enough for us to realize she deserves her bottom two placement.

But I want to also highlight Vanity’s runway, a mess of Christmas garland that is a last-second replacement for an outfit that was damaged in transit to Colombia. I think stuff like this, as well as her last-second new look in the design challenge two weeks ago, is what Ru really responds to about Vanity. There’s a real put-on-a-show spirit in Vanity that feels very drag. It especially comes across in her lip syncs, which has led to a 3–0 record coming into this episode (and a 5–0 if you consider her Sverige lip syncs, too). The results may not always be great, but you can tell Vanity is going to perform come what may. Like Ru, I appreciate this a lot about the Swedish queen.

In the end, Pythia and Vanity face off to Celine Dion’s “I Drove All Night”—last performed in Canada Season 1, when eventual season champion Priyanka sent Kiara home in the season’s best Lip Sync for Your Life. This battle can’t quite match up by comparison, but it is quite good! Vanity rocks it, and Pythia manages a much better performance than we saw from her in any of her three Canada season lip syncs. (Granted, two of those were to RuPaul songs.)

Here’s the thing: I can’t argue that Vanity doesn’t win this. She’s a star, and she lights up the stage when she lip-syncs. I won’t begrudge the ultimate decision, but I think it’s a real bummer that in an episode where Pythia isn’t the worst in the challenge, is one of the best on the runway, and gives a personal best lip sync performance, she’s somehow the one going home. It’s narratively bizarre, and it further deflates my enthusiasm for this season. Which, truly, I did not think was possible!

I’ve so loved seeing Pythia back on Drag Race this season. Because I was so in the tank for Icesis Couture during their season, I feel I didn’t properly appreciate Pythia for her terrific performances and runways. But she’s been my favourite this season, and I’m more a fan of her than ever. I’m really bummed not to see her in the endgame of this season, and I’m left without anyone I feel particularly compelled to root for.

But hey, that’s the thing about a go-with-the-flow approach to watching this season: I can’t get too invested in any outcome. We just have to let the chips fall where they may.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨ With this win, Vanity extends her lip sync record to 6–0, which is one of the best internationally. If you consider the final Lip Sync for the Crown in All Stars 9 a loss for Roxxxy Andrews, then Symone is the only queen who immediately comes to mind who has a better win record with no losses than Vanity. Good company!

✨ A particularly insufferable Kitty segment in this episode is her lording her power to choose the performance order over the other queens. What is it with UK queens and obsessing over the performance order? Remember when Ellie Diamond and Lawrence Chaney had a whole dust-up about it in UK Season 2?

✨ Graham Norton is here this week! He shows up for a little coffee moment with the queens (get it? roast? coffee?), and surveys the group to see who still needs a win. That, of course, is just Nehellenia. Wonder if she’ll pull one out before the season is done; her edit seems to be leaning that way.

✨ The little moment the queens have about online haters is, sorry to say, completely useless. I hate how the show occasionally gestures at the brutal reality these queens have to face when dealing with the fandom, only to try and wave it off with some GuRu-style platitude about paying bitches no mind. (This time, it’s Alyssa who offers that bon mot.) If the show is going to try and talk about this subject, I’d prefer they actually grapple with the reality of it. But I get the sense that Drag Race will never let them go too deep on the subject, since it could risk alienating fans.

✨ Absolutely love the little head shimmy from Pythia as she heads out instead of an exit line. Give them just as much consideration as the season gave you, queen. You’ll be sorely missed.

The next 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.