‘Ru Paul’s Drag Race All-Stars 8×07’ Review
Acting challenges on Ru Paul’s Drag Race have a very storied her-story on the show. while there have been some amazing performances on the show there have also have had some truly terrible ones such as the Lady McBitch challenge during season seven! However, I have to say that last week’s improvised whodunnit ‘forensic queens’ was one of my all-time favourites. Following in the footsteps of the Netflix original series Murderville or the highly successful Jury Duty show, the queens of All-Stars eight had to improvise their way through a series of scenes. In a shocking surprise, the two highlights of this challenge were Lala (who claimed her first win of the season this episode) and Jessica Wilde, who both delivered hilarious portrayals of the crooked security guard and snubbed All-Star queen respectively. Before we could even get to the challenge however there were buckets full of drama as both Alexis Michelle and Kahanna threatened to leave the competition after Heidi N Closet had eliminated herself earlier this season. Seeing that the queens were highly strung and tense, Ru Paul made a rare appearance in the werk room to deliver a motivating message to the queens to stay and compete. I think it made total sense when Lala was declared as the winner and because of this she had to battle against the returning lip-sync assassin Jorgeious who in my opinion is the closest thing to an actual lip-sync assassin we have had this entire season! I do have to say that the song chosen very clearly favoured Lala’s style of performance! Lala then revealed she had chosen to eliminate Kahana Montrese who had spent the majority of the episode worried that she was going to go home. After being convinced to stay in the competition by head judge Ru Paul herself, Kahanna was sadly told to sashay away leaving a legacy of one of the most impressive glow-ups from original season to All-Stars we have ever seen!
This week’s episode began with the queens dealing with the fallout of Kahanna leaving and Ru Paul having to get them all in like last week. It was revealed that this week would be another design challenge where the queens are allocated a box inspired by a previous drag race all-star winner and then had to use the materials in said suitcase to create their own signature look. I do have to admit that at first I was a little confused about the criteria of this challenge but essentially the queens had to use the materials inspired by a previous winner to create a winning look that they would wear. As the winner of last week’s episode, Lala was given the advantage of deciding who gets which box and she was fairly civil in the way she decided to distribute the suitcases. Lala discussed how she felt inspired by the iconic Shea Coulee and so it came as no surprise when she gave herself the box inspired by the All-Stars 5 winner! While I thought that the orange gown Lala created was beautifully stoned, I did think that the massive ginger wig she decided to complete the outfit with was totally out of place with the rest of the look! Kandy Muse was given the box inspired by the All-Stars 4 co-winner and queen of the sponges Monet X-change and we were even treated to a sponge reference on the runway. While the look Kandy made was fairly simple I actually really enjoyed the elegant black dress and pink hair combination. I thought that she looked incredibly fierce with her make-up skills being a particular highlight! However, this challenge was absolutely dominated by Jimbo who used their Trixie Matel inspired box to create one of the most unique looks I have ever seen! Before we got to the runway presentation however Jimbo cause controversy as they announced that they would not be wearing any make-up under their face-kini with hawked back to the silky controversy during her fly face-kini outfit! Jimbo’s outfit was drenched in the classic Trixie pink with an incredible ruffled jacket with a wonderful floral undergarment that contrasted beautifully!
It was announced that the winner of this week’s episode was Alexis Michelle, who famously was in the bottom two last week. At the beginning of this episode, we saw Lala (winner of last week) talking to Alexis (who at that point was the surviving queen of the episode) and becoming very emotional saying that she will never forget the Lala did for her. Additionally, Alexis has outright stated that she has a crush on Lala. On top of both of these factors, Kandy and Alexis had some drama last episode when deciding who should play what role. This is why it came as a total shock to everyone when Alexis announced (after beating returning lip-sync assassin and host of drag race France Nicky Doll) that it would be Lala who would be going home this week! I don’t fully understand why Alexis made this decision but if it was up to me I would absolutely have sent Kandy home as in all honesty Lala has been exciting me more this season and has come straight off the back of a win last week!
Overall, I really enjoyed the fact that the season paid homage to previous winners, which added to the Drag Race universe that I really enjoy! The conventional materials in the suitcase ma meant that queens were able to showcase their skills more effectively with no one doing particularly badly. The end of the episode brought with it a very surprising which people online have not stopped talking about since it aired on Friday which is the sign of an iconic bit of TV!
