‘Ru Paul’s Drag Race All-Stars 8×04’ Review
There are many challenges that without a doubt occur at some point in any season of Drag Race. Whether that be a songwriting challenge, the snatch game or (most importantly for the most recent episode) a design challenge where the queens have to create unique outfits in the werk-room. One of the biggest storylines going into this season was that infamous bag dress created by Lala Ri in her original season and how she would cope with a design challenge when she was invited back for All-Stars eight. She showcased incredible growth with her handmade outfit this time but the best dresses award was reserved for Jessica Wilde who also won the preceding lip-sync to gain a $30,000 cash tip in the process! My favourite outfit from this episode would have to be Jessica’s diary queen outfit which was a gorgeous white gown with cascading fruit loops scattered around the dress! I think the eventual departè Mrs Kasha Davis knew it was her time to leave the completion as she, Almost randomly, burst into a gratitude speech on the runway and suggested that she wanted to go home to her husband. All these factors combined with the messy birthday cake-inspired dress she had created meant that it was fairly obvious who the queens should and did vote for to go home!
Fans of Ru Paul’s Drag Race will remember the iconic challenge on season nine where the queens were grouped together to create original TV shows and produce an advert for said show. This was the episode that saw the creation of the car-crash pairing of Valentina and Nina Bo’nina Brown produce an unscripted trailer of Nina and Tina which led to these queens being at the bottom and eventually the iconic “I’d like to keep it on” moment. What is particularly interesting about this season harking back to this previously done challenge is not Alexis Michele (current competitor on All-Stars eight) also appeared this season alongside Peppermint and Trinity ‘the tuck’ Taylor in the wonderfully eccentric Sister Mary Kuntz. However, the All-Stars eight versions of this challenge saw the added twist of making the queens use Canva to create an original al poster for the show. While I thought this was a very clever piece of product placement, I did find it somewhat strange that we only got to see Kahana Montres’ group sitting at a computer creating a poster.
As previously discussed, the queens completed this challenge in groups which were decided via a random selection with involved the queens popping balloons with the (at times sexual) support of the pit crew. The wonderfully wacky trio of Kandy Muse, Jimbo and Jessica Wilde discovered that they would be working together for this challenge where they decided to create a show that told the story of an unhinged girl (played wonderfully by Jimbo) being bullied by two popular girls. It was inevitable that in a challenge that relied heavily on creativity that a group of competing artists would fight at some point and this is exactly what we saw as Kandy and Jimbo were constantly arguing while brainstorming ideas for their show. As this trio were the first to film it was up to them to set the standard for the challenge but instead we witnessed a series of mature scenes being depicted including Jessica’s character douching, sexual acts with the pit crew and a scattering of strong language throughout. We visibly see Michelle being somewhat resistant to the more lewd moments while filming which is never a good thing to see never mind if you were a person in that group! I have to say that Jimbo did an incredible job as the bully victim turned mass murderer as she was so wonderfully over the top and wild which is something that Jimbo can perform excellently! Even though this character does turn to a life of crime, Jimbo did manage to create a strange sense of sympathy for the character as she is picked out throughout the show. I do however have to say that Jessica Wilde clearly struggled in this challenge as she was at times hard to understand and was overshadowed by both Jimbo and Kandy throughout the challenge!
The next trio were the aforementioned Lala Ri, Kahana and Heidi N Closet who created a show called ‘Run Queen Run’ which told the story of a gorgeous drag queen (played by Kahana) who is unsuccessfully being followed by a couple of bumbling criminals. The pairing of Lala and Heidi must have decided to throw absolutely everything into this performance as the two minions as they looked and sounded absolutely crazy throughout the trailer. This contrasted Kahana’s subtle and classically glamorous queen wonderfully which made for a very entertaining trailer. In all honesty, this was my favourite trailer and would actually watch a show like this starring these three queens! Finally, we have Jaymes Mansfield, Alexis and Darienne Lake who created a show about an island where celebrities go to fake their deaths. While this sounds like a wonderfully over-the-top concept, this is very hard to portray with the limited resources the queens had available to them. Throughout the course of this advert two of the three queens had to bust out dead celebrity impressions which is where Jaymes’ was able to bust out the wonderfully hilarious Marilyn Monroe impersonation! I understand that the concept of the show was that it was supposedly a dead celebrity island but I thought this could have been a wonderful opportunity for Alexis Michelle to bust out her iconic Liza Minnelli impression as it would have added to the skit while paying further homage to her original season! Many people seemed to really enjoy Darienne’s easily confused character who delivered a series of bemused jokes however I thought it didn’t really fit in with the other performances in this challenge.
The runway theme this week was “ass the world turns” which instantly made me think of doing a donkey-inspired look. The majority of queens used this category to showcase their asses, one queen clearly had the same idea as me as she wore an animal-inspired get-up. Heidi-N-Closet went for a stripper/donkey hybrid look with wonderfully floppy ears but to me, this simply looked like a fancy dress costume you could get in any store which is not the standard you expect on the runway of the world’s biggest drag competition. I thought that Alexis Michelle looked absolutely stunning in her bridal dress and as she turned she revealed a concise tally placed cutout which showcased her buttocks. I thought that her voiceover line of “What’s a wedding without a bit of cake” was so wonderfully clever and witty which really helped to sell the look for me! While the ass element was somewhat predictable, I thought the presentation of the look was wonderful and Alexis looked gorgeous! I have to admit that the anime-inspired sex doll look that Kandy decided to wear this week was one of the best looks I have ever seen her in! The outfit comprised of inflatable ponytails, massive breasts and jiggly cheeks was so over-the-top but I do have to say that the actual butt of the look did look somewhat out of place! There is no doubt that every week Kahana will look absolutely stunning on the runway every week but I do think that she did somewhat miss the point of the challenge. The doctor-inspired outfit looked amazing complete with a massive injection that made sense with her ongoing storyline of the amount of plastic surgery she has had, I thought that the focus of the look was not “ass” as was asked by the runway category!
Before we could get to the announcement of the tops and bottoms of this episode, we see Alexis Michelle blaming every but herself for her team’s poor performance in the challenge. She openly told the judges that the celebrity island concept was not her first choice and instead, it was Darienne’s fault. While this was factually correct, there were numerous occasions where either Alexis could have expressed her discomfort with the concept or used her years of acting experience to alter the challenge to make it more entertaining to watch. This season we are beginning to see another side of the Alexis Michele persona who is very opportunist and willing to put everyone else down for her own advantage. It was announced that Jimbo was the winner of this episode which should have been between Heidi and Lala but as there can only be one winner in each episode this made sense. It was also revealed that the returning lip-sync assassin this week was none other than the original Miss Mandarin and season one Queen Shannel. I have to admit I was somewhat disappointed by this lip-sync as it was fairly repetitive with Shannel constantly twirling and Jimbo head-banging throughout. It was announced that Shannel was the winner of the performance and so the group voted to decide who in the get-off-island group goes home. It is worth noting that Jimbo has lost every lip-sync she has ever competed in which is not a streak you would want to maintain on the show! However, it was Darienne, who was told to sashay away, who did seem to get a lot of flack for going up with the concept of the show despite it clearly being a team effort!
Overall, in my opinion, this challenge was not as iconic as its predecessor on season nine but there were some entertaining performances scattered throughout the adverts. I personally would be most likely to watch the trailer from Heidi, Lala and Kahana but I do enjoy that sort of silly/slapstick comedy they were trying to convey.
