‘All Stars 6’ Episode 5 Recap: Something shady this week comes
WARNING: If you haven’t seen episode five of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 6, there are major spoilers ahead!
So, I’m not even concerned with what the game is anymore. Can somebody just tell me what’s going on with the judging in All Stars 6? Is it an all around bad sense of judgment, bad taste, bad writing, bad editing… Or a combination of them all? Because, girl, some of these critiques and wins have me questioning whether or not Mama Ru has a bottle of JD stashed underneath the judges’ table that they are all sipping between takes.
I don’t think I’ve agreed with a single decision that’s been made so far. Ok, maybe I agreed with a few of them, but most of these decisions are questionable. And the judges’ critiques seem a little suspect. It almost seems like someone gave them a script and told them what should go down by any means necessary. *side eye*
And if that means giving poorly contrived criticism to a queen who doesn’t necessarily deserve the chop in order to save a queen that should clearly be safe or in the bottom, then so be it. I’m not trying to read the show or the queens too hard, but it’s starting to feel like they’re pushing certain queens through.
But, nevertheless, Yara went home last week (Was her face really that bad?), but not before dropping an F bomb on the whole cast. I mean, is it bad that I kind of see where she’s coming from? Ok, it was very bad sportsmanship, but I honestly don’t think Yara deserved to be in the bottom that many times… and she knows she didn’t. There’s definitely some shade on the panel in All Stars 6!
And to top it off with even more shade, we learn that Jan (who won the challenge last week, but shouldn’t have won the challenge last week) was the only person that voted for A’Keria to go home. Apparently, she was thinking that everyone else would vote for A’Keria, so she voted for A’Keria. I’m not sure if this is the honest truth or not, but hey, as A’Keria said, you gotta pull your big girl panties up because you made your choice.
Now, this week’s maxi challenge was the “Pink Table Talk,” an obvious Drag Race take on Jada Pinkett-Smith’s popular Facebook talk show Red Table Talk. You know, the one where she brought her husband, Will Smith, to the red table to speak about her “entanglement” with young R&B singer August Alsina last year. Well, this week the queens on Drag Race were expected to get a little personal with each other.
The queens were divided into three groups, and each group had a specific candid conversation topic — either sex, motherhood or body image. And then, it happens: Scarlet and Ginger have a little tussle over who is going to be on team motherhood — and Scarlet won. Now, anyone who has ever watched Drag Race before knows what this is foreshadowing: The queen that gets their way in a fight over roles or teams is usually the one that goes home. We’ll come back to that later.
Let’s talk about the teams. Team sex, which consisted of Eureka, A’Keria and Trinity, was undoubtedly the best, in my opinion. They seemed to really work well together, and the conversation just seemed authentic. Trinity gave us some important truths about living with HIV and fighting against stigma (a conversation that continued in Untucked), and we found out that, at one point, A’Keria temporarily lived her life completely as a trans woman before “re-transitioning” to live as a man again, as she described it. Eureka spoke about her issues around chub fetishism and her issues with the term “chubby chasers.” “Bitch, I ain’t running nowhere!” is undoubtedly one of the catch phrases coming out of this season.
The motherhood group was just… Ok. Ra’Jah spoke about some of the problems in her relationship with a religiously conservative mother, while Scarlet gave us an endearing story about her mother coming out and finding love with another woman later in life. Kylie also gave us a bit of her truth, speaking about the tough decisions she’s had to make in life, and how we shouldn’t let the bruised feelings of our inner child make decisions about our adult lives. It was a very good conversation that flowed nicely. It just didn’t seem as authentic has team sex’s conversation.
Now, team body-yoddy-yoddy-yoddy-yoddy… I don’t know what happened, but it just kinda — didn’t really happen. Poor Jan tries, but she can’t really resist attempting to dominate the conversation. I can see that it’s legitimately tough for her not to do it, because no one in her family probably ever made her aware when she was talking too much.
Nevertheless, she spoke about how hard it was to accept that she was no longer a twink, and cut Ginger off a few times, who actually had some really important things to say about her weight and how it related to some medical issues she experienced as a child. Pandora Boxx spoke about her body changing as she’s gotten older, going from twink to dad bod, and confessed her obsession with botox. But honestly, no amount of truth could save this sinking ship.
But… Wait for it. Ginger ended up winning the challenge, despite her team coming out as the worst team of the week. The winning team was team sex, of course. But… the winner was from team body, which didn’t do as great as team sex or motherhood? Maybe Ginger won the week because of the way she successfully worked around Jan’s overtalking? Maybe it was her runway look?
To add even more confusion to it, there was no explanation or critique that made us aware of WHY Ginger won. It was just like, “Team Sex, you were the best team this week. However, Ginger, who was in the bottom team, is the winner!” What the absolute fuck was that?
Anyways, I didn’t really speak about the “Clash of the Patterns” runway looks, which I think Trinity and Ra’Jah absolutely slayed! Trinity’s Afro-futuristic look made my jaw drop, and I lived for Ra’Jah’s African print. Yes, they put their Blackness on full display in this challenge, and I lived for it!
But, let’s talk for a second about how there seemed to be no legitimate reason for Scarlet to be in the bottom. Not only did she do fairly well in the challenge, but her dress, which was also very gorgeous, was literally her grandparents’ actual love letters from the 1940s sewn together to make a gown. But, she landed in the bottom with Jan and Kylie? It literally doesn’t make any sense. Jan, I can accept. She tries, but she has to learn how to reel it in. And Kylie has been just sailing through on “safe” the entire time. And, quite frankly, I find her a little boring sometimes.
Though I like her, I honestly think Pandora Boxx should have taken Scarlet’s place in the bottom. The only thing I can say about this decision is — Scarlet, girl, you cursed yourself by fighting over that spot with Ginger and winning the fight. Everyone knows that the girl who fights for a spot in a challenge and wins is always the next to go home. And guess what? Scarlet went home.
Yes, after a fierce lip sync with “the eyes” herself, Mayhem Miller (we originally thought this week’s lip sync assassin was Bianca Del Rio, but it was a gag), to Lizzo’s “Phone”, Ginger won and decided to send Scarlet home. Not Jan, who cut her off two hundred times during the challenge, but Scarlet, the one who fought with her over a spot at the beginning.
I’m lost. Why did Ginger win the challenge and not Eureka? Why was Scarlet put in the bottom three and not Pandora? Why did Scarlet go home and not Jan? What is it that I’m missing here?
I guess we’ll find out soon. Maybe it all has something to do with Ru’s “game within a game.” I don’t know, but it’s weird and I’m almost ready to stop watching.
While I agree with most of what you said, this statement is simply not true: “Everyone knows that the girl who fights for a spot in a challenge and wins is always the next to go home.“
The first example that comes to mind is Olivia Lux fighting for her mime role on Bossy Rossy After Dark in season 13. Olivia didn’t go home; in fact, she won the challenge.