RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 4 has been much better than AS3 but not as good as AS2. Essentially it’s in the middle of the All Stars seasons thus far, as AS1 was terribly pathetic compared to the other three and doesn’t even deserve any sort of ranking because of it.
Last week’s episode of AS4 saw no queens go home after four of them ended up in the bottom. RuPaul declared at the time that All Stars rules were temporarily suspended. When they returned to the werk room shortly after, the girls were confronted by the eliminated queens (Latrice Royale, Jasmine Masters, Gia Gunn,Farrah Moan) who were all dressed in their best funeral realness in relation to the Lady Bunny eulogy/roast that happened minutes earlier.
The girls then embraced one another after the dramatic stare-off. Emotions then ran high as the eliminated queens confronted the girls that sent them packing. It was also revealed that Manila Luzon and Monet X Change, who placed in the top of the Lady Bunny roast, would’ve given Valentina the axe.
It makes me wonder if the “suspended” shenanigans would’ve happened if either Manila or Monet pulled the lipstick of any other queen that was in the bottom alongside Valentina (Trinity the Tuck, Monique Heart, Naomi Smalls). Is the show playing favoritism because of the drama that Valentina brings? It’s something that we will never know.
The basis around this week’s episode is one that any queen on the show has to be good at in order to continue (unless you pull a Bianca, Courtney or Violet and never end up in the bottom two). It is the art of lip syncing, where each of the eliminated queens will choose a current queen to battle against in order to take their spot and remove them from the competition. OUCH!
Manila and Monet are the only ones exempt from this due to them being in the top two of last week, which would be a huge sigh of relief for anyone in this competition. That leaves Latrice, Gia, Farrah and Jasmine to take on Monique, Trinity, Valentina and Naomi for their spots. This is a format that hasn’t been done in past seasons regarding queens getting back into the competition, so emotions are on a higher level as each of the eight have to perform their hearts out in order to stay… or get replaced.
Werk room issues really only arise when Gia keeps trying to get Trinity to admit that she’s nervous… which the latter refuses to do. Monique is also panicking over going against Latrice as she was the one to eliminate her even though she felt justified in doing so.
All of the fashions on the runway this week were pretty much on point when it came to this lip sync battle royale… minus Manila’s pasta-inspired look that she probably wouldn’t have worn if she had to partake in these kinds of festivities (still fierce though).
The four battles were to four of Ru’s lip sync songs. The pit crew came out initially with four different suitcases which were chosen by either an eliminated or a current queen. The faceoffs went in order of first eliminated to last… so Jasmine, then Farrah, then Gia, then Latrice.
Jasmine decided to go up against Trinity, who was so ready for battle that she kept a cape on over what would eventually become her RuVeal outfit of sorts. Trinity has never failed in the world of lip syncing (minus her finale performance against Peppermint), and she easily succeeds against Jasmine this time around. Ru’s “Peanut Butter” played perfectly with Trinity’s ASSets and she crushes Jasmine in the process, the latter of which could barely remember many of the lines to the song.
Then came Farrah vs. Valentina. Val was the one to send Farrah home, so this could’ve been redemption or egg on your face… the sequel. Farrah put up a good fight as best as she could but Val easily outperformed her and stayed in the competition.
Gia chose Naomi, which I was excited to see only because Naomi had yet to lip sync this season. Gia’s was cute but Naomi exploded all over the runway with her contortion-like abilities that she was able to do with her body throughout the performance. Arguably one of the best lip syncs ever.
This led to the inevitable battle between Latrice and Monique, where they lip synced to “Sissy That Walk” from the best damn season of Drag Race ever: season 6 (fight me). Their game faces were on, with both stomping for the gods on the runway while delivering an even-keeled fight. Ru tells Latrice she won the lip sync, which caused the season 4 superstar to erupt in emotions. Just when you think Monique was going home, Ru decides to save her. Yay.
We are still at seven freaking queens all this time later! It makes you wonder if a double elimination is coming up or are they just gonna keep this show going for several weeks on end. Next week the queens have to create their own party theme in groups of either two or three. Interesting.
One thing is for sure… the season 11 RuPaul’s Drag Race queens will be revealed this coming Thursday! Will a premiere date be included as well?
This post was created by one of our Contributing Writers and does not reflect the opinion of Instinct Magazine or the other Contributing Writers when it comes to this subject.