RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7: Draguation Speeches
Power Rankings with P
Welcome to Power Rankings with P, a newsletter ranking cast members on the reality shows I subject myself to on a weekly basis. What can I say? I love slop.
All Stars All Winners continues to be a talent show filmed with reality television cameras, not a reality competition show. While I love this format for an all winners season, it's definitely more enjoyable when the challenges successfully showcase the winners' talents. The season started strong with Snatch Game and a Ball right out of the gate, but last week's improv challenge and this week's graduation speeches weren't especially great creative outlets for the winners, in my opinion. With a challenge that left me wanting more, and a visceral, shameful appearance from human ghoul N*ncy P*losi, this week was kind of a mixed bag. Here's how I would have judged the girls this week if this was a regular season:
BOTTOM 2
Monét X Change, Trinity the Tuck
Our twinners, Monét X Change and Trinity the Tuck, were easily the bottoms of the week for me. Trinity gets a pass as her shaky speech was her first truly weak performance in the competition, but Monet has had zero impact outside of "strategy" since her performance as Mike Tyson in Snatch Game. Hoping she turns it around in time for the finale, but at this point? I would not be surprised if The Tuck edges her out of the top 4.
SAFE
Shea Couleé, Yvie Oddly, Jaida Essence Hall
Had Shea Couleé stuck with the point of view she opened with, the "I was popular then, and I'm popular now" angle, I think she could have easily breezed her way up to the top this week. She had a concept with tons of great material to be mined from, but, instead, she dropped the perpetually popular character in favor of a real life anecdote about her own unpopularity in school. Which is fine, but the conflicting POV made Shea's speech feel disjointed. My other safe girls, Yvie Oddly and Jaida Essence Hall, both gave speeches with similar messages about overcoming adversity. Between the three queens, Yvie's was my favorite; not only did I find her speech the most moving, but she gave us a pratfall, which earns her extra points. All of our safe girls were perfectly fine and serviceable, but nothing gaggy.
HIGH
Raja, The Vivienne
Stan Raja, stan talent! Raja's draguation speech was quintessentially Raja - kind of weird, a little dark, and totally hilarious. Of the three queens who gave us characters this week, Raja's soothsayer was my favorite. I'm giving her the slight edge over The Vivienne and her drunkard character, simply because I have been salivating over the thought of Raja winning a challenge for weeks now. Still, The Vivienne did great work this week; she successfully pulled off the near impossible task of making drunk humor not only funny, but also engaging. Now that Viv is in her UK Series 1 groove, she may be unstoppable. Like my winner this week, both Raja and The Vivienne's performances were graduation speeches with a drag queen twist - something I felt lacking from the safe and bottom girls' performances.
WINNER
Jinkx Monsoon
Rather than giving a cliché, nondescript, faux-inspirational speech, Jinkx Monsoon used this week's challenge as an opportunity to prove what an incredibly gifted storyteller she is. Jinkx gave us a real life anecdote, something we saw a lot of this week, but managed to make it a joke with a killer punchline. She was HIT BY A CAR. What else is there to say? She's Jinkx Monsoon! With three challenge wins, two lip-sync victories, and two Legendary Legend Stars under her wig, Jinkx is performing on another level compared to the other winners; everyone else is playing for second. Thanks for reading! :)