RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars S3E5 review: Pop Art Ball

The queens have to prove that they know their brands and have a ball, Studio 54 style. Some of the standouts falter this week, so who ends up on top?

With Chi Chi finally going home on this week’s RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, after being in the bottom not once, not twice, but four times, it’s anybody’s game. We all love Chi Chi dearly, but girl … it was TIME! And the rest of these queens are here to win! The elusive mini challenges — which Ru seems to pull out only when he feels like it — are back on this episode. The remaining queens have to slay an Andy Warhol-inspired Polaroid portrait. The mini challenges really make things a lot more fun, and after the train wreck that was last week’s episode, it was much needed.

For this week’s maxi challenge, the queens are transported back to the days of Studio 54. They have to create their own soup can (get it? Andy Warhol? soup cans?) that represents their brand, and also sew their own outfits inspired by the legendary nightclub. Obviously some of the queens know their brand better than others.

Bless Bebe — we know she’s a talented, seasoned queen, but when she starts talking about naming her soup “Achoo” because she’s “spicy” and “hot”, we have some questions (and thankfully Shangela said what we were all thinking). That idea fortunately was scrapped before the runway.

Aja was on a high after winning the mini challenge, but she flopped on the main stage. Her soup can idea was cute, but like the judges pointed out, it just wasn’t her. When you think Aja, you don’t think sugary sweet candy. You think attitude, you think fierce, you think jumping off a podium into a split, mama!

Not surprisingly, Trixie knew her brand inside out. Trixie is smart, and she knows how to sell a product. She didn’t get her own TV show by accident. Her soup can, “Pep Abysmal,” is the perfect mix of bubblegum pink goodness and dark humor, just like Trixie. Hopefully last week’s close call was Trixie’s “wake up Pearl!” moment because we cannot handle Trixie going home. Not again!

Even after nine seasons of Drag Race and three seasons of All Stars, some of these queens still can’t sew! These drag queens have been in this position before, they know what they have to do, and yet they go back into the same competition all over again, still not knowing how to sew.

Some queens, like BenDeLaCreme, make it work for them. She can take some fabric and a hot glue gun, and boom, she has an outfit.  Was this week’s look a showstopper? No, but it wasn’t the worst either.

But Shangela? She was eliminated on two separate seasons, and she’s still making the same mistakes. Trixie even offered her a helping hand — maybe it is RuPaul’s Best Friend Race after all! She did try, though, and in true Shangela fashion, she managed to make it into a joke, and keep us laughing with her instead of at her. Unfortunately, laughs don’t always keep you safe, so it’s no surprise that she was in the bottom two.

Now that we’re getting down to the nitty gritty, it’s really hard to spot any clear bottom two this episode. Both Aja and Shangela struggled — Aja with her branding and runway look, and Shangela for the aforementioned lack of sewing skills. Even though they’ve both been so strong this season, All Stars can be brutal. One little slip up, and you could be next.

In a shocking turn of events, BenDeLaCreme was not in the top two this week. Trixie turned it out with a Juicy Couture-gone-disco look, and finally landed herself a win. Yaaaaaas! And Bebe, despite not being able to sew (I mean, she won a whole season not knowing how to sew, so no big surprise) made it work enough to land in the top spot, as well.

The lip sync to “The Boss” by none other than Diana Ross wasn’t anything super memorable, but these queens killed it! Trixie give it her best and rolled around on that stage, but honey, let’s be honest: Bebe is meant for a disco lip sync. For starters, she had the big Diana Ross hair and she knows how to use it. And that Honey Mahogany caftan was meant to be thrown around to a disco beat.

It’s disappointing to see Aja go home, but this week, she was definitely struggled the most. Who knows? Maybe she’ll be the queen to return. After surprising each eliminated queen with the news that they might be able to come back, the Handmaid’s Tale gag has reached its peak: one of the queens is making a comeback on the next episode.

Who will it be? Will Morgan finally get her chance to show fans what she’s got? Will Thorgy be back to talk about Bob a little more? Or maybe Chi Chi will weasel her way back in just to be in the bottom for a fifth time.

Random Ruflections

• BenDeLaCreme on Shangela’s lack of sewing skills: “Does anybody have a lampshade that Shangie could borrow?”
• Trixie delivering her usual A+ dad jokes: “One of us is going to get canned… soup can.”
• BenDeLaCreme seriously needs to get over how “hard” it is to eliminate one of the other queens. We get it, you’ve won a lot.
• RuPaul: “Children of the corn chowder!”
• Ross Mathews making the most obvious joke of the night: “I can’t even see her disco balls!”
• I had my doubts, but Shay Mitchell seems like the only straight, young starlet guest judge who may actually not be completely clueless: “You looked fish!”
• Shangela seriously needs to cool it with her Game of Thrones references on every single episode. Did she binge watch it while filming or something?
• Trixie: “On season 7, I lost a lip sync to Pearl. Do you know what it’s like to lose a lip sync to a partially sedated twink from Brooklyn?”
• I always love seeing Chad and Alaska. That is all.

Next: 5 things to watch on Netflix before March

Next week’s maxi challenge has the queens making a girl group, and the guest judge is Emma Bunton a.k.a BABY SPICE, and I am not okay! If they lip sync to a Spice Girls song, you will find me dead.