RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 2 concludes tonight, where we will see if Rolaskatox will once again try to win against our last remaining hope in Katya. This season was absolutely phenomenal up until about two weeks ago, where many of us started catching on as to what was really going on. Now, we are in the same position that we were in for Season 5, and quite frankly, I’m not happy about it.
From the beginning of All Stars 2, the one problem that i essentially had with this particular season is the abundance of girls from Season 5, and a severe lack of ones from Season 6 and none from Season 3 or 1. Whereas I understand that they did the bulk of the all stars from Season 4 and back with the first AS season, there are still plenty of girls from the early years that deserve their own shot at ru-demption and would’ve done great this time around (Ongina, Jessica Wild, Mariah, etc).
In terms of the girls from season 5, they really only needed three out of the bunch for this time around- Alaska, Roxxxy Andrews and Alyssa Edwards. If we are going to do this “Ru-demption” type of thing, each of them had a good reason to be back. Alaska, because she is at a stage in her career where she is finally seen as an individual and not part of a team with Sharon, not to mention many people thinking she was robbed of the crown in S5. Roxxxy for basically being the second biggest villain the show has ever seen, which she even admitted to as she played mind games on Jinkx to get her out of the competition. And finally, Alyssa, who had the unfortunate storyline of the fallout of her relationship with Coco, which was overshadowed by how amazing she was. Each of them proved their ru-demption this time around, whereas Coco’s casting was a bit confusing as she didn’t bring much in her season which was brought to light on both the episodes she was on this time. Love Detox, but it’s the same runaround this time, with someone else getting a big starlight than her as happened in her season.
That being said, you had viable candidates in this season, in particular Tatiana, Phi Phi O’Hara, Ginger Minj and of course Katya. I love Adore Delano but her casting was a bit baffling as she really didn’t need this season. Homegirl’s got two number one albums and is massively adored by millions. There were so many season 6 girls that needed this show to really ru-deem themselves from their season- two big examples being Laganja Estranga and Darienne Lake, but Milk, Gia Gunn and even Kelly Mantle deserve a second shot. I was fine with Ginger and Katya being the only ones from S7. If Trixie Mattel came on board, that would’ve been great, but I knew this season would become “RuPaul’s Best Friend” race eventually based on how each episode went.
I’m not taking anything away from Alaska’s performance this season, she was clearly in it to win it and did a great job in each episode, minus the family challenge. However, I do feel the favoritism was there is a lot. The 2nd lip sync that she won against Katya she shouldn’t have, Katya did much better. The fact that only S5 girls won the lip sync’s all season was ridiculous. I understand why she sent home Tatiana the first time, but the 2nd time around Tatiana shouldn’t have even been an option for the bottom 2. She had the best pant outfit with her homage to T-Boz, and the commercial was delightful. How else was she going to showcase the product, shove it in the camera’s face? Detox’s garbage can thing sucked, and her outfit was fine compared to Tatiana’s. For Alaska to use the excuse of “Roxxxy let me borrow her shirt” is a huge cop out and that was where the Rolaskatox hijacking really started to come to fruition.
Cue this past week’s episode, where Detox won the lip sync and of course saved Roxxxy for a 5th time, and sent a deserving winner in Alyssa home. Alyssa’s story was fantastic throughout, especially with the last episode and the passing of her mother, and she did a great job with her sister in that challenge. Roxxxy was fine, but COME ON. 5 times in the bottom! It is absurd. Roxxxy deliberately said in the first episode- “If you think there is a week where I am booger, send me home”. HELLO! The funny thing is, there shouldn’t be any hate directed towards her, she’s not doing any of this. It is Alaska and Detox who took a great season and brought it back to the miserable ending of Season 5, where we have one person to root for against three girls. Why they would choose to repeat something that was hell for them three years ago is beyond me.
Personally, I am and always have been #teamkatya from the get go. I was that way in her season, but as we have been reminded in the past, the one who usually makes it to 4th or 5th place is the fan favorite and Ru is aware of this, hence why they get cut. (Pandora Boxx, Yara Sofia, Latrice Royale, BenDeLaCreme, etc). Katya has had her slip ups this season, but her only big one was being assigned the character of Princess Diana, where you only can do so much to that character to make it entertaining. Her anxiety that was riddled throughout S7 was pretty much gone this time around, and she consistently brought it in each challenge. Had she won some of the lip sync’s, we would have a much more diverse ending right now. In my opinion, the final four should be Tatiana, Alyssa Edwards, Katya and Alaska. They did the best this season and should be rewarded a spot in the end. But, we are stuck with Rolaskatox the sequel, and are hoping that Katya can really pull it out tonight and win.
It just saddens me that this season of All Stars 2 had such an amazing amount of hope, excitement, hilarity and more only to end with BS.
Brian says
It’s almost like I wrote this myself. I loved Alaska, bought her shirt and album even lol, then seeing her cut Tati- I was mad. I knew instantly that she did it because as she kept saying during her melt down “I need to be in top 3, I need to win” as she was bribing detox… and she couldn’t do that if Tatiana and Alyssa were there because there’d be the chance they’d send her home. The Rolaskatox thing really bothered me, I get you’re all friends outside the show, but to see it all happen again was disheartening. Like mentioned above, I can’t really be mad at Roxxy, he said several times to send him home he knew he had been messing up. But as for Alaska and detox, it left a bad taste in my mouth that’s hard to get over. At least he put Tatiana in his spill the T video, I guess that’s a start.
Nenad says
I agree with everything except the part that Kelly Mantle was suppose to participate (god no) and you article is based on what we saw in drag race where we all know is edited and we dont know for sure that Alaska’s excuse for saving Roxxxy was that T shirt. We all know why Roxxxy was saved so many times. Yes her attitude is changed but nothing new in her drag. Kept repeating her little tricks from season 5
Ryan Shea says
You should watch Kelly Mantle’s “Hey Qween”. She’s hilarious and would’ve been great had she stayed past episode 1.