‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars’ S6E1 Recap: Rudemptions, Across The Board! (Except For Serena)

Let’s get six-ening: All Stars is here, and it’s one of the most interesting casts we’ve had in years. Only S1, 8 and 13 aren’t represented across these thirteen queens (Eureka! is doing some heavy-lifting, representing S9 and 10), meaning we have an eclectic mix of old and new.

If anything unites this cast, it’s probably that next to none of them really classify as fan favourites (Jan excepted), which is a generous way of saying that a lot of these queens are downright disliked or, if they weren’t ‘villains’ in their season, have been forgotten by the larger fanbase.

That’s not ‘shade’. It just means almost all these queens are coming back with a lot to prove — and as their new wardrobes, faces, personalities and presences remind us, these queens are much more than their arc on a reality TV show. Plus, by God, they’re all so excited to be there and reintroduce themselves. It’s a very fun energy, which can’t always be said for All Stars.

I know I also said this about Down Under (oops!), but All Stars 6 has a lot of potential to be an excellent season. With less emphasis on winning the crown and more on winning over the crowd, the show already, two eliminations in, feels less frustrating. Sure we’ll be crying robbed and rigga-morris in no time, but for now, it was a pleasure to see some overlooked queens run with the chance to showcase their best drag — and/or jiggle some titties.

The double-episode premiere was pretty overwhelming, so I’m going to split the recaps up by episode. For those looking for E2’s recap, here it is.

Back Back Back Backpack Again

Thirteen queens is a lot to handle, and while a few naturally fell to the wayside during the first episode, they all got their moments during the entrances.

My personal favourite was Silky’s, a queen I struggled with on S11 if not only because she’s so charismatic that it was difficult to watch her lose confidence and lash out in the end half of the competition. Her entrance is stunning, between the giant beaded ponytail, that irresistibly cute mug and the fact she fucking put a glass of milk in her tits. Of all the queens on the cast, she’s maybe the one who most needs a redemption — somewhat unfairly, though some of her behaviour on S11 was pretty unpleasant — and this look alone shows how much she’s grown.

While AS6 picked its cast from almost every season, Silky is met with three other S11 queens, Ra’Jah, A’Keria and Scarlet. While Ra’Jah definitely falls into the ‘villain’ seeking redemption category, the other two are welcome additions as S11 is often regarded as one of the worst seasons.

Maybe it’s the fact I began recapping Drag Race with S11, but I really love that cast a lot and am glad a few queens are getting their dues. Ra’Jah especially, as I think a snippy attitude overshadowed her amazing talents on S11 — I reckon she could win the whole thing.

Rounding out the more recent Drag Race alumni on All Stars are Jan and Eureka, who has added an exclamation mark to her name just in case you didn’t remember how loud she is. AS6 filmed last year, just after S12 aired: it’s a risky move to head straight back to the races, but hey, it worked for Monét.

Jan’s a real outlier in the cast, in that she’s pretty beloved and competing less to rehabilitate her image and more just to win. Jan is incredibly talented, but as I wrote in the S12 recaps, there was something a little robotic about her drag: it’ll be interesting to see if she can let go of the perfectionism, given she hasn’t had much time off.

Eureka! is a very successful queen with an HBO show, but is remembered for being pretty damn annoying rather than her immense talents. I’m really keen to see what she does on the show especially now (assumedly) she’s less insecure — in these episodes, she’s still loud, but nowhere near as obnoxious or needy for screen-time. I foresee a huge 180 on the public’s perception of her, and think she’s one of the top contenders.

Rounding out the cast are a lot of names who’ve floated around dream All Stars cast lists for years. Ginger, Yara and Pandora have had their second chance before but are justifiably back, given the shitshow of S1 and Ginger going on All Stars a little too early.

We’ve also got two RuGirls who now live their lives publicly as trans women: S2’s Sonique and S4’s Jiggly. Sonique absolutely decimated the Holi-slay spectacular a few years back (despite it not being a competition), and Jiggly is an incredibly charming performer who had a lot of baggage when first competing. Both come back with power, and a Ru-pun on being trans to match.

Of the cast, I was potentially most excited for Trinity K. Bonet, who, like Jiggly, was wrestling with a lot of internal issues during her season. The glow-up here is real, and while she didn’t nail the landing this episode, I still think she’s one to watch.

And then there’s Serena ChaCha, who unfortunately is best remembered for the other S5 queens yelling at her during Untucked to shut the fuck up.

She was 21 when she competed, mighty pretentious and arrogant — she’s a queen whose career was only damaged by appearing on the show, and so she has a lot to prove with her return. It’s pretty heartbreaking to see her go this episode: she was the obvious choice, but I hope this ‘game within a game’ twist offers her some more redemption.

But Wait, There’s A 14th Queen?

Before we get to this week’s maxi, Ru introduces Miss Piggy to lead, via video chat, a reading mini-challenge. (Assumedly the editors cut out the confrontation about fracking.) With thirteen queens to get through, each gets just two reads aired, except for Ginger, the winner.

No one completely bombs, but Serena, Trinity and Silky definitely get some pity laughs. Pandora even heckles Silky, a reminder that All Stars really just is Drag Race fanfiction brought to life — which goes a long way to explaining how it never really makes much sense.

Speaking of, this week’s main challenge is a talent show, a staple since AS2. With just a minute-or-so each, it’s always a rush to watch, but with thirteen queens, this was overwhelming.

A lot of the performances were same-samey, with A’Keria, Jiggly, Sonique, Pandora, Eureka and Serena all lip-syncing and dancing to their own original tracks. Eureka’s involved a projection onto her dress and evoked a lot of Pepsi commercial activism energy, but was apparently a tribute to her late mother, so I will stop this sentence here.

Serena’s, unfortunately, was a bit of a mess — it was a lip-sync about her wig company, and just felt a little sloppy. Why not do something silly with the wigs directly behind you? Just a fundamental misunderstanding of what the show actually wants from the talent quests — which is less ‘talent’ and more vaudevillian gags.

Ginger and Jan, meanwhile, are singers — Jan really went for it, proving her theatre-kid energy can’t be tamed, while Ginger seemingly asked Megan Trainor for a demo-cut of a track. Silky went gospel by singing ‘Little Light Of Mine’ while playing piano: the judges put her in the bottom three, unfairly.

The best performances, as always, were the ones that barely made sense or were completely unexpected. Scarlet blew bubbles; Yara jiggled her titties like crazy; and Ra’Jah, my pick for the week’s win, made a dress in one minute on-stage.

It was a perfect balance of genuine skill with stage-craft, as the count-down and her calm one-liners made the performance incredibly stressful and engaging. That’s how you work a crowd, though Ru gave the win to Yara, who understands that making Ru laugh is the name of the game.

Then there’s Trinity, who makes a high-risk, high-reward choice to do a one-minute stand-up set, based around her breakthrough S6 set. It’s not a great move to revisit a seven-year-old joke, and between that, her nerves and those too-long bangs which are just as bad but in a completely different way to Courtney Cox-Arquette’s wig in Scream 3, Trinity winds up in the bottom.

The queens are almost unanimous in their voting, as next episode we see that the only people who vote for Trinity to go are Serena and Yara, who loses the lip-sync to Bruno Mars’ ‘Uptown Funk’ (???) against Coco Montrese. Lucky for her, Coco is practically unbeatable (though I would’ve loved to see Ra’Jah take her on here), and Serena, absolutely crest-fallen is sent home. Or is she?

I’m not certain what the twist is (I try to avoid spoilers), but I imagine it’s some lip-sync tournament like in All Stars 4, but between the eliminated queens. Time will tell, but I hope Serena gets a good bit more screentime.

I know there’s a lot of All Stars to digest, but I really recommend this week’s Untucked. Sonique and Jiggly talk about the differences in competing as out trans woman, Ginger discusses the amount of hate she got after S7, and we just generally get to learn more about the queens. This is a great cast, and it’s well worth your time to get to know them.

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RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 6 streams on Stan, with episodes arriving each Thursday 8pm AEST. España episodes arrive each Monday at 8am AEST.

Jared Richards is Junkee’s Drag Race recapper, and a freelance writer for The Guardian, NME, The Big Issue and more. Follow him on Twitter @jrdjms.