RECAP: “RuPaul’s Drag Race Global All Stars” Episode 5 (Movie Spoofs)
And this episode, it gets worse. I’m actually not talking about this season. I’m talking about the online discourse around “Global All Stars,” which has become radioactive with this week’s episode. As I write this, “Global All Stars” Episode 5 — “Boobie: The She-Quels” — has a 2.3 rating on IMDB. I believe that may be the lowest-rated episode of ANY “Drag Race” franchise EVER.
That…is nonsense. It is an objectively false reflection of the quality of this episode, and this season. Meanwhile, there are honest-to-god social-media campaigns to boycott the rest of the episodes, and calling on RuPaul to retire. I know Trixie Mattel is on hiatus, but I’m going to hand it to her here:
Like…are you OK? Do you need to talk to someone? Because this level of vitriol…this is crazy. Like truthfully. Log off. Go for a walk. Suck a dick. It’s really not that serious.
Are there problems with “Global All Stars”? Yes. Are the queens for whom English is a second language at a disadvantage? Absolutely, and that was fully on display this episode. Are the queens who RuPaul previously judged getting propped up? There is certainly evidence to suggest it.
BUT. People are missing the bigger picture here. This season has given many of these international queens exposure that they would NEVER have without it. Since the cast was released, Mexico’s Gala Varo has gotten 40K+ new followers on Instagram (more than 25% of her pre-season following). Brasil’s Miranda LeBrao increased her Instagram following by 30%.
And that’s just one metric. Every queen participating on “Global All Stars,” no matter which country they’re coming from, or where they place in the competition, has been given a level of exposure they could never have experienced without this franchise. And even if there are shenanigans going on behind the scenes, or the playing field isn’t level, they’re ALL benefiting from it. Every single one of them. If they feel they weren’t fully appreciated by RuPaul and the panel, they can comfort themselves with the tens of thousands of dollars they will make touring the world during/after this season.
The episode that aired this week was in no way a “2.3-star” episode. It wasn’t even the worst episode so far this season (that would be Episode 3’s ball, which was a sea of “meh”). There have been much worse episodes of “Drag Race,” from numerous franchises, and the only thing this online tantrum is accomplishing is ensuring there will never be another season of “Global All Stars.” Who loses there? Sure, the fans, but mostly the other international queens, who would LOVE a shot of global exposure that these queens are getting, even if they are not all starting a level playing field. It’s true. It’s not the lack of fairness from production/the show that is pushing queens like Etcetera Etcetera from “Down Under” Season 1 to say she would never return at this point. It’s the fan reaction, which has been completely unhinged.
Now that I’m off my soapbox — for the moment — let’s get into this week’s acting challenge. Note that there will be spoilers below, and I STRONGLY encourage you to watch the episode before reading on. Not yet signed up for Paramount+? Click right here:
We started with the de rigeur Reading Challenge, which was…not great. Setting up the dynamic that would define this episode, the ESL queens tried their best to playfully insult their competitors in English. The struggle was real, but honestly, that was true for EVERYONE, including the four native English speakers. Nobody really slayed this challenge — I think the best individual read was Mexico’s Gala Varo’s take on Italy’s Nehellenia playing the victim — but I did feel, based on what we saw, that UK’s Kitty Scott-Claus was the correct overall winner. More on Kitty in a bit.
After that we got to the main challenge for the episode. The queens would act in parodies of big-budget classics Frankenstein, Jurassic Park, and Pirates of the Caribbean, but crossed with Barbie, here featuring massive fake chests and called “Boobie.” High concept, it was not.
It is important to understand that the teams were, at least based on what we saw, drawn at random, with the queens picking differently dressed Barbie dolls out of a covered box. They ended up being:
Germany’s Tessa Testicle, Sweden’s Vanity Vain, Gala Varo, and Philippines’ Eva Le Queen, who as the only team of four, HAD to have the script for “Frankenboobie,” the only script with four characters.
Canada’s Pythia, France’s Soa de Muse, and Nehellenia, who were assigned the Pirates spoof.
Down Under’s Kween Kong, USA’s Alyssa Edwards, and UK’s Kitty Scott-Claus in the Jurassic Park parody.
Much has been made online of the alleged shenanigans that put three out of four native English speakers — and ALL THREE of the queens RuPaul has judged before — on the same team. But the teams really did seem to be chosen at random. Ru assigned the scripts, but in my opinion, the Kween/Alyssa/Kitty team didn’t get the best script — the Pythia/Soa/Nehellenia team did.
Not that any of the scripts were good. Acting challenges on “Drag Race” have notoriously bad scripts, and these were particularly lazy. I enjoyed the Pit Crew “I do ______” moments, but besides that there was very little to work with. Still, I thought several of these queens — including some of the ESL queens — maximized the opportunities of their roles. While the material wasn’t great, I think these queens overall delivered the scripts as best they could. It’s another reason I think that IMDB rating is disrespectful to the queens themselves.
Let’s break down these challenge performances by team, even though the queens were mostly judged individually. I’ll also briefly cover the runways — the theme was simply Brown, the color — which I thought was one of the more overall successful runways of this season.
Team FrankenBoobie: Clearly the worst team. Tessa was solid in her acting debut (she never made it to an acting challenge on “Drag Race Germany”). I thought Vanity was the best of the bunch as the monster — Ru is right, she has a future in voice work. I thought Gala was fine, but the character gave her very little to work with outside of the look. Eva was the worst of the challenge, I don’t know how you debate that. On the runway, Michelle dinged Eva and Vanity’s runways for being too “basic,” which is insane. They both looked terrific, especially Eva. That was a crazy comment from Michelle.
Team Pirates: I think this is where people are specifically taking issue with the judging. Pirates was the best of the shequels — although it wasn’t a complete blow out. Every member of this team did well in the challenge. Pythia was great as the pirate captain, Soa delivered in her role (…another pirate?), and Nehellenia did struggle with some of her lines, but was so effective in her performance that it all worked great. This team also had collectively the strongest runways of the night, all three of them looked sensational, taking inventive but also relevant approaches to the prompt.
Team Jurassic Boobie: All of that said, the Jurassic Park spoof was also good. I’ve seen some people online completely dismiss this team, and I don’t think that’s fair, either. Kitty was genuinely very good as the paleontologist — funny and present. Kong stole the scene in her giant dinosaur Boobie role. Alyssa was without question the weak link of this team. She has always struggled with acting challenges (“Doo Wah”), and while she tried here, as the old scientist she was the worst of this group, and I think the second-worst of the night along with Eva. On the runway, Kween looked wonderful in an outfit that spoke to her Polynesian heritage, Alyssa gave us an expensive-looking Steampunk look, and Kitty gave us a perfectly serviceable garment that has been ripped to shreds by the fandom. Again, more on Kitty later.
At judging, Team Jurassic Boobie was declared the winning team, Kong the individual challenge winner, and then the team was allowed to leave the stage; the remaining queens were all up for elimination. Again, this is where I think people are having their primary issue with the episode. I agree that I would have given the win to Team Pirates, and I would have given the individual win to either Pythia or Soa. But I do think that Kween was the best overall performer this week — she nailed the challenge, she nailed the runway, it was a great week for her. I also don’t think that it was outrageous that Team Jurassic won. I don’t think it was this huge disparity in quality that it’s being made out to be. But I can see how the optics of the Ru Girls all winning (and Kitty’s little dig while leaving the stage — again, more on Kitty later) have just amplified the issues people are having with judging this season.
But let’s play devil’s advocate. Let’s say it was Team Pirates that won, and either Soa or Pythia got the individual challenge win. I would be thrilled for Soa, who struggled the first two challenges this season but who has found her footing in the past two. Pythia already has one challenge win, and it would do absolutely nothing to address the criticism that the English-speaking queens are being favored (I know Pythia is technically ESL, but let’s be honest — she is completely fluent at this point). If Team Jurassic is in the group that’s up for elimination, I think Alyssa ends up in the Bottom 3, possibly Bottom 2 (I think her runway saves her from lipsynching, though). And if it’s a B2 of Alyssa vs. Eva, Eva still goes home. There’s just no question.
Because in reality, we had a Bottom 2 of Eva and Gala, lipsynching to “Take on Me” by A-Ha. Sidebar: I’ve also seen complaints that all of the lipsynchs for “Global All Stars” are in English. That may be true, but so far we have had lipsynchs from a Caribbean artist (Rihanna), a Brazilian artist (Danna), an English artist (Spice Girls), an American (Olivia Rodrigo — who is half Filipino), and now a Norwegian band. All in English? Yes. For the primary audience watching. All American? Not even close.
Here’s the lipsynch:
Eva knew she was in trouble even before the lipsynch started. Lipsynching is not something she specializes in, and Gala is an incredible dancer. And this song is all about dancing — the lyrics are almost secondary. Eva put on a deeply cheap wig, that terrible crown with the velcro she wore for her reveal runway, and obvious cover-up and tried her best for some reveals, but none of them were particularly successful. This was Gala’s lipsynch. That being said, it was another unexciting lipsynch for this franchise, which has thus far only given us one truly great match-up, Alyssa vs. Kong in E1.
And so, Eva was eliminated. I know this has enraged a lot of fans. I love Eva. I love “Drag Race Philippines.” I think Eva’s talent show in E2 is one of the best talent shows I’ve seen on any “Drag Race.” She is a fierce queen, she is a star, and she’s going to have an amazing career after this. DESERVED! But Eva was the worst in this challenge, in a role she explicitly fought for. Eva also hadn’t been pushing through the competition the past several weeks, and I don’t think that can be ascribed to the edit or favoritism for other queens. Her ball looks were middling, her girl-group performance was lucky to be called Safe. For all the wailing and bitching about the judging this season, I truly believe that the last two queens eliminated were 1) the worst in that challenge, and 2) the losers of that lipsych. (Athena is a debatable boot, but that ball was so bad it really could have been anyone except for Pythia, who is the only one who nailed the challenge.)
So, let’s discuss the queens supposedly benefitting from the judging favoritism. Alyssa could have been Bottom 3 this week, but other than that Alyssa has been largely very good to safe. You could make an argument, as Vanity did, that she could have been bottom for girl groups for setting her team up for failure with that choreo — but she herself performed well, as did Tessa, so the failure wasn’t really on her. I think Kween has done very well this competition; the runways are not always consistent but when she hits, she really hits, as she did this week. The High placement last week may be dubious, but she also performed the hell out of that girl-group number.
And then there’s Kitty. Kitty Scott-Claus is, without question, bearing the brunt of the viewer ire this season. If I were Kitty (and Kween, who is also getting her fair share of hate online), I honestly wouldn’t even go on social media until this season is well over. Or I’d have someone run my socials for me. It’s ugly, it really is. Her edit is also not helping at all. Kitty was playfully shady on “UK3,” but this time around she’s coming across much worse. I do think part of it is the editors using her as a narrator, but she’s also giving them the material — they’re just choosing to use it. I’ve seen numerous people opine that Kitty’s parting shot this episode while leaving the stage as a member of the winning team was uncalled for, cruel, and possibly bullying. I think that’s overreacting. It was unnecessary and ungracious, but I don’t think she was deliberately trying to make the other girls feel like shit. I can see how the other queens — particularly in Team Pirates, which probably thought they WON the challenge — might think that way.
But the fandom is blowing it way out of proportion. Anything Kitty does or is part of is “the worst” this season. Anything she says is offensive or hurtful. Anything she wears is hideous (in fairness, she has the weakest overall runway collection of anyone left). It’s really a Kitty Scott-Claus hate train, and I find it all exhausting.
As I find the narrative around this season. If you’re really not enjoying “Global All Stars,” stop watching. Nobody should watch something that doesn’t bring them joy, and nobody should feel obligated to enjoy something even if it is made for them — and this show was made for “Drag Race” fans to enjoy, I believe that. It hasn’t turned out the way I think many/most viewers would like, and I do think there is clear fault on the part of the production team for that. But the review bombing, the brigading of certain queens on social media, the incessant vitriol about the season being posted on Twitter, Reddit, etc. (including people just blatantly spoiling the Final 4, without any consideration for people who do not want to be spoiled) — HOW is that helping this situation? Does it make the person complaining feel better? Is it truly supporting the ESL queens they feel are being mistreated by tearing down the show and the other competitors? It’s all so unpleasant. There are enough things in this world to be genuinely furious about. I’m sorry, I don’t think this is one of them. Not when all of these competitors have, one way or another, benefitted from being a part of this experience.
Next: it’s a design challenge, and Nehellenia is stressing.
What do you think of this season overall? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
Also, if you haven’t watched most of these international seasons, here’s your next homework. If you are very upset by Eva’s early exit, I strongly encourage you to catch up on the currently airing “Drag Race Philippines” Season 3. We are four episodes in, and as of right now, I consider it to be the best “Drag Race” season of 2024. It is chaotic, it is dramatic, it is absolutely stacked with talent and personality. Host Mama Pao is at the top of her game. There are only four episodes released, it’s an easy binge before next week.
