“RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” continued its 9th season on Friday, June 7 with the fifth episode featuring returning queens from seasons past. Making their way back into the Werk Room for the second time are Angeria Paris VanMichaels (season 14), Gottmik (season 13), Jorgeous (season 14), Nina West (season 11), and Plastique Tiara (season 11). Three queens are returning for the third time: Roxxxy Andrews (season 5 and All Stars 2), Shannel (season 1 and All Stars 1), and Vanessa Vanjie Mateo (seasons 10 and 11).
In addition to their chance at the coveted crown, this season the queens are competing to have a $200,000 contribution, provided by The Palette Fund, to a charity of their choice. Series judges RuPaul Charles and Michelle Visage will be joined on the dais by friends and series regulars Carson Kressley, Ts Madison, and Ross Mathews as well as a rotating cast of guest judges to help determine episodic winners and their choice for “next drag superstar.”
In episode 4, Ru fired up the makeover challenge by bringing in four firemen and asking the queens to pair up and build girl group trios with their new drag sister. Vanjie and Roxxxy earned their first wins together and doubled their Beautiful Benefactress Badge totals after each receiving one as a gift from Gottmik and Nina earlier in the episode. After tying in the lip sync, they agreed to block Angeria from the ability to earn a badge in the next challenge.
In the race to be one of the three queens with the most badges by the end of the season, Vanjie and Roxxxy are now at the top of the pack alongside Gottmik with two each. Nina, Plastique, Angeria and Jorgeous all have one and Shannel has none.
Now, check out our recap of episode 5, titled “Property Queens,” featuring guest judge Alec Mapa below:
In the tie win with Roxxxy, Vanjie earned her first ever maxi challenge win in three seasons of being on the show. Her joy was cut short by the return of Angeria to the Werk Room looking for answers as to why she received the Ruby Snippers for the second time already. She told Roxxxy and Vanjie that “this one stings” and said that “it doesn’t even feel fair to me” after they gave their explanations. Roxxxy said it was payback for blocking her and Vanjie admitted that it was easy for her to cop out using Roxxxy’s reason rather than go for someone else. Then, with tensions already high, Shannel addressed Gottmik’s assertion that she was in an alliance with Angeria and Nina because they all three denied it. Gottmik, Roxxxy and Vanjie had to explain that they were privately talking about the possibility of alliances and named the other three as the likeliest.
The next day Ru arrived to give the girls a chance to “blow off a little steam” in a mini challenge with the Teletubbies. For this, the queens had to dance in a soul train line with the Teletubbies as partners. Gottmik, Vanjie and Angeria were the most interactive with the guests, but ultimately Ru favored Gottmik for the mini challenge win and a $2500 donation to her charity.
For the maxi challenge, this week the queens had to put their talents to use by selling real estate in commercials for “unique properties.” Ru wanted the queens to work in pairs for this challenge and because she’s been cut off twice already, she gave Angeria the role of assigning the pairs. Angeria paired herself with Vanjie and then coupled Jorgeous and Gottmik, Shannel and Nina, and Roxxxy and Plastique.
The four properties that the pairs got to choose from were the icy Arctic circle to Gottmik and Jorgeous, an old west town to Plastique and Roxxxy, a gator-friendly location in Florida to Vanjie and Angeria, and the witchy city of Salem to Nina and Shannel. During brainstorming sessions, Jorgeous and Gottmik realized it was easy for both of them to lose focus, Nina found herself writing their script alone while Shannel was thinking about their costumes, Vanjie was excited to “act a fool” with Angeria using their first-hand knowledge of living in the South, and Roxxxy and Plastique knew that they were stepping outside of their comfort zones in a comedy challenge.
On set to advise and direct the queens through their commercials were Carson and guest Tracy Tutor from “Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles.” They thought Shannel was bringing “fantastic” energy, but Nina was concerned that they hadn’t gone over their script enough. There was a dueling set of hillbillies between Angeria and Vanjie against Roxxxy and Plastique, but both had antics that had Tracy laughing. Jorgeous and Gottmik struggled the most because it became clear that they hadn’t decided who was saying which lines and so they needed many takes in order to organize their vision.
On runway day, the battle of the hillbillies went in a new direction once Vanjie heard Roxxxy saying that the accents they used in their commercial was not true to her vision of Florida. As a Floridian as well, Vanjie took issue that Roxxxy was trying to throw shade at another group for no reason. Gottmik advised Vanjie to “just let them” whisper because it doesn’t matter. At this point, Gottmik and Vanjie knew they were both targets because they have two badges, but Roxxxy insisted to Vanjie that she wasn’t trying to cut anyone down and she was just sharing an opinion.
On the Main Stage, the queens walked in the “Day to Night Ruveal” category and then the commercials were screened and based on the combined presentations, the judges’ offered critiques. Carson thought that Nina and Shannel had “delicious” writing and embraced the real estate aspect of the challenge. Michelle appreciated that once again Nina brought a theme to the runway. Alec was surprised that Roxxxy and Plastique were such a great comedy together and Michelle was “blown away” by Plastique having fun and being okay with looking ugly for once. Alec told Gottmik and Jorgeous that despite their confidence, their skit didn’t go anywhere and Michelle said that they just weren’t as ridiculous as the other pairs. Jorgeous got emotional on the runway because she felt like she was letting the judges down and it embarrasses her that she isn’t doing better in the challenges. Michelle thought Angeria and Vanjie leaned in on being stupid and Alec liked Angeria’s warmness.
After further deliberation among the judges, Ru declared that the top two all stars of the week were the pair of Roxxxy and Plastique. With their new Beautiful Benefactress Badges, the two faced off in a lip sync to “Super Freaky Girl” by Nicki Minaj. Both girls wore long, fine wigs that they used in all of their hairography glory with emphasis on body-ody-ody in their movement for what was a fairly evenly matched battle. Unlike last week, Ru named a single winner this time in Roxxxy. As the winner, Roxxxy earned a $10,000 donation to her charity Miracle of Love and the right to cut off another queen with the Ruby Snippers. This time the decision was much harder for Roxxxy to make because she didn’t have the “eye for an eye” excuse. She attempted to shield herself from seeing where everyone was standing so that she could make a blind decision, but when she randomly stopped on Angeria everyone was gagged. Roxxxy refused to cut off Angeria again so she was forced to make a clear conscious decision to cut off Gottmik. Roxxxy immediately started crying, drawing all the attention to herself while Gottmik somehow had to comfort her despite being the one herself that was targeted with the block.
NEXT TIME: The girls confront Roxxxy about her antics on the Main Stage and then they have to roast each other for the shady comedy challenge.
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