![]() ![]() I am going to say something perhaps controversial: I am bored of “Raven robbed” jokes. Credit: Courtesy World of WonderĪfter they all enter, Season 2 and All Stars 1 runner-up Raven walks in wearing a comically oversized hat and pretends to be a secret ninth competitor. Jinkx Monsoon forgets her entrance line as she returns to compete for the first time since Season 5. Jinkx in particular seems most set up to benefit from the top two format, considering how often in Season 5 she was second place in various challenges. It’s a gag to see them both back, not just because the last time we saw them was a decade-plus ago, but because they’re both so good at Drag Race. Then we get to a couple of returning legends from the Logo era of the show: Jinkx Monsoon, winner of Season 5, and Raja, champion of Season 3. Their herstory-making joint win is already a big storyline, as you can tell both see this as a way to break the tie. ![]() Next in are the co-winners of All Stars 4, Monét X Change and Trinity the Tuck. That’s true across the board-you can tell these are winners who have reaped the financial benefits of doing so-but it’s especially notable with Yvie, as she’s channelled her very distinct aesthetic into more impressive looks. Also here is Yvie Oddly, the body-contorting champion of Season 11 who has seemingly really stepped up her fashion game. She’s here for a real crowning, and considering she beat some legendary queens in Season 12, she’s used to a fight. She’s joined by her crowned-in-summer-2020 sister Jaida Essence Hall, who is here to remind us that she’s a) stunning, b) absolutely hilarious and c) is the only queen to ever be crowned over Zoom. Sure, her All Stars 5 competition may not have been the stiffest, but Shea proved herself a star nonetheless. She has six maxi-challenge wins under her belt from across two seasons, and has excelled in many of the show’s signature challenges: a Ball, Snatch Game, the Rusical and so on. Clad in a radiant orange look, Shea is über-confident, and for good reason. Our eight returning champions enter the workroom in reverse chronological order of their crowning (with one exception), starting with All Stars 5 champion Shea Couleé. Jaida Essence Hall, winner of Season 12, kikis with her sister and competitor, Shea Couleé. We’ll have a recap of the Snatch Game installment later, but first, we have to dig into what must be one of the most fun, engaging premieres in Drag Race herstory: an episode simply titled “Legends.” It’s the best of both worlds, and it pays off to spectacular effect in the first two episodes. ![]() It’s such a clever invention, both because it makes coming back safer for the queens (no risk of being the first-out winner), and because it means we get to see all of these superstars participate in all the various Drag Race challenges. Then, they will compete in a Lip Sync for Your Legacy for $10,000, and the power to block one of their fellow queens from getting a point the following week. (Technically a “legendary legend star” system, but Ru says that phrase so much in the season’s first two episodes that I’m going to give us all a rest from it.) Each week, the top two “legends,” as the show repeatedly and deservedly calls them, will win a point and a corresponding pin. Plus, who would want to come back just to get eliminated again?Īs we see in this premiere episode, Drag Race has put together one hell of a format change to make this happen: no eliminations, and just a point system. But Drag Race has the unique challenge of bringing together queens who are booked and busy. True, that two years prior, Survivor had aired its “Winners at War” season, and Project Runway did an All Stars season that brought back only former victors from across the globe. Even then, it felt like the whole thing could be a fan theory run amok. Dreams dashed.īut then last summer, rumours bubbled up from the Drag Race Reddit world: an all-winners season was filming. But really, would they ever actually do it? And when Bob the Drag Queen spent most of the Pit Stop during All Stars 5 asking other winners if they were up for another go, it felt the closest it had ever been to becoming a reality … only for Bob to later emphatically say the season would never happen. It had already been a fan dream for years before Ru and Michelle Visage openly discussed the possibility on an episode of their podcast years ago. Even having now watched the first two episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7-or, as Ru repeatedly refers to it, “ All Stars All Winners”-I still can’t quite believe the season is real. ![]()
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