Not all the queens earn full credit for graduation on RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars

After playing timid throughout the first part of the season, The Vivienne enters the workroom victorious. Her new-found confidence completely changes her demeanor and hopefully suggests she is feeling more comfortable competing with the rest of the cast. Jinkx is applauded for another win even though she doesn’t have a legendary legend star to show for her efforts. It is noted that no one yet has two stars and, coincidently, that there are still two with no stars. One of those being Raja. Despite her normally calm and centered demeanor, Raja, using a cool-girl analogy, vents about being so close to winning without, actually, winning. A common narrative thread of recent seasons, Raja is the queen who is feeling overlooked and undervalued, which bubbled over on the runway last week when she quasi-questioned RuPaul’s decision.

Monét enters, plunger in hand. After being blocked, the queens remark that she looks “salty,” and she expresses frustration over The Vivienne’s decision. Nudged by Shea and Trinity, Monét feeds in to the false narrative that the plunger possesses some sort of secret advantage in the competition. It’ll be interesting to see how long this continues, considering that now half of the cast is aware that there is no meaning attached to the plunger. In contrast to Monét’s lie, The Vivienne decides to offer unsolicited honesty when she admits that she really wanted to block Jinkx. Both strategic and complimentary, The Vivienne sees an overlap between her and Jinkx’s talents. This may prove to be an unforced error that puts a target on The Vivienne. It also solidifies that many of the queens seem to view Jinkx as the main competition thus far.

The next day, the queens are greeted by a message from RuPaul full of double entendres regarding academics. When RuPaul enters, in a puzzling outfit consisting of a shoulder heavy sleeveless blazer, elbow length black gloves, gold lame harem pants, and knee-high boots, he announces the main challenge. This week the queens must give inspirational graduation commencement speeches. There is one final, somewhat arbitrary, twist when RuPaul announces that the winner this week will get two stars, with one to be given to a queen of their choosing, before M.C. Hammering his way out of the workroom. Two stars are now up for grabs. Perhaps the producers felt like the blocking format was not providing enough drama, and added the anti-thesis of a bonus star to amp up the strategy and competition among the queens. Before those two stars can be awarded, the challenge will test their storytelling and public speaking abilities. The trick is finding the correct balance between humor and heart.

As they get to work, there are a variety of approaches to the challenge. Many are trying to infuse their material with personal elements while blending stand-up comedy, roast-style humor, and some characterization. Yvie wants the judges to laugh with her, cry with her, and give her a star. Raja drifts toward the conceptual, framing her speech around a cult leader type character. Jinkx thinks it’s an ambitious choice that could be a risk. Trinity, on the other hand, simply starts sewing. On the other side of the room, Shea represents all the type-A students who are forced to do group projects. She finds the environment non-conducive to writing with chaotic energy all around her. After being blocked from winning a star this week, Monét is given the advantage of deciding the lineup, and wants to use it to get what she calls a “charity” star. She ultimately decides to start the speeches herself followed by Shea, Trinity, Raja, Jaida, Yvie, and Jinkx, with The Vivienne closing.

Each queen gets the opportunity to workshop their speeches with Carson and guest judge comedienne Nikki Glaser. Monét, a fan of Nikki, is instructed to combine sass with aspiration. Shea’s approach is to play on the idea of enduring popularity and flourishing against the odds. The Vivienne wants to play on her sobriety journey by playing drunk, and is instructed by Nikki to keep the material as concise as possible. Trinity develops a mix between sincerity over a learning disability and the comedy of playing dumb. Abundant with ideas, Jinkx is undulating between two separate stories. Maybe they should let her do both, it worked for Snatch Game. Jaida earns a lot of laughs, and they compliment her comedy of confidence. Yvie is developing the idea of embracing failure and is encouraged to “fuck it up.” An alliterate Raja finds the judges a little skeptical about her cult leader approach and a seeming lack of comedy.

RuPaul enters the runway in a one-shoulder, color-blocked taffeta gown that feels like an ill-conceived knock off of a Christopher John Rogers design. She greets judges Michelle and Carson, along with Nikki Glaser, as guest judge. RuPaul asks Carson what he would say to his younger self, which gives a hint toward the aim of this challenge. This week’s episode is sort of an expansion of the queens addressing photos of their younger selves with more humor.

The commencements commence with Monét. Though she chose to start the show, her performance lacked the confidence needed to start a show. The speech itself was a little muddled, without a strong point of view. The sexual innuendos felt tired and the entire thing lacked inspiration. On the other hand, Shea was full of confidence. Building her speech around the idea of clichés, she managed to interject both humor and heart. Despite the distractions of the workroom, she gave a terrific speech that checked all the boxes. Likewise, Trinity combined comedy and sincerity. However, the overall structure of her speech and her delivery felt like whiplash between the two poles. Raja’s conceptual cult leader character had funny moments but felt more like a surface level stand-up performance. The edit felt overly kind, with loud and lengthy laughs from the judges. Jaida’s speech covered failure to success without any of the work in between. Over reliant on “fuck” and “bitch,” the speech turned out to be quite empty. Yvie started with a committed pratfall that complemented her narrative about embracing failure. The speech was roasty, self-referential, and thematically cohesive. The delivery could use finesse and sharpening, but she probably had one of the most interesting ideas anchoring her performance. Jinkx weaved a story about being hit by a car into an allegory about processing your traumas. The way she managed to create call backs to the car combined humor with sage advice. Closing the show was The Vivienne, who committed to character and comedy. Her drunken character was wonderfully performed but her speech lacked substance. It was full of broad comedy and void of inspiration.

The runway category is “Veiled it!” Ironically, not many of them nailed this one. Monét enters first with an orange veil that she quickly discards. What is left is a gorgeous McQueen-inspired feathered dress with a birdcage head piece. Feathers in the hair complete the look. It’s one of Monét’s best looks, but does the birdcage count as a veil? Shea’s veil look meets the Webster’s definition of a veil. Her chic bee-keeper look with color-blocked pleated silk fabric was elevated further when she revealed she was inspired by her grandmother’s gardening. One veiled look you would not find in the dictionary is Trinity’s. The red bridal look is exquisite, from the ornate train to the over-the-top headpiece. One important thing missing in the middle is an actual veil. There is no veil. The loop that circles her eye is not a veil. Raja’s look does have a veil, but it manages to interfere with the overall look. Inspired by the wordplay between Voile, French for veil, and Vogue. If you didn’t get it, that might be because the veil is blocking the important letters. The construction is a little haphazard, and the body of the look resembles getting tangled in a comforter.

Speaking of, Jaida’s give the same feeling, but the construction makes it sublime. Covered in a veil from head to toe, she is mysterious, alluring, and impactful. The Spanish theme gives the look a point of view, and Jaida continues to make black pop on the runway. Yvie brought color back with a sparkling printed gown. The unconventional veil, made of beads instead of fabric, was dramatic. The only issue was removing the hood to reveal a string of turquoise stones that seemed to be falling apart. Jinkx had one of the more successful looks, cementing her improved style from her original season. The lavender color contrasted wonderfully with her orange hair and the engineering of butterflies lifting the back of the veil was a marvel. The Vivienne closed out the runway with a wonderfully perverse take on bridal. The glittery blue gown covered in tulle bondage straps was punctuated with a transparent veil and ball gag that suggested a plastic bag used for autoerotic asphyxiation.

Judging, again, featured only positive comments. There remains no constructive criticism to help the queens improve their craft. Perhaps this was contractually obligated for the queens to come back. There is no mention of Trinity’s veil look containing no veil. No one pointed out that Raja’s veil made her creative wordplay null and void. During her entire critique, Yvie is wearing a broken face mask and Michelle never addresses it. The lack of constructive criticism is bordering on comical at this point. When only compliments are offered it actually has the inverse effect of devaluing all other compliments. These are adult professionals who can or should be able to hear what worked and did not work with any given performance. Even the queens themselves have shown the ability to offer self-critiques. At the half-way point, it is clear that this is the underlying problem with the concept of an all-winners season.

The top two are Raja and Jinkx. It seems pretty clear that Jaida, Trinity, and Monét are not in the running for the win this week. Yvie had a great message behind her speech but just needed to finesse the delivery. The Vivienne’s performance was great comic characterization, but she kind of missed the point of creating an inspiring message in her quest for broad comedy. Shea felt like the really overlooked potential winner. Raja’s win felt a little bit like a consolation prize for coming in third three weeks in a row.

Jinkx and Raja lip sync to Lizzo’s “Better In Color.” While Jinx should be disqualified for changing into that dirty brown body suit, she gives the more energetic performance. Raja, who changed into a billowy sequin jumpsuit, convey the energy of someone singing along to their favorite song while getting ready for a night out. It seems like $10,000 and a chance to block someone has not proven to be enough to motivate memorable lip syncs. The camera curiously cuts away to Yvie twice, the second time she is fully lip syncing the song. Jinkx, delivering her best lip sync this season thus far, earns the win. While it won’t be until next week that Raja and Jinx reveal who they will give a star to, Jinkx does get to block someone. She stalks the runway and eventually lands on The Vivienne. It’s a block for a block in what is building to be an interesting rivalry between the queens.

Stray Observations:

• Shouldn’t Ross have been at the workshop instead of Carson?
• Why hasn’t Tajín released a Pride month campaign with Jaida Essence Hall?
• Oh, yeah. Nancy Pelosi came on stage and told us to vote. Again.
• The editing was really manipulative this episode to show who is doing the best.
• I hope that Raja and Jinkx give Yvie their “charity” stars and suddenly she’s tied in the lead.
• Lingerie Burqa was an interesting comment.
• Love that in the middle of this Jinkx-Vivienne rivalry The Vivienne came out on the runway looking exactly like Jinkx.
• Shea’s graduation look was amazing. It felt like she accidentally prepared it for a runway category.
• Monét’s afro pick needed a tassel. She also should have shaped her wig into a full graduation cap.