RuPaul's All Stars Drag Race: A Jury of their Queers

March 16, 2018 9:06 AM - Season 3, Episode 8

The finale of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars Season 3 brings the competition to an exciting conclusion.

The queens must write and perform a rap on RuPaul’s new hit single and conquer a one-take choreography performance. But before a winner can be crowned, RuPaul invites the eliminated queens to weigh in.

Recaps and re(ru?)views:

Vulture - RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season-Finale Recap: You’re a Winner, Baby
New, Now, Next - Find Out Who The Eliminated Queens Voted For On The “All Stars” 3 Finale
AV Club - A mediocre season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars ends with a robbery

posted by urbanlenny (25 comments total)

My DVR didn't record the finale- apparently VH1 did a minor edit on the show name and recording devices didn't pick it up. Huge bummer. I am suspicious because you'd think they're be re-airing it, but it's not currently on the schedule at all. Hmmmmmmm.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:09 AM on March 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Wherein I learned I really was #teamshangie. I didn't know that until she wasn't called to be in the final two. Total robbery.

I also think Kennedy totally beat Trixie in the lip sync but that Ru basically ignored the whole thing. Kennedy put on a great performance and Trixie wore the ugliest outfit yet and pulled out chunks of her hair? Okay. I was happy Trixie won over Kennedy but yeesh.
posted by urbanlenny at 9:09 AM on March 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Oh and I was ALSO totally surprised that Thorgy was the only one who chose Shangela to be in the top two after all her cattiness about her elimination. Was she being genuine or did she feel guilty? Probably the former, knowing Thorgy.
posted by urbanlenny at 9:19 AM on March 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

I am so angry about this finale. Shangela not even being in the top two is aggravated highway robbery and I'm just spitting nails about it.

I was all about Ben DeLa Christ until her withdrawal, after which I went full #TeamShangela. Trixie rocked it last week, but as someone who hasn't followed her career outside of Drag Race, I don't think she deserved this win. Top two, sure. Hall of Fame? Please.

Spitting. Nails.
posted by Superplin at 9:42 AM on March 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

What I didn't get about the jury choices is that it seemed that in every possible case Shangela deserved to be top two:

If you're going based off 'who needs this the most', who needs it the least besides Trixie? Iirc she's the most followed AS3 queen across social media and one of the most followed of all seasons, and she has a very popular TV show. Shangela obviously has a great career but she has half Trixie's followers and nothing like a steady TV gig. You could argue BeBe needs it more than her but BeBe did already get a crown. A true 'who needs it most' vote should have gone Kennedy + Shangela.

And obviously the consensus is if you're going off who did the best- both in terms of track record and on the actual final episode- it should've been Shangela and maybe Trixie. If you're doing it based off just indefinable 'star power' it definitely should've been Shangela and Trixie. I'm genuinely puzzled how you get 'Kennedy and Trixie' under any criteria.

There's a now-deleted post by Aja on reddit where she says that she does feel she should've voted for Shangela but also noted that the jury had been off social media and mentally exhausted by the whole race and weren't thinking clearly. In the end it just feels like a very bad call by producers.
posted by perplexion at 9:44 AM on March 16, 2018 [4 favorites]

The jury choice was totally 100% tatianachoices.gif

I have to go check out Shangie merch now and maybe send her a love tweet. I DO follow Trixie outside of Drag Race and knew her work before her season and really like her! But Shangela should have won given the remaining queens.
posted by urbanlenny at 10:11 AM on March 16, 2018

Gar. Bage. Shangela was robbed, 100%. What a stupid decision to leave it in the hands of the eliminated queens. Just a super disappointing result.
posted by merriment at 10:24 AM on March 16, 2018 [5 favorites]

I love Trixie and she is my favorite of the queens who were left, but Shangela totally should have won.
posted by apricot at 11:39 AM on March 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

Wow that was some serious bullshit. I mean, I liked Kennedy fine, by there was no way she was a top 2 contender. Just no. No no no.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 3:22 PM on March 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

So Bebe wasn’t a plant?? Totally verkakte.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:32 PM on March 16, 2018

I didn’t want to watch and I did and Shangela’s tears KILLED ME. Ugh.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:29 PM on March 16, 2018

Worst product of the franchise, bar none. Terrible process, terrible finale; Trixie is great but would she have won against Ben, had she stayed? Would she have won against Shangela, who unquestioningly should have been in the finale? Should she have won against Kennedy? It sucks that her win is so tainted. There will always be an asterisk next to her name, and that's just wrong.

All that aside, Trixie's Kitty Girl look (long-sleeved sparkly bodysuit, big purple mane) gave me such a Katya vibe. I was surprised no one called her on it. I missed Katya, during this season. I bet Trixie did too. The whole first half of the series, she was just struggling in more ways than just the obstacles the show threw at her. She just seemed lost. I'm happy for her, I really am. But damn. What an epic fail of a show.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 7:36 PM on March 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

BenDeLa would likely (and should) have won had she stayed; barring that, Shangie could easily (and should) have won, had she been allowed into the top two. Since neither of those preconditions were met, however, let me also add that given the way things did shake out, Kennedy should absolutely have won.

Yes, Kennedy had fewer individual memorable performances than some of the other queens, but other than BenDeLa, she was--seemingly effortlessly--the most consistently solid performer all season. AND her runway looks were incredible. AND she was the best dancer up there. AND when she delivered a particularly strong performance, it was fucking transcendent. Her take on "Party Girl" for the Bitchelor was my favorite performance* of what was, sadly, a bit of a mediocre season overall (and one of my favorite-ever acting performances in this franchise).

I actually ended up liking Trixie a bit more than I expected to this season (but only just a bit). And I think her lipsync in the finale was fine--good, even. I thought the hair-pulling was actually a really nice touch--but there was nothing else to her performance. I'm like--"That's it? Literally, that's all?" Kennedy took this lipsync, hands down!

*Close runners-up include BenDeLa's Julie Andrews and Shangela's Jenifer Lewis.
posted by duffell at 7:24 AM on March 17, 2018 [3 favorites]

Also, halleLOO are the white boys in that AVClub comment thread bitter and resentful at the reviewer's merest observation of the fact that the one white queen in the Top 4 won.
posted by duffell at 7:45 AM on March 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

I like Kennedy but this isn’t RuPaul’s Generic Lyrical Jazz Routine Race. Trixie won the faceoff fair & square. But Shangela shoulda been in it.
posted by sixswitch at 9:08 AM on March 17, 2018 [3 favorites]

My DVR didn't record the finale- apparently VH1 did a minor edit on the show name and recording devices didn't pick it up. Huge bummer.

We couldn't watch it on Xfinity's online stream, so we watched the Extra Lap Recap (9:34), and then the full lipstick picks (1:40), both of which are official WOW Presents videos.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:38 AM on March 17, 2018

I’m not mad. Given the final 4 in isolation, yes, Shangela should have been in the top two. She totally and undeniably fucked up with how she attempted to play the game though. (Not that she could have known.) Bebe too, with that secrecy and her speeches. (SHE knew but was either too unaware or too confident to do anything about it.) AS3 had a lot of bad producer choices.

They didn’t seem to think that anyone other than Ru’s opinion would matter at this point. When it came down to it, they didn’t consider talent or need or potential— the eliminated queens booted the schemer and the haughty. Even if that’s something of an exaggeration, they picked, on average, the queens they liked more.

Interpretive dance was a unique choice for final LSYL. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it paid off, and I wasn’t surprised that it didn’t. I thought Kennedy was in trouble as soon as I saw she was barefoot.

I really wanted Trixie to have a wig reveal. I like her a lot as a person but her drag persona is just “pretty good” to me.

That after-show with Chad and Alaska... man, no one really holds a candle to Alaska, huh?
posted by supercres at 11:56 AM on March 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

That after-show with Chad and Alaska...

Showed both past all-star queens were equally shocked that Shangela wasn't in the top 2, and didn't think Trixie should be joining them. Seriously, they were both struggling to find complimentary words for her. "She sings well. And she wore black in her finale look, where she also looked like a poodle."
posted by filthy light thief at 8:13 PM on March 17, 2018

The "Bebe is a plant" theory never made much sense to me, but I was surprised there wasn't SOME kind of twist involving her, because man did her critiques ever seem unfairly laudatory.
posted by ITheCosmos at 2:18 PM on March 18, 2018

I laughed out loud that Bebe's portion of the music video featured her sitting at a sewing machine, when she can't sew and there was a whole brouhaha over Aja sewing for her. That cannot have been unintentional.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 5:06 PM on March 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Also no one seemed to catch the reference for Trixie's finale look. She was done up like an exaggerated version of the original Barbie (product of the MATTEL company). Her comments said something like "mint in the box." It had nothing to do with poodles.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 5:10 PM on March 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

No, I got the reference. It was cute, but I am firmly Team Shangie Was Robbed.

I am really disappointed with this season as a whole. It just seemed rushed, and all the twists were forced and did nothing to make the show better. I mean you don't give an eliminated queen a short cut to final four. I mean you know she's just gunna get booted the next episode, at the expense of someone who worked her ass off to get to that point in the competition. I'm disappointed at the increasingly short time given to runways - I've been watching this since S1, I remember how much fun you can have with a runway - I miss the behind the scenes chatter, I miss time in the work room, I really don't feel like we got much of a chance to see how the relationships between the queens developed.

And Trixie, while a delight, is not even close to being Hall of Fame material. Shangie a part of the history of Drag Race - she's appeared in more series than any other queen, and has worked her ass off for it.

Bitter. I'm bitter about this, man. I don't even know if I can be fucked watching the next season of normal Drag Race. Just bitter.
posted by Jilder at 7:51 PM on March 18, 2018 [8 favorites]

Bitter. I'm bitter about this, man. I don't even know if I can be fucked watching the next season of normal Drag Race. Just bitter.

I just want to keep favoriting this statement over and over again. (I'll watch the regular season, but it'll take a LOT to make me stop pouting.)
posted by Superplin at 7:38 PM on March 19, 2018

I like Kennedy but this isn’t RuPaul’s Generic Lyrical Jazz Routine Race. Trixie won the faceoff fair & square. But Shangela shoulda been in it.

I also realised on a rewatch that Kennedy went out there BAREFOOT which I think basically was the end of her, however Trixie performed.
posted by urbanlenny at 1:11 PM on March 20, 2018

I feel like someone wished on a monkey's paw for Trixie to win. I am a big fan and at the start of the season would have been fine with her winning, but damn, not like this. Shangela was robbed. (And who would have thought the one vote she got would have been from Thorgy?! How about that last minute redemption!)
posted by en forme de poire at 10:43 AM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]