This week on the 6th season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars,” the nine remaining queens produced and hosted their own daytime talk show segments centered on the most pressing women’s issues: sex, body and motherhood. The group challenge was a test in authenticity, relatability and the ability to be vulnerable within their drag queen personas. As standard for this season, the challenge results in one top performing queen and a set of bottom queens for the week. The top queen lip syncs against a secret assassin for the chance to choose which of the bottom gals should be eliminated. If the assassin wins, a group vote determines a consensus choice to leave instead.
In episode 1, Yara Sofia went head-to-head against Coco Montrese, but lost, and the safe queens’ choice for elimination, Serena, was sent home. In episode 2, Queen of the North and Canada’s Drag Race judge Brooke Lynn Hytes tied with challenge winner Ra’Jah O’Hara in the lip sync, and both held the lipsticks that signaled Jiggly’s elimination. Then at the end of episode 3, Laganja Estranja shablammed her way to a win over Trinity K. Bonet and pulled the group choice lipstick to eliminate Silky Nutmeg Ganache. Jessica Wild returned to the show in episode 4 to battle Jan, defeating her to a Britney classic and sending Yara home based on the safe queen vote.
Below, check out our minute-by-minute recap of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” season 6 episode 5 to find out who scores the touchdown and which queen fumbles in “Pink Table Talk”‘ All Stars 6 is airing this summer on Paramount+ with new episodes added to the streaming service every Thursday at 3 am ET.
02 min – A’Keria, returning from the bottom for the second time, was more determined than ever to turn around the course of the season. On the flip side, the remaining queens felt the sense of defeat emanating from Yara and said that’s why they voted her to go home. In that regard, they revealed a unanimous vote to have sent Yara home, aside from Jan who, with the solo choice to send a queen home had she won, had actually selected A’Keria’s lipstick. Jan thought that the group would have went off track record and thinking they’d save Yara also decided to. Unclear whether the other queens were buying Jan’s excuse, but ultimately she felt like a “traitor” and figured her miscalculation wouldn’t sit well with everyone long term.
07 min – Skipping a mini challenge once again, Ru came to the Werk Room the next day to provide the details of the next maxi challenge: “Pink Table Talk,” an intimate talk show where the girls would work in teams of three to dish on the hot topics of body, motherhood and sex. The queens themselves got to choose their own teams, resulting in Eureka, A’Keria and Trinity, Ginger Minj, Jan and Pandora Boxx, and Kylie Sonique Love, Ra’Jah and Scarlet Envy.
09 min – When it came to deciding which topic each group would discuss on the show, Eureka’s team claimed sex with no contention, but Ginger and Scarlet both wanted motherhood for their team. Ginger, who is exploring becoming a parent through surrogacy outside of the show, felt a deep connection to the topic while Scarlet was concerned with taking a risk to get out of the realm of safety in the critiques. They both agreed to rock, paper, scissors it to make a decision and that fell in favor of Scarlet, leaving Ginger and her team with the topic of body.
11 min – Team Body accepted their challenge nicely, but with body issues of her own, Pandora was the most uncomfortable with the decision. Still, they decided that Ginger would be a moderator in their setup while Pandora and Jan would focus on showing vulnerability and reality within the fantasy of drag. Team Motherhood centered their idea around how Scarlet has two moms in a loving relationship and Ra’Jah does not have a very close connection with her own mother. That provided room for Kylie to be their moderator, another role that she wasn’t used to having but open to figuring out. And on Team Sex the girls wanted to explore HIV positivity, gender roles and body size issues, all coming from a personal place.
14 min – Further into prep time, Scarlet attempted to give Kylie a pep talk about how the judges said she needs to come out of her shell. Scarlet was worried that as moderator Kylie would have to kick off their segment with high energy that she might not naturally be able to. It was initially unclear if Scarlet had faith in Kylie, but they decided to keep their roles as-is and go forward with Kylie confident she could turn it out.
16 min – Team Sex kicked off their segment with A’Keria opening up about how she at one point was transitioning into being a female and had her lower body worked on to be more feminine, but in retransitioning back as male-presenting has had encounters with men that can be confused by her gender representation. That conversation flowed naturally into Trinity’s experiences with HIV positivity and a lesson in what “undetectable = untransmittable” means. Because they used “do you have sex in drag?” as an opening question, all three of them were able to use that as a segway into their own discussions, including Eureka who said she’ll even put on a ponytail and whip it around on the guys during sex. They closed out with a game where they pulled a mouth exerciser out of a pink furry box and played around with all the ways it could be used.
20 min – Team Motherhood started off in a more traditional sense, asking the question “what does motherhood mean to you?” which paved the way for a more classic discussion than Team Sex had. In telling her own story, Scarlet was a bit dry without providing a lot of room for Ra’Jah and Kylie to engage with her story outside of standard responses. That set a serious tone that Ra’Jah picked up with and while it allowed them to be vulnerable about their real stories it didn’t give them any opportunities to bring humor into the discussion. Kylie went down the road of being a mother to a pet in a short conversation before the group pulled out their own pink furry box containing a citrus reamer that definitely looked more sexual than a kitchen item should.
24 min – Team Body kicked off their segment with Ginger jumping right in to her own body issues, but in a way that was more conversational with back and forth with each other. From there the central topic became social media pressure and how beauty standards play into self-love. Throughout the open conversation, Pandora, Jan and Ginger all incorporated self-deprecating jokes that created a fun atmosphere night and day from Team Motherhood’s. In their pink furry box was an eye stimulator that the queens were convinced was and should be used as a vibrator instead, which was just another way for them to underscore their entire segment with comedy.
30 min – The next day as they got ready for the main stage, the girls reflected on their performances in the table talk challenge with varying senses of confidence and worry. Team Body was very confident that they were cohesive enough to score a win, but Ra’Jah was worried that she had been too vulnerable and that perhaps she would damage her relationship with her mother even further based on what she said. A’Keria was there to pick Ra’Jah up and coach her through feeling good about herself in the hope that her time on this show will do the opposite and bring Ra’Jah closer to her mom.
33 min – Joining Ru on the main stage this week was Michelle Visage, Ross Mathews, and special guest Aisha Tyler. For the runway, the category was “Clash of the Patterns.” Trinity opened in an African printed gown with fantastic makeup to match, Eureka followed in a gown patched together in “all the patterns,” A’Keria went with a mannequin looking dress with painted on pattern, Ra’Jah also went with an African theme, Kylie donned a leopard print mini, Scarlet made a dress inspired by her grandparents’ love letters, Jan kept it purple in a “rich girl” mini shopping spree look, Ginger was inspired by butterfly catchers, and Pandora looked glamorous in a “Nightmare Before Christmas” look.
37 min – Based on the talk show performances and runway looks, Ru named Trinity, Eureka and A’Keria as the best team of the week, but declared that the top individual performer of the week was Ginger. For critiques, Team Sex and Ginger got to leave the stage as the safe group while the rest of the queens remained for comments from the judges. Ross found Ra’Jah’s runway look to be interesting and Michelle liked that she spoke matter of factly in the talk show because it would get people to actually listen to her. Aisha told her that she loved Ra’Jah’s emotional side because it gives room for personal connection from the audience. The judges also really loved Kylie’s look, but Michelle didn’t think she opened up enough in the interview and Ross said he couldn’t even remember what he learned about her. Ross did think that Scarlet was fascinating when she spoke, but in the moments where she escaped into “performancey” it became a mask that backtracked any vulnerability. Ru said she felt “uncomfortable” by the way Scarlet hasn’t found cohesion between her drag persona and life as a male. For Jan, Ross pointed out that she is so comfortable being an over-the-top performer that she’s lost the ability to show different energy and paces which would make her more interesting. Pandora got high marks from Ross for a truly “clash of the patterns” look, but was told that she was too reserved from true feelings in the interviews. Based on those critiques, Ru gave safety to Pandora and Ra’Jah straight away, leaving the other three in the bottom and open to votes for elimination.
45 min – When the girls went back stage with the others, Scarlet was low energy but determined to do what she had to do to not be chosen for elimination. She told Ginger that she got “rave reviews” and “not the worst critiques,” which completely disregarded that Ru had used the word “uncomfortable” with her performance in the challenge. She told Ginger that Jan should go home because she got the worst critiques while Ra’Jah was explaining to the group that the worst review Jan got was that she gave 110%. Similarly to Scarlet, Jan was incapable to hearing the advice from the other girls that she truly could have brought the energy down a little bit in order to show some vulnerability and authenticity instead of playing up the character. Ginger was very open with Kylie and said that she did have one of the weaker performances, but acknowledged that the role of moderator was the most difficult. When fighting for her safety in front of the group, Kylie promised to come harder in future challenges and to push herself to come out of her shell. That passion spoke directly to Trinity and Eureka who have wanted to see that drive not only form her, but from everyone in the bottom all season. Privately Ginger told Jan that Scarlet said Jan got the harshest critiques, further pitting Jan and Scarlet against each other in their fight for survival.
51 min – In the voting booth, we saw Trinity choose Jan’s lipstick for being in the bottom twice and Pandora pick Scarlet’s while the rest remained hidden from our view. Torn between the three choices, Ginger opted to what the judging criteria from her own point of view should be, vowing to not take into account what anyone else would do. For her to get the decision of elimination, Ginger had to battle on stage against this week’s lip sync assassin, Bianca Del Rio?? Well, not quite. Bianca only appeared as a gag, owed to the fact that in her winning season she never had to lip sync and didn’t plan on starting now. So as she exited the stage, her gap was filled by the true assassin, Mayhem Miller. With a chance to earn the $30,000 bank, Ginger went in hard to Lizzo‘s “Phone,” creating a manic and comedic energy that stole all the attention from Mayhem whose moves weren’t as varied. Easily, Ginger won the battle, claiming the large cash tip and deciding to give $2500 to each of her teammates from the challenge. The win also meant that Ginger’s lipstick choice would determine the elimination for the week. She told the girls she made the only decision that would let her feel okay at night, naming Scarlet as the one to leave the competition. As she prepared to leave, Scarlet was given the same “game within a game” clue from Ru that meant she could be sticking around after all.
