This week on the 6th season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars,” the queens pulled out their witchiest attitudes for a coven-themed spoof of the “American Horror Story” series. The challenge tested their over-acting skills and separated the seasoned performers from those with stage fright. 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. Episode 5 culminated in a battle between Ginger Minj and Mayhem Miller that resulted in Ginger sending Scarlet Envy home.
Below, check out our minute-by-minute recap of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” season 6 episode 6 to find out who serves up the yummiest witches brew in “Rumerican Horror Story: Coven Girls.” 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 – When the queens retreated to the Werk Room after Ginger’s win over Mayhem, they wasted no time in pulling out the lipsticks for the group vote. Inside the box were four for Scarlet and another four for Jan, creating what would have been a tie for the elimination. With half the vote, Jan was shocked and wanted to hear from the girls why they chose her. Ra’Jah said she couldn’t have voted for either of the queens she worked with in the challenge, while both Trinity and Eureka declared that Jan had the worst critiques and was in their minds the most deserving of leaving at that point. The shock made Jan emotional as she struggled to understand the critiques at the same time that Ginger admitted to almost choosing Kylie Sonique Love for elimination.
07 min – The next day Ru arrived to present this week’s maxi challenge: over-acting in the spoof series “Rumerican Horror Story: Coven Girls.” As described, the show would salute some of the best actresses from AHS seasons past. The decision for who would play which witch was left to the queens themselves. Eureka jumped at the chance to play the bearded witch with no fuss, A’Keria C. Davenport took on the voodoo doll, and everyone pushed Jan to play the glee club witch as it seemed tailor-made for her strengths. When it came to the Jessica Lange inspired role, both Ginger and Kylie put their foot forward for it. Kylie made a good argument for needing the role to show something new, but Ginger didn’t back down until she lost the role in another rock-paper-scissors bout. That left Pandora Boxx fighting for the witch that turns into Joan Crawford, Ra’Jah and Trinity to play the two-headed sisters, and Ginger with the final role as a young fashionable diva. Not in Ginger’s wheelhouse, but okay!
11 min – As they prepared their parts, A’Keria stopped to give a nervous Kylie some great advice. She encouraged her to embrace what she already knows and bring that to the role because it will translate through with confidence. Shortly after, Angela Bassett came on the screen to answer any questions the queens had about their acting. In the conversation she explained that getting into character is about finding small things that define a person and hinging on that at the same time that you “center on emotions.” She said “take the good and use it, and take the bad and use it.”
17 min – Ross Mathews and Michelle Visage were on set to direct the queens through their scenes. In the first group, Ra’Jah took early heat for the high-pitched voice she chose for her character. Ross tried to direct her down from it and more toward the intended lisp, but that didn’t pan out very well. Similarly, A’Keria struggled to find the balance between energy and attitude, sacrificing one for the other in multiple takes with Michelle. Meanwhile, Ginger and Jan were unsurprisingly soaring through their performances as seasoned actors. Kylie’s starring role required a lot of work, including Michelle coming to the stage to act through the lines as an example for her to use.
23 min – The next day, Kylie and Ra’Jah were both feeling really insecure about their performances. They each stressed the importance of not getting in their heads about it and focusing on the runway as a chance to bounce back. It was also revealed that there might be something steamy brewing behind the scenes between Eureka and Trinity — love potion match?
27 min – Joining Ru on the main stage was Michelle and Ross as well as guest judge Emma Roberts. Ginger opened this week’s runway category “Oh My Goth” in a black lace Victorian dress carrying a voodoo doll and Eureka followed as a Bride of Frankenstein in lingerie. Trinity went with oversized black tulle and feathers, Ra’Jah kept it tight in a pantsuit, A’Keria wore a huge cross headpiece, Jan went full satanic with a white painted face, Kylie made it sexy in a hole-y bodysuit showing all her curves and lots of skin, and Pandora closed in an elaborate widow’s dress.
30 min – The concept for their film was that each of the queens played a member of “The Coven Girls Modeling Agency” in New Orleans, either one of the instructing witches or a new applicant to join. When the applicants battled each other in displays of their witchy powers, the queens got to take their acting into overacting. In the end of the script, Ru surprised in a Soul Train host cameo spot.
40 min – Based on their performances in the film and their goth runway presentations, Ru announced Pandora and Trinity as the two safe queens, leaving everyone else on stage to hear critiques as the tops and bottoms. Ginger was much loved by the judges for her performance as a scene-stealer with strong physical comedy. Emma was a fan girl for Eureka’s overall energy both on the runway and in the show, with Michelle backing her up as being fearless, but noting that she got one-note in the performance. Ross had a tough time critiquing Ra’Jah because of the conflict between their direction of her and her own choices for the character and Michelle thought they could have helped her more if Ra’Jah had let them. A’Keria got praised for her runway look, but there weren’t enough good moments in her performance of a character that should have been bitchier and more deadpan than she was able to give. After getting critiques last week for being too much, Jan’s too much this week hit a sweet spot according to the judges. Michelle acknowledged that it took a lot of work for Kylie to get a good performance, but at the end of the day she exuded what Ru called “star quality.”
46 min – After full critiques, Ru decided that Kylie was the clear winner of the week, making the sixth unique challenge winner of the season so far. Ginger, Jan and Eureka were all named as safe, leaving Ra’Jah and A’Keria as the two bottoms of the week vulnerable to the vote for elimination. Backstage the girls congratulated Kylie on her first ever Drag Race win while Ra’Jah and A’Keria were faced with having to pit themselves against a close friend.
49 min – A’Keria pleaded to Kylie with how badly she wants to remain in the competition to show her passion for drag. Ra’Jah spoke to the safe queens about track record and how going by that she would deserve to stay this week. She also explained her bond with A’Keria and how hard it is to go up against her again, but didn’t hold back from telling Kylie that this season she is empowered to be better in large part because of A’Keria’s friendship over the years. A’Keria was much less emotional in her pitch to the safe queens, but knew that being in the bottom for the third time was a tough track record to overcome. In the voting booth we saw Jan vote for A’Keria, but the rest were kept hidden.
54 min – To determine who would decide on the elimination, Kylie was pitted against this week’s lip sync assassin Manila Luzon in a battle to “Dirrty” by Christina Aguilera. With such a sexy song and outfit to match, Kylie proved unstoppable in the battle. Her backflips, splits and body-sprawls across the stage made Ru’s choice abundantly clear — she’s a winner, baby! That meant that it was left to her alone to determine who would go home. She made that decision with admiration for their overall positivity, but ultimately had to send A’Keria home.
60 min – A’Keria left the stage with the same positive outlook she entered the Werk Room with, and when she prepared her exit from the Werk Room received the same ominous clue from Ru that the “game within a game” could save her spot.
