Ron Does Stuff

I know I haven’t been updating the blog the past week because of personal reasons, but I will not miss an episode of this year’s All Stars season. Let’s get into it!

With Irene, Bosco, and Aja making it to the next round in the previous episode, we’ve got a new bracket of queens to watch. This new bracket is made up of Tina Burner, Kerri Colby, NICOLE PAIGE BROOKS FROM ATLANTA GEORGIA, Mistress Isabelle Brooks, Lydia Butthole Collins who hasn’t even had work done on her face yet, and Jorgeous.

First impressions for me? Tina Burner may not be wearing the red, orange, and yellow now but is silver really an improvement? Kerri is as beautiful as ever, NICOLE PAIGE BROOKS FROM ATLANTA GEORGIA immediately iconic.

After explaining the mechanics to the queens, we now get the first Maxi Challenge — a ball where the queens have to use eight items assigned to them. I don’t if I’m just old, but other than Jorgeous, I don’t remember how any of these queens fared on their respective ball challenges.

At the Werk Room, Mistress immediately brings up how Lydia roasted her on Season 17 and how she’s going to get her lick back now. But it looks like the real beef is going to be between Tina and Mistress because Tina is sore about social media shade Mistress threw her way. I can’t wait to see how this turns out!

It’s early in the episode but I think Tina may have bitten off more than she can chew because Mistress is already being very strategic in her conversations, making tentative alliances with NICOLE PAIGE BROOKS FROM ATLANTA GEORGIA, Jorgeous, and Kerri Colby. Tina might just get overrun by sheer numbers!

Finally, the queens get their items and while Tina and Mistress express some confidence at making a garment, the rest of the room is shook when they find out that Lydia made all of her runway looks for her Season 17 run. Knowing how to sew really is a huge advantage on Drag Race!

Ru does the walkthrough and maybe I’m just a fashion-illiterate but the colors on Tina’s sketch all look pretty close to red, orange, and yellow. But I may be wrong! Like I’ve said multiple times before, I am not really a fashion gay. Kerri’s sketch is…sketchy, while the colors of NICOLE PAIGE BROOKS FROM ATLANTA GEORGIA’s fabrics are…a lot. But she really brings the character, I gotta say that. No fear at all of RuPaul and even taking a shot at Raven! Aside from that, I liked Lydia’s sketch the most because it was giving Misfits from Jem.

However, all the oxygen in the room really is going to NICOLE PAIGE BROOKS FROM ATLANTA GEORGIA. She is just taking shots at everyone in the room and doing it hilariously. Let’s hope all of this is backed up with performance because it would be a shame if she’s all bark and no bite.

The next day as they start preparing for the runway, Lydia tries to hand in her application to be Misress’ drag daughter, although I don’t know if that’s a good idea considering what happened to Sugar and Spice, who were Mistress’ most recent drag daughters. But let’s see! I don’t follow either queen on social media so I don’t know how things will turn out.

But the real drama is between Mistress and Tina, as we already know from the teaser for this episode. Tina immediately tells Lydia that Mistress is just going to discard her once she’s used her and Mistress has had it. She says that Tina has been coming for her since she made fun of her “Skittles” wig but then Tina rebuts with a reveal — Mistress has been in her DMs. I CACKLED all the way here in my home in the ~global South~.

Speaking of DMs!

After that reveal, we get a “gay chicken coop” as Lydia describes it and I am living. It’s a good thing no one’s going home because there’s going to be at least two more episodes of bitchines from these two.

The runway starts and Jorgeous look looks okay! I think it’s still drawing from her previous napkin looks but it doesn’t look horrible. Kerri, on the other hand, looks gorgeous but I don’t know if that’s because of the outfit or just because of who she is. Meanwhile, Lydia is really bringing that Misfits from Jem look and I like it! I don’t know about the technical aspects of it but the look as a whole was good for me.

Mistress outfit does look good, despite her having some trouble when she was making it in the Werk Room. NICOLE PAIGE BROOKS FROM ATLANTA GEORGIA has…a look, let’s say that. Meanwhile, Tina Burner’s look isn’t that bad either and maybe Mistress won’t be able to read her with this one but Mistress for sure will find a way to do so.

During the critiques, almost all of them get good ones except for NICOLE PAIGE BROOKS FROM ATLANTA GEORGIA, who gets told she needs to do more and it’s a critique I agreee with! Hers was the simplest on the runway and there’s no getting past that fact. Tina actually gets pretty high praise and I guess that’s making Mistress a little antsy.

The queens are brought back to the runway and the top two is Tina and Lydia and Mistress is pressed. Oh the next episode is going to be fun. At the start of the lip sync, I thought it was going to be Lydia winning but that smooth reveal from Tina really pushed her into the forefront. But I guess I was wrong because Lydia gets the win!