World of Wonder/Paramount+
There are few things in this life that are more disquieting than an abnormally tall, completely bald man in a Thom Browne suit, unexpectedly bursting through the door to scold you for your sins. I’m not exactly familiar with the Bible, but I’d bet there’s some sort of scriptural tale just like that. That’s because, when RuPaul walked back into the Drag Race All Stars 8 workroom to corral his collection of little dollies—sorry, I mean, “beloved contestants”—it felt like a necessary divine intervention.
Season 8 of Drag Race’s already-cutthroat spinoff has been quickly devolving into sheer madness over the last few weeks. First, there was the unanticipated self-elimination of contestant Heidi N Closet, after some alleged maneuvering of in-game allegiances backfired, causing her friends to briefly turn on her, and the pressure to become too much to handle. Last week, Jaymes Mansfield was eliminated by a unanimous vote, despite Kahannah Montrese—also on the chopping block—already being up for elimination for several weeks in a row without going home. And how could we forget our dear Alexis Michelle, crying through it all with the performance pedigree of Stella Adler herself?
All of this drama came to a head this week, when Kahanna was faced with yet another improv challenge, which she’s failed to excel at so far, tempting her to pack her bags as well. While the tension was mounting for Kahanna, Alexis Michelle and competition frontrunner Kandy Muse got into another heated exchange, arguing over who would score the more coveted role in the challenge, which resulted in Alexis, once again, breaking down in tears. Then came RuPaul, who watched this pocket of chaos grow larger by the second, like a very wheezy Big Brother, and stepped in to put the fear of God back into his cast.