‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars’ season 9 episode 10 recap: ‘Lip-Sync Lalaparuza Smackdown’
“RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” continued its 9th season on Friday, July 12 with the 10th episode featuring returning queens from seasons past. Making their way back into the Werk Room for the second time are Angeria Paris VanMichaels (season 14), Gottmik (season 13), Jorgeous (season 14), Nina West (season 11), and Plastique Tiara (season 11). Three queens are returning for the third time: Roxxxy Andrews (season 5 and All Stars 2), Shannel (season 1 and All Stars 1), and Vanessa Vanjie Mateo (seasons 10 and 11).
In addition to their chance at the coveted crown, this season the queens are competing to have a $200,000 contribution, provided by The Palette Fund, to a charity of their choice. Series judges RuPaul Charles and Michelle Visage will be joined on the dais by friends and series regulars Carson Kressley, Ts Madison, and Ross Mathews as well as a rotating cast of guest judges to help determine episodic winners and their choice for “next drag superstar.”
In episode 9, the queens came together in the newest rusical to hit the stage, “Rosemarie’s Baby Shower,” where they each played off of an iconic horror film or character in song and dance. The judges panel decided that Shannel and Jorgeous were the top performers of the week, each earning two Beautiful Benefactress Badges. In their decision to give away their second badge, Shannel and Jorgeous chose each other, cementing their promise earlier in the episode that they’d made to each other.
In the race to be one of the three queens with the most badges by the end of the season, Jorgeous, Plastique and Roxxxy all have four, Angeria has three, and Shannel, Nina, Vanjie and Gottmik all have two.
Now, check out our recap of episode 10, titled “Lip-Sync Lalaparuza Smackdown,” below:
After suffering through most of the season with no badges to her name, Shannel was elated to be back in the competition with two newly acquired badges. She surprised Jorgeous with her decision to give her a second badge, explaining that it was a “no brainer” to choose her after Jorgeous had openly declared she’d be giving Shannel one. The queens who only have two badges thought that Shannel made a bad decision to vault Jorgeous to the top with four instead of keeping her at three and raising someone else to three.
The next morning Ru arrived with a not so discreetly video message that they’d be participating in the infamous Lalaparuza challenge to show what they got on stage in lip sync battles. In this tournament, the top two finalists would each earn a badge and then battle one another for a $10,000 cash tip for their charity.
As the queens prepared their “lip sync assassin drag” for the stage, Jorgeous was excited by her chances to earn a fifth badge while Plastique was concerned that after four losses in lip syncs already this season that she would have an uphill battle in this challenge. Vanjie was hyper aware of the importance song choice would play in this challenge and that depending on what is chosen, any of the queens could contend for a win, but she was confident that she’d be strong in any genre. Angeria admitted to Nina and Shannel that the one queen she was nervous about going against is Roxxxy because of her undefeated reputation.
Joining Ru on the Main Stage this week was only Michelle and Ross, keeping the decision for each battle within “just family.” To decide the match ups, Pit Crew member Bruno used the Golden Hopper to randomly pull one queen’s ball. That queen would choose their opponent and then the opponent would choose the song. The eight queens would face off in four first-round match ups with winners advancing to the second round. The winners in that round would be the finalists, earn badges, and battle once more for the donation funds.
Chosen first was Gottmik who picked Angeria as her opponent. Gottmik’s thought was to choose someone with a different style than her so that she’d stand out in the battle, but she was disappointed when Angeria chose “My Lovin'” by En Vogue as their song because it’s one that Angeria is very familiar with. Gottmik’s approach to the song was to vibe with the sexuality of the lyrics while Angeria preferred to stick to her comedic take on songs with theatrical gestures. In this battle, Ru chose Angeria as the winner.
Drawn next was Vanjie who chose Plastique in the hopes that she’d pick a song Vanjie wanted. Sure enough, Plastique chose the Pussycat Dolls track “When I Grow Up,” the song that Vanjie said was her first choice. Right away Plastique stripped away her overcoat to reveal a lingerie look that was very PCD-coded while Vanjie played it a little cooler and slowly stripped away to her own lingerie look. Both queens used body and dance moves to make it a tight race, but in the end Ru declared Vanjie the winner.
Next to perform was Nine who decided to face off against Shannel. Of the remaining songs, Shannel chose for them to perform “You Spin Me Round” by Dead or Alive. Despite wearing a clown costume, Nina failed to bring enough of her standard comedic moments to compete with Shannel’s more high octane classic style. For this match up, Ru chose Shannel as the winner.
The previous decisions left Roxxxy and Jorgeous as the final two to face off in the first round. Bruno randomly chose Roxxxy’s ball which meant she got to pick “Holding Out for a Hero” by Bonnie Tyler as her preferred song. Jorgeous stuck to the “hero” aspect of the song and struck pose after pose as if she was a superhero while Roxxxy relied on body in a more dramatic interpretation of the song. In the end, Ru’s decision was that once again Roxxxy was the winner, continuing her undefeated streak.
In the first battle of the second round, Vanjie and her chosen partner Shannel faced off to “I’m Every Woman” by Chaka Khan. Here Shannel thought she’d get a chance to show “what old school drag is all about” and she did just that by handily defeating Vanjie who mostly just strutted from one end of the stage to the other. With this win, Shannel earned a Beautiful Benefactress Badge, raising her total to three.
In the second battle of this round, Angeria and Roxxxy were left to battle to Deee-Lite’s “Groove Is in the Heart.” This was a hot ticket performance because of how the two queens had spent the season cutting each other off with the Ruby Snippers. Both queens were on top of the lyrics well enough, but Roxxxy had the advantage because she knew how to use her back side as an asset to the groovey song and then capitalized on every cheeky beat in the song. It was a clear decision for Ru to once again choose Roxxxy as the winner. This win put Roxxxy firmly in the lead with five badges total, more than anyone else.
For the final lip sync, Shannel and Roxxxy returned in new outfits for their head-to-head to Ariana Grande’s “Break Free.” To be expected, Roxxxy brought pure pop star energy to the stage while Shannel went with grande dame eleganza instead. Roxxxy’s neck snaps and hair tosses might have made the difference here, bringing her to a 9-0 record in lip syncs with yet another win to her name and $10,000 more to her charity, Miracle of Love.
In the final moments, Ru ran a tally on the current badge totals and then teased that the “Grand Finale” would begin next week in part 1 of a two-part finale. And in the preview clips, we saw the queens dropping lipstick cartridges into the box, suggesting one final twist that could flip the competition on its head.
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