Heading into the ninth episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 11, Kennedy Davenport had just defeated Hershii LiqCour-Jeté in an iconic Elaine Stritch lip sync for an extra point. On the scoreboard, Kennedy was the new frontrunner with four points. Trailing her were Sam Star and Hershii with three, Jasmine Kennedie with two, and Shuga Cain and Joey Jay with one. Still to be awarded were the MVQ points given out by the second challenge bottom queens.
With only one more challenge to go and the point totals so close, all six of the queens still had a viable shot at joining the queens from Brackets 1 and 2 in the semifinals. The queens still in the competition are Bracket 1’s A’Keria C. Davenport and Dawn, and Bracket 2’s Crystal Methyd and Silky Nutmeg Ganache.
For their third and final challenge, the Bracket 3 all stars went back in herstory with lip syncs to classic interview segments from The RuPaul Show. Serving as guest judge alongside series stars RuPaul Charles, Michelle Visage, and Law Roach was The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Bronwyn Newport.
Read on for our recap of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 11, Episode 9, titled “That’s What She Said,” which began streaming Friday, June 26 at 12 a.m. PT on Paramount+.
“I’m a woman of my word, which is stupid. Nice guys always finish last.” — Shuga Cain
Prior to the second MVQ ceremony, Jasmine was hyper-aware that the single point allocations would still make a difference in how likely it was for each of them to advance to the next round. Despite promising to have Sam’s back, Jasmine decided to give her point to Joey out of a sense that she’d return the favor. Not to be outmaneuvered, Sam then gave her point to Shuga for the same reason. At that point, Shuga and Joey could have swapped points between themselves in order to vault into a shared second place with Hershii, but they both returned the favor to Sam and Jasmine instead which kept them at the bottom. Afterward when Jasmine apologized to Sam, Shuga felt like she might have been played by Sam but when she addressed it the next morning, Sam and Jasmine rebutted Shuga’s claim that there was any villain behavior at the ceremony.
In a Drag Race first, RuPaul opened the vault to his ’90s talk show so that the queens could lip sync to classic interviews from it for their final maxi challenge. In the endeavor, each queen portrayed both RuPaul and one of the iconic guests: Hershii as Patti LaBelle, Jasmine as Tammy Faye Messner, Joey as Bea Arthur, Kennedy as Eartha Kitt, Sam as Anna Nicole Smith, and Shuga as Cher.
In many ways the challenge was along the same celebrity impersonation lines of Snatch Game so all of the queens felt the pressure of the moment. During a walkthrough, Ru offered sage advice to the queens on how to effectively lip sync to spoken word tracks. He suggested adding “extra editorial content” through “creative license,” fully opening the door for the girls to interpret the interviews in any way that makes a big impact.
“I have been edged three long weeks; I am ready to finally finish.” — Joey Jay
For the finished product of the lip syncs, editors spliced the RuPaul and celebrity impersonation clips into one seamless segment for each queen. Shuga played a cool Cher, but then went over-the-top Valley girl for her portrayal of Ru. Sam juxtaposed the Marilyn aesthetic of Anna Nicole with a version of Ru that was a lot like Sam, Hershii made smart use of physical mannerisms to bring out more comedy between Ru and Patti, Jasmine put all her energy into the Tammy Faye impression and left much to be desired with her Ru, Kennedy used props to maximum effect as Eartha, and Joey brought a lot of sass to her Bea.
Based on their talk show recreations and their runway presentations in the “David Bowie: Icon” category, the judges named Kennedy and Sam as the top two. Law thought that Kennedy’s Eartha was so good it felt like she brought her back to life. Michelle and Bronwyn both told Sam that she embodied Anna Nicole to a T in her look and mannerisms.
Because of the point spread, the challenge wins from Kennedy and Sam secured them both a spot at the top of the leaderboard with six even before the extra point. Not to be outsmarted though, Jasmine quickly suggested to the other bottom queens that if they all picked one person to give their MVQ points to between her and Hershii (both with three points) that they’d be able to force a tie for second place.
“What the fuck is happening?!” — Sam Star
Based on the lip sync to Rihanna’s “Breakin’ Dishes,” Ru awarded the extra point to Kennedy in consecutive wins. At the MVQ ceremony on stage, the girls contemplated the pros and cons of following Jasmine’s advice of supporting another queen or, as Joey put it, “be a villain and say f–k you and take the ship down.” In the end, Jasmine gave her point to Hershii while Shuga, Joey and Hershii all gave their point to Jasmine.
With seven points, Kennedy earned an automatic berth to the semifinals, but with six points each, Sam and Jasmine were tied for second place with only one spot in the next round. However, “based on [their] performances tonight and all season long,” Ru decided that “the tie will not be broken” and both would advance as semifinalists.
For the “Comeback Queen” contest, Ru and Michelle contemplated Morgan McMichaels, Morphine Love Dion, Salina EsTitties, Vivacious, and Joey as options to put into the hopper for the chance to reenter the competition. The three that they actually chose were Morgan, Salina and Joey, but which one was chosen by Pit Crew member Asaf would not be ruvealed until next time.
