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RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars

‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars’: Who’s Ornacia?

Shangela Laquifa Wadley in “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars.”Credit...VH1

Well, we gasped the gay bars off their hinges last week when BenDeLaCreme, after an unprecedented fifth win, eliminated herself, voluntarily withdrawing from a competition she was dominating. This rattled a season that’s been by turns plodding, maddening and enjoyable, if never quite thrilling, and knocked last night’s subsequent episode into the mud — where it spun its wheels.

In the workroom, the remaining queens debated BenDeLaCreme’s flight over fight: Was it the strain of competition and the weekly drama harvest? Or was it a more calculated move by a fan favorite to avoid a fall from grace? Either way, it cleared a wider path to the crown. “This is like your pretty friend not going to prom,” Trixie admitted giddily in a confessional.

Parting would be sweeter sorrow if BenDeLaCreme hadn’t saddled us with Morgan McMichaels once again on her way out. “I feel like the luckiest bitch in the fold,” Morgan announced, severe-eyed in a blonde wig, looking like the cousin you didn’t invite to the rehearsal dinner, but who saw it happening on Instagram and drove over anyway.

Last week’s runner-up BeBe Zahara Benet, apparently seeing BenDeLaCreme’s departure as the falling spotlight from “The Truman Show,” shirked custom as well and refused to reveal who she would have eliminated, emphasizing the need for peace. The others short-circuited.

“That’s Cersei Lannister, I see now,” Shangela said in a confessional, continuing, you know, to draw her favorite parallel.

RuPaul — who apologized this week after remarks she made in the Guardian about barring trans and female contestants from “Drag Race” caused a rightful uproar — entered the workroom to restore order. On her arm? Someone we’re happier to see, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

“You’re an inspiration,” Pelosi told the queens, urging them (and the Snapchatters at home) to vote.

“I know you have to go,” RuPaul told her — yes, please: North Korea; Russia; elephant trophies — and off she went.

This episode, the queens had to play celebrated dramatic characters, but in a raunchy comedy parody called “My Best Squirrelfriend’s Dragsmaids Wedding Trip.” Morgan got to assign the roles, which she did without a hint of scheming.

Trixie wound up being quite funny — the best, even — as Sharon Frockovich, a role she didn’t initially want. Scene partners often overshadowed her in her season, but not here; she harnessed a, dare I say it, Katya-esque brio and nailed it. Kennedy, as struggling musical theater actress La La, high-kicked and sang aimlessly, and BeBe, as the Queen, was beguilingly odd, per usual. “I wonder why I’m being given the Queen,” BeBe asked earnestly in a confessional, while wrapped in 40 fabrics.

“BeBe’s character is just BeBe doing BeBe,” Shangela complained in a confessional. (Playing a sassy composite of “The Help” and “Hidden Figures” characters, Shangela didn’t really have room to talk; she basically just put on glasses and didn’t talk about “Game of Thrones.”)

As the deranged Beige Swan, Morgan danced in quietly. “This is your big entrance,” Ross Matthews, the sketch’s director, said. “Let’s try again.”

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Nancy Pelosi showed up on “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” this week.Credit...VH1

Morgan entered again, this time hissing. “Are you loving the hissing?” Matthews asked. “We’re going for funny.”

“They only actually hiss,” replied Morgan, the Daniel Day-Lewis of drag.

It was a misfire, for sure, in an episode themed heavily around self-perception, or lack thereof. Trixie, who’s not social and hates hugs, said she wants to be less standoffish; Kennedy, who’d copped to coming off as a grump in Season 7, lamented not being a fan favorite; and BeBe was shocked — and delighted — to hear that people thought she was elitist. “But I am very goofy,” she protested. (Goofy people often have to self-identify, for clarity.)

On the “Red for Filth” runway, the queens watched their parody. BeBe, with exquisite swirls of red gems around her eyes, was chastised for being too demure as the Queen. Kennedy’s beaded gown dazzled but her La La performance flopped — “A little more Jodie Foster in ‘Nell’ than Emma Stone,” the guest judge Chris Colfer quipped — while Morgan, who in the final take decided to be a quacking Beige Swan, got compliments on her nympho tartan look, but that was about it. All three ranked in the bottom.

The top two: Shangela, in red spikes that — my goodness — inflated as she walked, and Trixie, witty-sexy in red hot pants with a stack of books and an apple on her head.

“You are making yourself do things that wouldn’t be in your comfort zone,” Michelle Visage told Trixie. “You taking these risks is paying off.” (I don’t know that an acting challenge is necessarily out of her comfort zone, but sure — and she did wear a brown wig!)

Backstage, Trixie compared BeBe’s decorated face to Ornacia, Season 6 contestant Vivacious’ infamous headpiece. BeBe looked at her blankly and asked, “Who’s Ornacia?”

“She’s fully never seen ‘Drag Race,’” Trixie deadpanned to the camera as the group hooted. “BeBe won ‘Drag Race’ and stopped watching it.”

“Girl, get ready,” Kennedy said, adding that the fans would “me-me” this moment to death.

“What is me-me?” Shangela asked, correcting: “Meme.”

“Yeah, that,” Kennedy replied.

I miss Milk.

The bottom three made their cases for staying — BeBe’s track record, Kennedy’s drive, and Morgan’s too-brief stint. “This is her second chance,” Shangela said in a confessional, of Morgan. “And look, I know about second chances.” (God, she’s good at this.)

Shangela and Trixie lip-synced to RuPaul’s “Freaky Money,” and even an assured Trixie, fun in a neon-green wig and pink bodysuit, was no match for Shangela, who showed up to win. And win she did — ripping off a housedress to reveal a bulging, bikinied fat suit, Shangela went full clown, grinding and death-dropping as the judges shrieked with laughter. “It’s not over ’til the fat lady twerks,” RuPaul said.

“ It’s not something I want to do, but it’s part of what the gig is,” Shangela said, and eliminated Morgan, who took it in stride.

“Love you guys,” she said as she left.

It felt anti-climactic for the penultimate episode — a zero sum, or a deficit, if you missed BenDeLaCreme’s ingenuity, which I did. Also I wondered what Aja might’ve done with Morgan’s second chance. Ah, well.

Next week, an All Star will be crowned. Will it be Shangela or Trixie? Or maybe Kennedy, or goofy BeBe? Will Maxine Waters swing by, carried in by the Pod Save America guys?

Until then.

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