‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 5’: How Fans Went from Wanting the Lip-Sync Assassin Twist to Absolutely Hating It
RuPaul’s Drag Race fans were very excited when the fifth All Stars season was announced to incorporate lip-sync assassins. These are queens who are known to have memorable performances or won a large number of their lip-syncs during a season, eliminating many of their fellow queens. Although this concept is great in theory, many fans believe that it was not executed correctly.
This was the first big twist in the ‘All Stars’ format’
The lip-sync assassin theory was hailed by fans because it was the first major shake-up with the All Stars format since All Stars 2 first premiered. Though there have been smaller twists, such as All Stars rules being suspended for a good amount of time in All Stars 4, there wasn’t any major change in the format of the show.
Because All Stars 5 aired about a year from when it was filmed, a lot of spoilers leaked about the show ahead of time. The lip-sync assassin theory was already a big one with and it continued to gain traction through fans on Reddit as a big twist in the upcoming season.
The twist changed the number of winners each week
Due to the lip-sync assassin twist, only one All Star queen could win each week. This ended up with Miz Cracker having three wins, Shea Couleé having two wins, and Jujubee and India Ferrah both having one win before Couleé took the crown. So out of the ten queens, only four of them were able to win a challenge.
This is different from prior All Stars seasons in that two queens were able to win a challenge before the Lip-Sync for Your Legacy. Fans believe that this made it look like several queens had bad track records during the season when they really didn’t. For example, several queens such as Alexis Mateo, Jujubee, Blair St. Clair, and even eventual winner Coulee may have been able to secure more wins in the competition if the wins were dually-shared like they were in past seasons.
The most of the lip-sync assassins weren’t really lip-sync assassins and the songs were weird
During All Stars 5, the lip-sync assassins were Yvie Oddly, Alyssa Edwards, Monét X Change, Morgan McMichaels, Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, Roxxxy Andrews, and Kennedy Davenport.
Out of all of these queens, only a few are considered to be assassins by fans. Before Davenport returned, fans were very disappointed. Viewers believed that other noted lip-sync assassins from the series, such as Peppermint, Trinity K. Bonet, Kameron Michaels, and Chi Chi DeVayne should have been featured.
However, many fans do believe that queens who have not competed on an All Stars season or won a regular season could not be an assassin. If this is true, it makes sense as to why the show chose the queens that they did for the assassins.
Aside from this, many people also thought that the song selections for the lip-syncs were not fitting. For example, Davenport, regarded as one of the greatest lip-sync performers in the franchise’s history, performed to a Reba McEntire song against Miz Cracker, and many fans called foul. A lot of people also thought that some of the songs for the lip-syncs were just low-energy in general.
Though Couleé dominated the season and rightfully won, hopefully for next All Stars, if the assassin twist is brought back, producers will take a lot of fans’ critiques into consideration.
