Two All Stars 3 Finale Theories You Should Know Before Thursday
The RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 3 Finale is finally almost here and...I couldn't be more underwhelmed. I'm of the opinion that the show has been a total, well...drag since Bendelacreme's shocking self-elimination two weeks ago. And I'm not just talking about last week's weak episode where Morgan got re-eliminated after five minutes back in the competition.
I'm talking about how bored and discouraged I've felt every day seeing gifs and clips of the show online, or watching interviews with the contestants and other Drag Race queens. I'm talking about how whenever I mention the show to a fellow fan, we both kind of shrug and just say "Let's see what happens."
Ever since Ben left, the competition has not felt real to me. With a gag-worthy 5 wins out of 6 challenges, she set a new record, beating out Sharon Needles, Alaska and Shea Coulee's prior three-way tie record of four challenge wins in a season. Yet considering her re-vamped runway looks, acting chops and creativity, I wasn't at all bored with her winning. And neither were a ton of other people. In my opinion, a person only truly gets bored of seeing someone win when they see favoritism involved or feel that the other competitors are sleeping on the job and getting discouraged. And neither of those were the case. Ben clearly was excelling at every challenge and her fellow competitors were always hungry to beat her. So when she won even the fifth time, we as an audience felt happy for her instead of bored.
Now that she's gone, it feels like no matter who ends up winning the show will always actually be first runner up to Ben. And that's a disappointing feeling. Remember Coco vs. Alyssa-gate? In 2010, after Alyssa Edwards won Miss Gay America, she wasn't able to fulfill all of her required duties under the role, and the title was eventually given to Coco Montrese, her first-runner-up. And Coco explains in Season 5 that she was torn when every day she was reminded of the fact that she wasn't the real winner and never would be in most people's minds. Do we really want Drag Race All Stars 3 to leave the same bad taste in our mouths?
With that being said, here are two theories to know before Thursday's conclusion that you should definitely ponder. These have been compiled through Reddit theories, fan speculation, and my general understanding of the shady editing and drag propaganda spread by this show.
NONE OF THESE ARE BASED ON CONFIRMED SPOILERS. YOU ARE SAFE FROM HAVING ANYTHING RUINED...UNLESS OF COURSE WE HAPPEN TO PREDICT THE FUTURE
Theory 1: It's all about Shangela
Put on your tin-foil hats for this one, because it's going to be a doozy.
Shangela LaQuifa Wadley, during her third shot on Drag Race, has come a long way since being Season 2's first eliminated queen and being considered Season 3's "least polished." She's come back to the competition with designer looks and a whole lot of confidence, channeling Game of Thrones' Daenerys Targaryen (I don't know who she is either) to propel her way to the top. She is more than deserving of her spot in the Top 4. And after three challenge wins (not to mention three lipsync-for-your-legacy wins) she has an enormous chance of taking home the gold. But has this potential win been planned from the start?
Disclaimer: I believe Shangela could have and might just win this competition based on her own talents and strengths. She is right now the most poised person to take home the crown. However, so much shadiness has occurred lately that I believe it's important we discuss this theory. This is a criticism of the contrived nature of Drag Race, and not a lack of belief in or appreciation of Shangela.
FAVORABLE EDITING
Since when do the shady editors of this show like Shangela so much? They gave her a bad rep for two seasons of the show, pushing the narrative that she was cocky when she merely stood up for herself, shaming her outfits to death when she always made attempts to get garments onto the runway despite her limited experience, and constantly highlighting the fact that the queens in her seasons lacked respect for her. I always felt bad for Shangela despite her sass, and found her struggle to stand up against the questioning of her talent and passion, quite relatable.
Now 7 years later, Shangela is all of a sudden the show's favorite person? Episode after episode, Shangela gets what feels like 15 minutes to talk about her feelings in the asides, all the time in the world to tell off queens and usually the winning edit in most situations. I'm not surprised that the other queens respect her more now as she's grown so much in 7 years and is a true Drag Race legend, but I don't see why the editors are suddenly so keen on her. Aja and Phi Phi stepped their games up in different ways for All Stars, but still got the same exact edits as on their seasons (Aja was always treated as filler - which is so so wrong - and Phi Phi was always treated as a villain...not that she didn't give them a good reason for it.)
So why all of a sudden is Shangela getting the Bob the Drag Queen/Alaska in All Stars 2/Bianca Del Rio edit where everything she does is right? Maybe because she's poised to have something in common with them all very soon.
BENDELACHRIST
We all know this show is probably the shadiest program on television. For years there have been rumors circling that the show's producers choose specific lipsync songs to send specific contestants home, psych out queens in the bottom two by prematurely sending them hotel bills the day of their elimination, and commit the cardinal sin of any competition show: Choosing their winner in advance.
While we can't quite say whether any of those rumors are true, the one thing we know is that this show is scripted to death. Ever since Willam's disqualification in Season 4, most seasons have had a shockingly dramatic moment happen on the main stage. From double eliminations, to forced eliminations due to injury, to Adore quitting during All Stars 2 extremely early, the producers know that the way to keep the show interesting is to gag the audience when the stakes are high.
And maybe that's why Bendelacreme left. Maybe she was asked to or even paid by producers to raise eyebrows and drop jaws by self-eliminating when she knew she was the most likely pick for the winner. Perhaps to make way for Shangela, or perhaps to raise ratings. She's been doing interviews left and right telling people she left because she never liked the way the show turned friends against each other, which I'm skeptical about. I think if that were the case, she wouldn't have participated in All Stars in the first place.
HAPPY HUNGER GAMES
It's possible that the editors are subtly trying to tell us Shangela takes this competition more seriously than the rest, by sharing her Game of Thrones analogies to this competition. She's mentioned the show and her determination to slay her competitors using the tactics and mindset of one of the dragon people (I'm sorry, Drag Race is basically the only show I watch) about 15 times. Much like Chad Michaels in Season 1 of All Stars mentioning the then-popular Hunger Games franchise multiple times to act as a metaphor for her determination and success in the competition. Maybe the editors kept in all those mentions of the show because they're trying to tell us long-time viewers something in code.
QUEEN ENDORSEMENTS
All over social media, queens of all seasons have been coming out of the woodwork to tell fans to vote #TeamShangela. I've never seen so much support for a single winner, let alone Shangela. While she's always been somewhat of a fan favorite and infamous contestant, I rarely saw these queens supporting her throughout the years. And now all of a sudden she means everything to them? Something smells fishy. And not in a Gia way. Speaking of Gia Gunn, she was interviewed about All Stars 3 by Alaska on the web-series The Pit Stop, a week before Ben's self-elimination. When asked who she thought was a contender, she said Shangela and Trixie. And when Alaska - who showed a look of surprise - nudged her and asked "What about Ben? She won every challenge. That doesn't count for anything?" Gia then paused, shrugged and said "Not really...I'm go more based off of a feel. An impression." Maybe I'm reading too much into everything, or maybe it's all drag queen propaganda.
SEASON 10? ALREADY?
But Ru! It's not even my birthday! Was I the only one gagged to see that the Season 10 girls were revealed randomly in the middle of All Stars? While I gushed over Miz Cracker, I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the timing of it all. We as the audience who have experienced Drag Race delays in the past were expecting the season to begin in April or even May considering All Stars 2 occurred in the Fall of 2016 while All Stars 3 aired in early 2018. But here the announcement of the queens were, with sort of an underwhelming vibe to it all.
Usually, the new season of girls are announced while nothing is going on in the Drag Race world, so that all we do for weeks on end is stalk Instagram accounts and re-watch Meet the Queens videos 100 times. But this time, things were announced right when we were still crying over the robbery of Aja. This made things even more bizarre when it was announced that Season 10 would begin immediately one week after the finale of All Stars 3.
If you'll remember, Season 7 took a long time to come out and got delayed many many weeks. And later it was revealed that the season lacked so much excitement that Ru and producers requested a re-edit. And it's possible that an anticipated boring end to All Stars 3 is forcing Ru and Co. to premiere Season 10 early in order to hold our attention.
Theory 2: Bendela's Rudemption
The other possibility for this season is even more insane. This theory - spread on Reddit and other social media platforms - states that the Handmaid's Tale theme with Chad and Alaska will be resurfacing, and that it will reveal that Bebe is also a Handmaid of Ru's who went undercover as a competitor. Then it's she who will decide who the winner is...and it just might be Bendelacreme. Stay with me here. Maybe this is just wishful thinking, as I've been #TeamDela all along, but maybe there's something to it.
The Handmaid's Tale
I am not of the belief that Chad and Alaska in their handmaid garb were only there to bring the queens back to compete for a second chance at the crown. Ru could have done that herself. Did Chad Michaels have to do skits sneaking onto the set of All Stars 2 and kidnapping each eliminated queen for them to join the redemption episode? Nope, they just strutted on into the workroom with no introduction. So you can't tell me we're done with this theme.
The fact that they teased us with three of the five eliminated queens being featured for a comeback in the sneak peak for that particular episode, and later showed that all five were considered, shows me that they're taking this theme and running with it. I think they've got secrets tucked under those bonnets.
Drama Sells
If there's anything this show loves to do, it's tug at our heartstrings. We all remember the pain of watching Bendelacreme go home during her season when she deserved a spot in the Top 3. We felt for her and voted her Miss Congeniality because we all felt we could relate to this sensitive Seattle queen and her terminally delightful ways. And the show know that. So why not show her losing once again?
Again, this theory supports the idea that Ben was paid or required to leave the show for reasons only known to the producers. Except unlike the last time I mentioned it, this time it's not meant to benefit another queen, but Ben herself. It's very possible that because drama and shocking moments are what this show thrives on, that this was a round-about and exciting way to get Ben to win, without being predictable...the way winning 5-6 challenges and then going home with the crown would have been.
Stats Don't Lie
While we've had queens leave the competition without being eliminated, none of those people were ever a shoo-in for the crown. Willam, Adore Delano and Eureka O'Hara, while they were all doing perfectly fine in the seasons they left during, were also not technically poised to win, meaning none of them had the highest scores in the competition at the time of their departure.
However, Ben did. And not only that, but Ben is guaranteed to have the best score. Even if Shangela won a challenge in the final episode, she'd still be one win behind Ben. And while the number of challenge wins don't always make a winner (i.e Shea Coulee vs Sasha Velour,) overall score and being in the bottom the least number of times does (winners Tyra Sanchez, Violet Chachki and Sasha Velour are good examples of this.) And while Ben was never in the bottom, Shangela was.
If Shangela wins, that would make this season the first ever where the person who won the most challenges and had the best track record did not win. If that's the case, how will we judge future seasons?
Bebe Zahara-Okay
While I'm very happy for Bebe Zahara-Benet for getting a second chance to showcase who she is and introduce herself to all the Drag Race baby fans, I was extremely underwhelmed by her performances and attitude during All Stars 3. And funny enough, the judges werent't.
The judges spent the entire season praising Bebe to no end. They didn't put her up for elimination when she did poorly in the Bitchelor challenge, they gagged over her perfectly fine but nothing to write home about dress in the Warhol challenge, and producers even gave her a Diana Ross song to lipsync to against Trixie. Again, something is fishy. I also feel that Bebe has been playing dumb all season. The Bebe I know is smart, sassy and above all the nonsense. But this season, she plays her asides like she's completely out of it and eliminated Aja after she helped her create her winning 70s look, without ever letting Aja stand up for herself during consultation hour. That's not the Bebe who won Season 1. And I don't think she's changed. I think she has something up her Diana Ross disco sleeve. And it might just be that she chooses who wins the competition.
Angry Shangie Angie
After Aja called Ben, Bendelachrist, the internet took ahold of the nickname and ran with it. Afterall, she sacrificed her own self to save a fellow competitor, and brought Morgan back...who we all thought was dead. How biblical can it get? Well Ben jokingly mentioned her new nickname in a recent tweet and Shangela took offense to it. See the conversation below.
While the context of the discussion gets a bit blurred, we know that it all started with Ben throwing shade at Ru for her recent controversial comments about trans people competing in Drag Race. And with the use of the hashtag #Bendelachrist, Shangela got angry. Either for using the lord's name in vain (we all know Shangela is Christian - Halleloo!) or for acting like she made a huge sacrifice. But didn't Ben make a huge sacrifice? She gave her spot up, saving either Trixie, Kennedy or Shangela herself the axe. So why is Shangela so angry and acting like they know something we don't? I'm guessing that Shangela does incredibly well up to the end of All Stars, and that they give the crown to Ben. And that that's why Shangela is acting like her sacrifice wasn't so bold.
Only time will tell.
Until this Thursday, we'll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, tell me your predictions in the comments or on my Facebook page. No absolute spoilers, only theories and guesses please! Thanks for reading and please give me a like on Facebook or subscribe for more Drag Race-related content. Afterall, Season 10 is fast approaching.
