‘All Stars 2’ doubles up on RuVenge: 2 queens return to stay & 3 sashay away

On a scale of one to 10, the amount of crazy served up during this highly anticipated “RuVenge” episode of “Drag Race: All Stars 2” soared to 12. After revealing that all four previous send-offs were back to compete last week, Thursday’s (Sept. 21) episode brought the shockers and shade throughout the entire hour. Hold on to your wigs henny, because these 60 minutes fly by in a whirlwind of drama.

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For the maxi challenge, each formerly departed contestant had to pick one of the still remaining queens to be their partner.  Alyssa Edwards chose Alaska, Ginger Minj picked Katya, Tatianna selected Detox, and CoCo Montrese paired up with Phi Phi O’Hara.

With the unprecedented departure of Adore Delano earlier in the season, Roxxxy Andrews was left without a partner. With RuPaul’s direction to put on a comedy show, Roxxxy’s challenge was to host of the live event.

The pressure ran high. For the teams earning the Top 2 spots, the queens who had yet to be sent home would be safe from elimination, and each of their recently-returned partners would then move on to lip-sync for their lives. The winner of this battle would not only remain in the competition, she would then have the power to send one of the bottom two queens home. If this is already too much to handle, keep dipping that tea bag, because the surprises keep coming.

Slaying the competition were Tatianna and Detox, and Alyssa and Alaska, which meant both Detox and Alaska were safe. And though Katya was also announced as safe, the same didn’t apply to her returning partner, Ginger. For the queens looking for redemption, falling in the middle wasn’t going to cut it. It’s not that Ginger did poorly, she’s supremely talented — but she didn’t quite outshine Tatianna and Alyssa enough to earn her way back in.

Falling to the bottom this week was Roxxy — who even while making fun of herself being a terrible host, was also a terrible host in reality — and the difficult-to-watch pairing of CoCo and Phi Phi. Like Ginger, Coco was immediately sent home, while Roxxy and Phi Phi’s fate was left in either of Tatianna or Alyssa’s well-manicured hands.

Both Tatianna and Alyssa rocked the lip-sync. It actually made us sad knowing one of these incredible queens would have to go through the trauma of being eliminated again, when they’ve been outperforming Roxxxy and Phi Phi the entire time …

Lo and behold, RuPaul recognized this, declared them both winners, and decreed they’d be sending home the person they’d chosen after all.

Excuse us a moment — we need to check our pulse to to make sure we ain’t dead. Like, what? Are we dreaming? Bravo, Mama Ru! It’s like she read our minds! Never afraid to bend the rules when need be, this surprise decision was no doubt made with the best interest of the viewers in mind. While it may seem like she’s handing over the power as to who goes home, she has not. Perhaps it was absurd to think the Emmy Award-winning host would ever relinquish that much control of her fabulous empire.

RELATED: RuPaul on being an Emmy front-runner & his ‘Drag Race’ legacy

Oddly enough, the least surprising part of the episode came at the very end. Both Tatianna and Alyssa had picked Phi Phi to leave. It appears that the queen who bashed Logo on social media after last week’s episode, announcing that she wouldn’t return for the finale reunion taping, wasn’t in competition to win the title, anyway.

She still claims editing has made her out to be the sole villain, but Logo doesn’t appear to have a serious vendetta against Phi Phi. They publicly support her on social media, just like everyone else.

Can’t say we’ll miss her. RuPaul has said time and time again that this competition is all about raising the girls up, not bringing anyone down — that regular life already does that enough of the time. We can’t wait for the show to return to form next week: The shade thrown once again in good snarky fun, healthy competition without backstabbing, and all the wonderful performances from all the remaining talents yet to come. “Drag Race” has never needed a villainous character to make the show interesting, and “All Stars 2” is no different.

“Drag Race: All Stars 2” airs on Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Logo & VH1.

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