This Hilarious Reality TV Series Just Debuted Its Best Season In 9 Years 

It’s Pride Month, which means that if you’re not watching RuPaul’s Drag Race, then you’re homophobic. However, if you aren’t watching or (gasp) have never watched, then don’t worry. There’s still time to watch before the end of the month. In doing so, you may even end homophobia. No pressure.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, you may wonder why Drag Race is so inextricable from queerness and the queer community. After all, it’s just a fun reality show! Wrong. Sure, Drag Race is a reality competition that immerses drag queens in challenges testing their charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent. But it also provides an honest and multifaceted representation of queerness by featuring contestants from every corner of the queer community. As they act, dance, sing, and design haute couture dresses, they also share stories about their upbringings and their often difficult coming-out processes. In doing so, they make queer viewers feel seen while educating non-queer viewers on issues affecting their queer friends and relatives. The show even gets political sometimes, urging viewers to vote while obliquely criticizing anti-queer and especially anti-trans legislation. 

All of this is to say that RuPaul’s Drag Race is the best and most politically significant reality competition on the air right now. Incidentally, it has also won five Emmys for Outstanding Reality Competition in just the last seven years. Even if it weren’t the cure for homophobia, that should be reason enough to watch. 

But wait … there’s more! The show’s spinoff series, RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, just debuted its best season in nine years. And you can enjoy it without ever having seen an episode.

For context, the spinoff competition selects the best and brightest of past Drag Race seasons and pits them against each other in new challenges that celebrate what previously made them stand out. The stakes are higher, the jokes are more personal, and the plastic surgery is more apparent. Drag Race queens often return to All Stars with brand new lips.

Meanwhile, Season 10 of All Stars has injected the franchise with fresh energy since its May premiere. In a massive deviation from the series’ typical format, the competition now employs bracket-style match-ups, corralling eighteen queens into three brackets of six and allowing the crème de la crème of each bracket to move on to the semi-finals. In addition to forcing a reset every three episodes when it finishes one bracket and moves on to another, it allows more queens than ever (eighteen) to appear on the show and showcase their fierceness to the world. This has facilitated some truly satisfying storylines even while whipping up delicious, catty drama. The best part is that it’s all very accessible to new viewers.

As dedicated viewers of the show can attest, Season 10’s relatively enormous cast of eighteen has allowed overlooked queens from past seasons to reappear on the show — and, in some cases, redeem themselves. For a longtime fan, it’s gratifying to see forgotten faves disprove haters and stage career-defying comebacks. On that same token, the show has reintroduced these Season 10 queens in such a way that Drag Race newcomers can appreciate them without knowing their backstories. If said queens perform well in their challenges, then even better: New fans immediately see how talented they are.

Equally as important is the wave of tomfoolery that has overtaken Season 10 of All Stars. There is no shortage of talent among this crop of queens, but one twist has rendered that talent insignificant. At the end of each episode, the “bottom” queens who didn’t score a win that week are forced to split four points amongst themselves. As you can imagine, they don’t decide how to award points based on vibes alone. They award points to whoever’s least likely to key their car. So far, this has led to chaos and ended friendships. And that’s just among the fanbase. In other words, the drama this season is fresh and tasty and leaves little to be desired. 

And did we mention that watching this show will end homophobia? Get off your non-sequin covered butt and borrow your friend’s Paramount+ subscription. All it takes is $5 and one hour of your time to save billions of gay people around the Milky Way galaxy. And it’s Pride Month so you have to believe all statistics about gay people.

Watch RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 10 on Paramount+.