RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 11 Group 1: Start Your Brackets Now!

Posted in: Paramount+, TV | Tagged: drag race, rupaul

RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 11 Group 1: Start Your Brackets Now!

RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars is back with the tournament-style bracket again for Season 11, and the first six queens started it off strong.

Published Sun, 24 May 2026 16:07:08 -0500
by Eden Arnold
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Article Summary

• RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 11 brings back the tournament bracket format, with 18 queens split into three groups.
• Orange bracket standouts include Morgan McMichaels, Dawn, and A'keria C. Davenport across music, design, and improv.
• Dawn wins the bracket, while A'keria advances after a tie with Morgan, setting up the next Drag Race showdown.
• Despite strong performances, the Drag Race All Stars format still feels rushed, limiting queen growth and bigger arcs.

It's baaaackkk! Welcome, girlies, gays, and theys and everyone in between to another fabulous season of RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars. You thought last year's All Stars 10 was big? It was (kind of), then just never returned to the previous version. Confused? That's okay, buckle up as we race through the first bracket of All Stars 11.

So, first things first, last year saw the 10th anniversary of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, and to celebrate, RuPaul decided to riff on a sports bracket, bringing us 18 competing queens across three brackets, March Madness style. All Stars 11 has repeated this format, bringing us 18 more queens once again in three groups. Each bracket has 6 queens who compete in non-elimination challenges over three episodes, then at the end two move on to the next round, in a convoluted points system, a'la Rate-A-Queen. Up to speed now? Great! Off we go into bracket 1 of All Stars 11.

This year's orange bracket has A'keria C. Davenport, Dawn, Lucky Starzzz, Morgan McMichaels, Morphine Love Dion, and Mystique Summers.

Their first challenge is a breakdance performance, with queens recording a verse and presenting on the main stage. As far as challenges go, this one was lackluster. It's a little weird, but it was giving the season 6 "No she betta don't" challenge, and even that was better than this one. But, the top two are Dawn and Morgan, who is an absolute delight to see compete again. Shout out to our season 2 queens Mystique and Morgan, Drag Race may have changed several times, but they prove a seasoned queen who knows her shit is still a thing of absolute beauty. Morgan comes out of the gate strong on this one, winning $10,000 and two points. The non-top queens do the whole point exchange thing, which happens after each challenge.

Challenge number two is a design challenge, and they may as well just give it to A'keria right now. And yet, we still go through it, because seeing Lucky Starzzz design something is always a treat. The queens are tasked with designing a couture look using materials from different gay bar themes. Dawn gets piano bar and her look was alright; I guess, I didn't get it. Lucky gets kitsch, a'la Hamburger Mary's, and she makes a party monster look that's absolutely delightful – I mean, she is wearing a donut as a skirt! Morgan gets leather bar, Morphine goes tropical, Mystique goes country, and A'keria gets the white elephant of the bunch with a "white party" theme. Ignoring the fact that the last one isn't a gay bar theme, she absolutely turned it. Her look is gorgeous, and obviously, she wins the week.

For the first bracket's final challenge, they have to pair up and improv their way through selling products on the Home Spooky Network – as spooky gals themselves. Werewolf Dawn and zombie Morphine were alright. I don't particularly care for the over-the-top cringe style acting, but that's what they delivered, and I guess it worked for them, because the judges were gagged. Vampire Lucky and Mystique, as a bride of Frankenstein-type monster, struggled this week, and it may have just been a difference in styles. Not an overwhelming success, but at least mostly watchable. And finally, call her mummy, A'keria, and ghostess with the mostess, Morgan hit it out of the park this week with their challenge. They not only work well together, but they are hilarious, and I want literally anything they're selling. Theirs was the only one I not only watched all the way through, but also went back and watched again.

Nonetheless, it's not "Eden's Drag Race," it's RuPaul's, and he chose Dawn and Morgan as the final top queens of the bracket. Dawn wins (yawn), and her points move her directly into the next bracket. That leaves one spot left, and after all the queens doled out their points very fairly, A'keria and Morgan were tied, leaving RuPaul to break the tie and give A'keria the final spot. Personally, I just want to see Morgan compete forever. Kick out the elf child and put Morgan and A'keria in the next bracket; these baby queens need to be schooled by everyone's favorite aunties.

But I digress. At least we have A'keria moving on, and any queen who doesn't move on from any bracket can be brought back by the judges as the "wildcard" pick. For most of the queens, though, this is where their All Stars 11 journey ends, which is an annoyance of this format. It doesn't really feel like there's time for any kind of arc or for us to get to know the queens better. If they're annoying at the start, there's no time for us to see the true side of them and be less irritated by them – they just come off irritating and leave the season without any redemption. I love that we get to see more queens and a bigger variety, but it just feels hollow, which was forgivable for a season, but now that it looks like this is just the format? Rotted, mama. Throw it away. It's not as bad as the original pairs nonsense, but it's getting there, which is a look best left back in 2012.

RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 11 is streaming on Paramount+ with new episodes every Friday.

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