Entertainment

The 'Drag Race: All Stars' 4 Finale Included One HUGE Final Twist

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To culminate the most gag-worthy All Stars season to date, Monét X Change and Trinity the Tuck were doubly crowned the winners of All Stars Season 4. After enduring what was arguably the show's most intense season yet, all of the queens deserve a round of applause for making it through. But these two in particular triumphed its challenges in the fiercest way possible.

Monét X Change is the first queen of color to be inducted into the All Stars hall of fame, which is a huge feat for the show. Not to mention that both of them have perfectly mastered the balance it takes to be a well-rounded drag entertainer: they're glamorous, they're funny, and they know how to lip-sync for their legacies. They deserve all the condragulations they can gets for not one, but two hard-earned wins at the end of such an emotional run.

Considering the events of AS4, it seems only fitting that things ended with such a huge twist. It's not that past seasons were unsuccessful, but this season in particular brought more gags and goops than ever. It finished classically with an original lyric from each queen and some killer choreography, but the events before it were far from expected. There was Gia Gunn and her pot-stirring strategy that kept the crowd entertained before her Episode 3 elimination; there was the romantic twist on the "Snatch Game of Love" challenge; and, of course, there was Monique Heart's elimination of Latrice Royale in Episode 4, which came as a shock to many because she's, well, Latrice Royale.

The biggest cliffhanger in the show's her-story came in Episode 5, when the contestants returned to the werkroom after a funeral-themed roasting challenge to find the four eliminated queens waiting in their grieving attire. It was initially unclear what their surprise return meant, but fans later learned that it called for a temporary suspension of All Stars rules, meaning the queens no longer held the decision making power. Ru did.

He gave each of the eliminated queens — Jasmine Masters, Gia Gunn, Farrah Moan, and Latrice Royale — a chance to earn back their spot in the competition by participating in the inaugural LalapaRuza, a cutthroat lip sync battle. Each of the eliminated queens could replace someone in the race, and though Latrice was the only one who snagged a victory, Ru chose to keep both her and the queen she'd just bested, Monique Heart.

Latrice's comeback left a bittersweet mark on the season as a whole, and led some people to believe her return was all a Ru-se to get her closer to the crown. Latrice is already a fan-elected all-star, so it wasn't a far-fetched conspiracy, but it was ultimately incorrect. Latrice competed in three more challenges before being sent home for the last time by Trinity the Tuck. She miraculously outlived her best friend and competitor Manila Luzon (who Naomi Smalls eliminated in a fierce cut-the-competition way), which made the final four Trinity, Naomi, Monique Heart, and Monét X Change.

This season of All Stars kept viewers on their toes from start to finish, and after all of its peaks and valleys, it's going to be hard to top in the future. But as the Drag Race fandom and the empire's budget grows, it's promising that Ru, the mastermind behind it all, will figure out how to make things interesting. He always does.