Here's why this video makes me tear up.
Laganja Estranja first competed on RuPaul's Drag Race in Season 6 in 2014, which incidentally was a terrific season. Bianca Del Rio, Adore Delano, Courtney Act, Darienne Lake, Gia Gunn…huge personalities, some of whom (Gia, Bianca, Darienne) were not afraid to say incredibly mean things on camera. Watching it now, it's a lot of fun to see people like Bianca and Courtney already in their final form and also like Ben Delacreme and Trinity K. Bonet, who would absolutely flower on later All-Stars seasons.
But about Laganja. Her entrance was legendary:
Everybody on the show got pretty sick of her and the way she talked, all "YES, gawd" and "MAW-ma" and especially "Okurrrrrr!" She was basically the star of Untucked until she got sent home, so there are a LOT of clips of her crying. And pretty much immediately everyone on the franchise added "Okurrrrrr!" to their vocabulary because it's a lot of fun to say. Laganja was not fully baked for Season 6, and I think she'd agree with that.
This video is from All-Stars 6 in 2020. Trinity K. Bonet (from Season 6! I just mentioned her!) has won the challenge, because she too has come a long way since her first season. She's not worried about the lip-sync assassin.
Then Laganja drops from the fucking ceiling, brings back her iconic entry phrase ("Oh, y'all wanted a twist, eh? Come on All-Stars 6, let's get sickening!"), ends it with a triumphant "OKURRRRRR!" and everyone loses their shit.
She's so confident, so herself, and also she's smoked some pot recently so she's not freaking out like she was constantly on S6.
The lip-sync starts out pretty evenly matched, in my opinion. But Laganja keeps accelerating. By the last third, Trinity is out of moves and is just clapping, while Laganja breaks out stunt after stunt after stunt. It's great.
In Untucked, Laganja says, "I want to walk away from today being like, ‘Okay, that’s what it’s supposed to feel like. It was so good to be back.’". I hope she achieved that. Because it was great to see her.
