[Shaun]

37th Place: Alyssa Edwards (Season 5, All Stars 2) - finished 6th and 5th respectively

Obviously, Alyssa is one of the show's most iconic and memorable queens. She is a walking meme, a tremendously talented girl and full of unpredictable quotes. She has made a name for herself and is the only queen, to date, with a Netflix special following her life.

So why do I place her this low? A handful of reasons, really...



The chief one? Phi Phi was right; Alyssa was handed an awful lot of free passes and "safe" placements just by virtue of accidentally making RuPaul and other judges piss themselves laughing. See All Stars 2, and her Snatch Game as Joan Crawford. Absolutely no resemblance whatsoever, but she read out an IMDb page of quotes in a ridiculous voice and pulled some faces and it was apparently enough (but then, Tatianna, Detox and Roxxxy sucked anyway). She somehow won the stand-up challenge just by shouting one-word catchphrases that aren't even that funny? whilst Alaska did all the leg work, and had AS2's most obvious example of production "rigor morris" in being given the only character in the historic women of the world lipsync number, in Annie Oakley, with any comedy.

And if you look back on season five, she was frankly pretty piss poor at every respect bar the ballet challenge. Her runways were ram-shod, her Snatch Game as Katy Perry is an all-time-worst, and she just couldn't act (Telenovela challenge) or harness her uniqueness into a commanding role. And I guess that's the most frustrating thing with Alyssa: it often looks like she isn't trying, and takes things for granted - Alyssa is the queen with the absolute worst reputation for showing up late, if at all, to gigs and meet-and-greets and the like - because she's been afforded so much lee-way by virtue of "the gays on Twitter find her hilarious".

I'm making a bigger deal of this than is actually necessary because I need to back up putting such a big name so low, but I just get the impression that the character of Alyssa Edwards is one big, draining chore to be around... but pretty bloody fun from far away.

Off the show, there have been even more memes, and I will always cherish this exchange with Violet Chachki and Katya when they improvised a pageant entry for Violet:

Memorable quote(s): "Bitch, sit your ass down and shut the hell up, bitch!"
"....Backrolls?"
"What the hell you squirpin' like the chirpin' like the bird?"
Best Runway(s): The camera dress was iconic, not gonna lie
Best Moment(s): I mean it would have to be the mirror moment from AS2, really, wouldn't it?

Remaining queens
Alaska - Alexis Mateo - Asia O'Hara - Bebe Zahara Benet - Bendelacreme - Bianca Del Rio - Bob the Drag Queen - Chad Michaels - Courtney Act - Darienne Lake - Detox - Eureka
Ginger Minj - Jinkx Monsoon - Jujubee - Katya - Kennedy Davenport - Latrice Royale - Manila Luzon - Mariah - Monet X Change - Monique Heart - Nina Bo'nina Brown - Nina Flowers
Raja - Raven - Roxxxy Andrews - Shangela - Sharon Needles - Shea Coulee - Stacy Layne Matthews - Tammie Brown - Thorgy Thor - Trinity the Tuck - Willam - Yara Sofia