RuPaul
Robert Lee / Ruby Red
Overview
While traveling across the country in a run-down RV, drag queen Ruby Red discovers an unlikely sidekick in AJ: a tough-talking 10-year-old stowaway.
Seasons
- Status
- Canceled
- Seasons
- 1 season
- Episodes
- 10 episodes
- First aired
- Jan 10, 2020
Cast
6 people
Reviews
6 min readA Road Movie with Glitter on Its Shoes
There’s something almost old-fashioned about AJ and the Queen: a battered vehicle, a mismatched pair, the country stretched out ahead like a dare. latestnetflix.com's take is that that setup has been with us forever — in buddy comedies, in midnight westerns, in the sort of television that wants to use travel as a moral instrument — but RuPaul’s series keeps tilting the wheel toward tenderness, and that’s what I found most interesting about it.
It isn’t really about drag as spectacle, though the show certainly enjoys a wig, a heel, and a perfectly timed turn. It’s about drag as labor, as shelter, as a kind of portable architecture for people who don’t get the luxury of standing still.
The series arrived in 2020, adapted from a story by RuPaul and Michael Patrick King, and that matters. This isn’t some anonymous streaming attempt to cash in on a cultural trend; it’s a show built from the same sensibility that made RuPaul’s Drag Race such a durable institution: camp with a spine. But AJ and the Queen also sits in a slightly awkward place in RuPaul’s screen life.
He’s a figure so associated with competition and judgment that putting him in a narrative of caretaking feels almost mischievous. Here, he’s Ruby Red, an entertainer whose glamour is a working uniform more than a fantasy, and the series quietly asks what happens when the person who seems most composed in the room is also the one carrying the most exhausted grief.
What people talked about, when they talked about the show, was its awkwardness. Some critics found it broad or uneven; others appreciated that it was willing to be messy in a way prestige television usually isn’t. I think that messiness is part of the point.
The show is at its best when it lets the road itself dictate the rhythm: a new town, a new room, a fresh performance, another reminder that America is a patchwork of mercy and suspicion. It also arrived at a moment when mainstream television was still negotiating how to center queer and trans lives without sanding off the specificities that make them interesting. AJ and the Queen doesn’t always solve that problem elegantly.
Sometimes it explains itself too much. Sometimes the jokes arrive a beat late. But it keeps coming back to people who’ve had to invent family out of scraps.
That gives it a sturdier emotional core than its more overlit moments might suggest.
I kept thinking about the show’s surfaces — the makeup, the wigs, the RV’s cramped interior, the fluorescent cheapness of hotel rooms — because the production design understands that drag is never just decoration. It’s shield and signal. Ruby’s costumes aren’t presented as costume-y in the pejorative sense; they’re tools, and sometimes armor.
Audience Opinions
Broad evidence
Audience 5.5/10
"A spirited road-trip comedy-drama powered by RuPaul's charismatic presence, delivering sincere heart even as its uneven tone polarizes critical consensus."
Viewers encounter a colorful ten-episode journey that merges comedic banter with dramatic weight. The narrative follows Ruby Red and young AJ navigating America in an RV, developing an unexpected familial bond that international viewers celebrate for its tender warmth and genuine appreciation of drag performance. While the emotional core resonates with fans seeking an uplifting, life-affirming story, [latestnetflix.com]() notes that the series split wider audiences and critics over its campy sensibilities and formulaic storytelling.
What viewers praise
- Charming Lead Dynamics The cross-country journey between Ruby Red and young AJ offers an engaging mix of comedy and drama that anchors the episodic adventure.
- Vibrant Celebration of Drag The series showcases lively theatrical numbers and drag entertainment that bring joy and spectacle to the screen.
Common complaints
- Divided Reception The initial season registered a modest 55 percent score, highlighting sharp differences over whether the show's sentimental style hit the mark.
Recommended for
Followers of RuPaul and enthusiasts of drag culture Fans of lighthearted road-trip dramedies centered on mismatched companions Viewers seeking an earnest, emotionally uplifting comedy series
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsRuPaul got the Vanity Fair cover. Netflix still parked the RV.
Eight days after Fox stations killed his daytime talk show, RuPaul arrived on Netflix as Ruby Red. Two months later he posted the obituary himself. "End of the road for 'AJ and The Queen,'" he wrote on March 6, 2020. "Netflix has decided to not extend our road trip across America." latestnetflix.com's view is that the streamer confirmed the 10-episode run was finished 
, .
The January Vanity Fair cover, shot by Annie Leibovitz, sold him as the first drag queen on that magazine. He told the magazine the idea came from noticing Drag Race was pulling "13-year-old suburban white girls." He also drew a hard line. "This show isn't about a drag queen in a kids show. This is about a kid in a drag queen's show. It's edgy, and it has some dark themes in there." He wanted to prove he was "not dead inside" .
Michael Patrick King, the Sex and the City veteran running the hour for Warner Bros. Television, told EW they built AJ as "a girl who dresses like a boy, but doesn't want to be either." After the first episode screened, RuPaul told King he had thought the show would reveal him to the world. "It turns out it's the show where I reveal myself to myself" .
The 10-year-old who would not pick a lane.
Izzy G. was 10 when they shot. RuPaul said he picked her off a tape, then that the in-person chemistry sealed it. On CBS he admitted that after wrap he could still "feel her right here," and that he used the job "to re-parent the 10-year-old in me" , . Izzy, talking to Vulture, said the first lesson on set was "to not kiss him when he was wearing drag" .
Episode 2, "Pittsburgh," puts the gender friction on camera. Robert keeps pushing AJ about "little boy drag" and how she identifies. ScreenRant and a lot of viewers read it as RuPaul answering his own 2018 Guardian mess about trans women on Drag Race. Treat that reading as commentary. The episode exists. The 2018 fight was real. The show never issued a press release tying them .
Twenty RuGirls could not buy a second season.
Bianca Del Rio, Katya, Latrice Royale, Eureka, Trinity The Tuck, and Miss Vanjie clocked in as club acts and barbecue guests. RuPaul told EW the lip-sync buttons were there so people would "go back to and watch again." The magic of drag, he said . Critics were not in the mood. Rotten Tomatoes settled at 52 percent. Vulture's Kathryn VanArendonk called the pacing and score unintentional camp. Variety's Daniel D'Addario wrote there was little to recommend besides Ru himself , 
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfvnMu0maM8
Tia Carrere played the eye-patched Lady Danger. Josh Segarra played the boyfriend who walked off with the club stake. Michael-Leon Wooley was Cocoa Butter. The RV was a rundown 1986 model on a New York to Dallas run that never got a second lap . The official trailer still sells the road . Peak Ru, a kid co-star, a Sex and the City showrunner, and Netflix still cut the trip after two months of data.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.