For Marlboro native Brian McCook, returning to the most recent season of "RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars" wasn't hard. For one, the Boston-based drag performer — who is better known under the moniker Katya and who will appear on the show's reunion episode at 8 p.m. Oct. 27 on Logo — came into the televised drag competition in a better state of mind, and even had his mom along for the ride. He says, " 'All Stars' couldn’t have gone any better than it did."



"I was in a different place than the other girls were in," recalls McCook. "I had just come off the end of my season, and I'd only been off traveling for four minutes. ... As a performer, I hadn’t changed much. However, I had the advantage of going in for redemption. I didn’t have to go in and do better, I had to unlearn patterns of behavior."

For McCook, the main obstacle was overcoming anxiety, something he's wrestled with since he was young. "It's not the fear of dying, or the fear of being alone. It’s the fear of being embarrassed. ... Now, I'm 34 and enjoying a level of success that I'm grateful for … I don’t have enough time to be anxious. It’s just wasted time."

McCook says that when he appeared in RuPaul's seventh season "I had anxiety because there was isolation. Coming into 'All-Stars' with a fan base and knowing all the other girls — knowing ... 'I know who you are, I know what you do.' … I knew (eventual winner) Alaska was going to win if she showed up. That made me the freest bird."



He says having his mother, Patricia McCook of Marlboro, involved in an episode was "magical."

"She was the antidote to my anxiety," he says. "She was so nervous, that all I wanted to do was make sure my mom was OK, fed and comfortable, and that day (expletive) ruled. She got me to have fun and made Ru laugh a bunch of times." In the competition, McCook dressed his mother up to pair with his Russian-inspired character. "We won," he says. "She stole the show. ... She’s like Meryl Streep out there as a drag Russian peasant!"

Not every competitor was able to walk back into the "Drag Race" crucible as readily. Adore Delano, who in addition to competing on "Drag Race" appeared on "American Idol" and who has had a measure of pop music success since last appearing on the show, ended up quitting the competition within the first few episodes after harsh critiques from the show's judges. McCook says the judge's criticism was hard to hear and that, "they really went at her. If I were on the main stage, I would have completely shut down."

That said, McCook doesn't feel he's ever been judged unfairly on the show, but he does have definite opinions on the future of the show and of drag.

"The biggest problem," he says, is that " 'Drag Race' works best when it's a (expletive)-take on reality TV, and the danger is that it's just become another competition show. ... Its power is in being a critique of popular culture, but when it comes a part of pop culture, that’s when its dead."

RuPaul has famously said that "drag will never be mainstream," a position that's been called into question since RuPaul's recent Emmy win. But McCook counters that argument by saying that the award came from RuPaul's hard work on the show, not from the mainstreaming of the genre, and that drag, despite its higher profile, is still "a low-brow, countercultural, queer subversive art form that exists only after dark." He says "'mainstream drag is Jennifer Lopez, and that drag is what pokes fun of Jennifer Lopez, or what asks question of Jennifer Lopez."

McCook is quick to point out that it's not the show's ratings that are in danger — those are better than ever — but rather its cultural capital. "That’s not the fault of the show at all," says McCook, "That’s the fans. The fans have stopped thinking about it in a way that’s critical — taking it in a literal way."

"It becomes less a critique of pop culture, because now there's a tangible career for RuPaul's girls," he says, adding that the downside of that is "It becomes about being Jennifer Lopez. It becomes 'American Idol,' and we're supposed to point out what is hyped, bizarre and interesting about all of those things. ... If it gives up its power to criticize it, that’s when you know drag is dead. ... When it becomes subject of parody, rather than the vehicle for parody, that’s bad."

But cautions aside, McCook is undaunted, believing that, "Ru will fix that, because Ru is a (expletive) genius."

