Emmy Catch-Up: Pose

Every year, I watch the six submitted episodes of every series I don’t regularly watch that’s up for one of the Emmy series prizes. This year, I’m getting a jump start to check out the entire season of some of most high-profile shows I didn’t watch when they originally aired.

Pose: Season 2, Episode 4 “Never Knew Love Like This Before” (B+)

This show isn’t consistent at all in its style, but that makes it more interesting to watch because it constantly changes how it’s presenting its characters and its world. Candy has always been a supporting character whose appearances have been mostly confrontational, though she did come through for Elektra in a big way in the previous episode when she came to her looking for help. Her death felt very sudden, especially since it wasn’t due to her having contracted HIV or AIDS. It didn’t immediately feel real despite Blanca’s very explicit words, and the rest of the episode was like a dream as a result. I’m not usually that fond of shows that bring characters back to life for imagined moments after they’ve died, but that device ended up being quite effective here, as each of the players we know and those we hadn’t met before had an opportunity to confront the way they treated Candy. Pray was right to admit that he was never particularly nice to Candy, and naming the new lip-syncing category after her was a sentimental tribute. Among the many conversations Candy returned to have, her parents confronting their own issues accepting her for who she was when she was alive were among the most poignant and moving. Giving her the chance to perform her show-stopping lip-sync performance as she was wheeled out of the funeral home was a formidable and emphatic way to say goodbye to a character whose presence was typically confrontational yet who still embodied so many aspects of this community.