Pose Season 1 (2018)
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Pose Season 1 Review
Pose is a drama television series from FX directed by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. It’s such a wonderful show.
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“What is that on your lips?
Oh, it’s just your favorite lip gloss. Sperm“
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The first season premiered in 2018 and it unfortunately only consists of eight episodes, but they are very long in length thankfully so. Basically, it tackles the 80s queer ballroom scene with the dances, the categories and the house competing against one another. It consists entirely of trans and gay actors, and it’s the most admirable trans-related show that we’ve gotten so far. This is all about the trans women and how great some of them are.
I loved the emphasis on the houses and how queer people got their new homes within this community and particularly these houses. The show’s exploration of queer motherhood is so poignant and absolutely beautiful, but it also tackles many other issues with the HIV epidemic being the most important one.
This is the best depiction yet of how this virus ravaged the LGBT community back in the eighties. That’s because it’s an unflinchingly brutal look at it while also being heartbreaking and simply incredibly emotional in many scenes. The season is riddled with this issue maybe a bit too much, but still it’s understandable given how horrible a problem it was back then.
It also deals with homophobia and especially transphobia incredibly well. But I would say that the depiction of the lives of trans women was particularly fantastic and oh so real. The sex work life, the balls, SRS and in particular the exploration of those attracted to trans girls and how it’s neither straight nor gay, but something that needs a new categorization.
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The show also features a killer opening tune that I only wish it was longer. The ballroom scenes are all exquisite, though I wish they were a bit better explained or explored. But the judging, the competition and especially the rivalries are very fun to follow and suitably over-the-top. I liked the soundtrack, the costumes are phenomenal across the board, the pacing is almost always terrific and the direction from Murphy is his best yet.
The dialogue is amazing throughout while the emotional connection is always there, though at times the show becomes too emotionally exhausting, and I personally would like to see more humor and irreverence from it given that the humor that we get is fabulous through and through.
Let’s analyze the characters now. Stan is your typical businessman who cheats on his wife, but with a trans sex worker. I found him utterly unlikable, though important as he’s so believable. The relationship between the two is complex and well explored. Patty as the wife became more interesting and stronger only later on. Matt as his boss is so unlikable.
I love Angel. Her journey here is wonderful, and she’s simply such a sensual, sweet soul difficult not to root for. She’s probably the most realistic character on the show full of such real people. Pray Tell is such a great, instantly iconic gay male character who holds a lot of emotion in, and always perseveres. He’s such an inspiration, and one of the emotional anchors of the show.
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The same of course goes for Blanca who is my favorite character on the show. She’s such a great soul, very caring, but also tough with her children. She’s the ultimate mother figure in this community and her relationship with everyone is super sweet. Her scenes with Pray Tell are always wonderful.
Candy is fun, Lil Papi is boring to me personally and Ricky is the hottest one on the show. Damon started off as a main character with a great arc, but quickly became much less interesting unfortunately as he got too much of a happy ending. Helena the dance teacher is wonderful, Lulu is suitably villainous and Sandra Bernhard as Judy is very amusing.
But let’s talk about the greatness that is Elektra of the House of Abundance. She is accused of being too theatrical, but I adore that about her. The show needs humor to balance all of that emotional levity and she’s the perfect fit for that. Her story of house changing, dating, rivalries and gender reassignment surgery is very powerful and varied. But she’s simply a lot of fun with her phenomenal one-liners and insults that are constantly hilarious.
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The actress was weak at first, but became better later on. Speaking of acting, the standouts are MJ Rodriguez who is amazing and can sell a lot of emotion and of course Billy Porter whose performance here is nothing short of miraculous as he changes emotions within one scene. He deserved his Emmy win undoubtedly. But everyone else did a great job too.
Overall, the first season of Pose is too serious and tragic, but it has its humorous characters and moments also. It’s technically stupendous while being very moving throughout with instantly iconic characters in abundance and important issues tremendously well explored. Finally, we got a great new LGBT show that is almost perfect in execution.
Worst Episodes: Access and Pink Slip.
Best Episodes: Pilot, Mother’s Day and Mother of the Year.
