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This week’s episode of Pose was a nice change of pace, focusing mainly on Mother Elektra, a character who has been larger-than-life from the very first episode when she was leading a raid on a museum to get costumes for that night’s ball. Elektra has always done what she needed to do to survive, but she does not suffer fools easily, she demands gratitude and respect from her children and everyone else, and there have been times when Mother only does what’s best for Mother … and that is usually only after everyone else has shit on her so much that she just has no time for their foolishness. But coming out of the gate as strong as she did, we’ve never really known what make Elektra tick … until now.
And to show us Elektra’s story, the episode jumps across three decades, and revisits an incident from Season 2 that plays a major part in this story, and Elektra’s story is really centered around a trunk, the infamous trunk that’s been the final resting place of one of her accidentally OD’ed clients from the Hellfire Club. With the club raided and shut down, Elektra has somehow parlayed her experience as a dominatrix into the owner of a phone sex operation. Coming into work one day, Elektra receives an unexpected visit from the police who insist she accompany them to the station, even though she has done nothing wrong. Knowing her connections to the piers and the club, the police are trying to squeeze her for information but she’s not going to talk … until they threaten to get a warrant to search her apartment. Keeping her cool, she asks to call her lawyer, but she calls Blanca and begs her to remove the trunk from the premises in case the police follow through on their threat. Blanca does not want to be an accessory, but family sticks together so she drags Papi into the scheme. And Ricky is staying at Elektra’s apartment so he’s dragged into it as well.
But the trunk isn’t just an impromptu casket. The episode flashes back to 1978, Elektra is working the piers and at the end of the night her friend has lost the key to her apartment, where Elektra’s street clothes are. She can’t go home looking like a woman of the evening … or a woman in general as we find out when she enters the house and her mother is waiting for Dwayne. Trying to sneak in, mother asks what Dwayne is wearing and the answer is ‘Halston’. That doesn’t go over well, but after some terse words Dwayne tells his mother that his name is Elektra and ‘I am a woman’. Mom isn’t having any of that and wants this person out of her house. And no, you may not take that trunk with you, ‘It’s in my house, It’s mine.’ The trunk contains all of Elektra’s possessions, furs, jewels, but she’s tossed out with just the Halston on her back.
While Blanca and the boys move the trunk back to her apartment, and Elektra is arrested (without being charged) and placed in a men’s holding cell (most likely an intimidation tactic to get her to spill the beans), we flash to 1983 and … Candy! Yes, Candy, Lulu and Blanca are with Elektra now playing Mother to them, and someone needs to earn some cash to put food on the table. Blanca offers to work the piers, but after Candy points out it’s Mother’s job to provide, Elektra admits that is true and it is she who will go to the piers to provide food for her children. Elektra has often come across as a very selfish, self-involved person, but here we see that she really takes her position as Mother very seriously. There she meets three boys — Lemar, Cubby and … Angel — and trying to protect them from the predators at the piers, gives them her address, tells them not to be frightened by Blanca’s wig, and that Mother Elektra sent them. This is how the House of Abundance was born, and again we see how truly caring Elektra is for her children. Back at the house, food is on the table and Elektra reminds everyone that Mother always provides. And then the lights go out because, as Lemar quips, ‘Mother Elektra forgot to provide a check to Con Ed.’
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Saying that she can’t tolerate this poverty and shutting down any notions of her children committing major crimes like kidnapping a rich kid, she strikes upon an idea to retrieve what is rightfully hers. Gathering up the children, Elektra takes them all to a house to break in (and surprised that now there’s air conditioning) but she won’t tell them where they are. Inside, she and Blanca go to the room to get … the trunk. Elektra shows Blanca everything inside, telling her it’s worth a small fortune, but they still have to get it out of the house. Sneaking downstairs, they suddenly hear, ‘Dwayne?’ Elektra’s mother says she doesn’t look like the person who this trunk belongs to and she’s calling the police, but Elektra challenges her to do just that so she can make a huge scene for the neighbors. Before things get too heated, Blanca jumps in (Elektra calls her Mother Teresa) to try and calm the situation.
And then the two actually talk. Mother tells how when she was pregnant, she hoped for a boy who would grow big and strong and take care of her, not leave her like everyone else has. Her words really connect with Elektra, and her mother even says that maybe they can meet on some common ground and rebuild the relationship because there are new people in the neighborhood and she feels like they watch her every night when she comes home from work. If Elektra could just tone things down a bit … oh, that was the wrong thing to say. She almost had Elektra reeled in but that set her off, telling her mother that she’s spent her life toning everything up. More money, more furs, more jewels, more everything so this is just not going to work. Elektra and Blanca leave with the trunk, apparently never to see her mother again.
Back in the present of 1994, Elektra’s bail is set but there’s a new complication. When Blanca’s boyfriend Christopher comes to the apartment, he immediately notices the smell. Blanca tries to explain it away as a rat, but he notices the smell is coming from the trunk. Blanca tells him everything, how the death was accidental but Elektra couldn’t call the police because she’d be accused of murder and sent to prison for life. That’s how it works for women like them. And Christopher doesn’t bat an eye. He didn’t flinch when Blanca told him she was HIV+, and he’s not going to run now. The call comes that Elektra’s bail has been set and she’s happy to be out but not so thrilled that now Papi, Ricky and Christopher know the contents of the trunk.
Flashing back to 1983, Elektra brings her children to a fancy loft apartment. They think they’re there to steal valuables but Elektra reveals that this is their new home. They’re all suspicious of her because she doesn’t have the money for anything like this. But Blanca knows. She goes into Elektra’s bedroom and opens the trunk. It’s empty save for a framed photo of Dwayne and his mother. Now that they have a new home, all Mother wants from her children is to slay at the balls and bring home all the trophies.
But there’s still the little matter of a body that needs to be disposed of. And Christopher, who helped put up Elektra’s bail, steps up with a plan — they’re going to dump the trunk in the waters near the sewage treatment plant where all if microbes and bacteria will consume the body. The deed is done, but back at Blanca’s apartment Elektra is overcome by everything, particularly by what Christopher has done for her. She does not want to be beholden to a man. What is she going to owe him now for everything he’s done? Blanca sets her straight, telling her that Christopher is her man and she did most of the heavy lifting. Without Elektra, Blanca, Papi, Ricky, Angel, Lulu … none of them would have anything if it hadn’t been for her. Blanca also tells Elektra that she was just accepted into nursing school which thrills her. Elektra is so proud and tells Blanca why she named them ‘Abundance’:
‘Because with all of you at my side, I finally had everything. A purpose, a mission, a family. Love.’ tweet
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Blanca asks if Elektra remembers when they all walked as a House for the first time and we’re back to 1984. Pray Tell is groaning about the outfits on display at the late night ball, category is ‘Once Upon a Time’, not ‘Prom Night Massacre’. He reads them for filth and is ready to wrap up the night, but he is notified that there is a new House ready to walk: The House of Abundance. And child, they slay the ballroom down with fabulous costumes depicting Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White and the Evil Queen. Of course it’s tens across the board. The House of Abundance is born. Blanca tells everyone else about nursing school, and Elektra toasts, ‘To family’, as she watching her children with true love and admiration.
It was nice for Pose to put a close on the trunk story, it was wonderful to see Angelica Ross back as Candy, and Jeremy McClain back as Cubby. It was great to finally get to know Elektra, to really dig deep into who is she and where she came from, to see what’s given her that drive we’ve always seen in her, that desire to claw her way to the top. But most of all, it’s fantastic that they finally gave Dominique Jackson the spotlight. Elektra has had a moment here and there (notably the scathing read she delivered to the snooty white women at the restaurant on Long Island) and always delivers some fabulous one-liners, but this week she got to perform, to show us all the emotions of Mother Elektra … and while I loved it from start to finish, it just made me all the more sad that in just four more episodes it will all be over and we won’t see Mother Elektra again. I’m glad we had this moment.
What did you think of this episode? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
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