FX
When you have a TV series set during the AIDS epidemic, an episode with the title ‘The Fever’ is already troubling for fans of the show because it suggests that someone we have already come to love over the course of the previous three episodes may be facing their own mortality. We already know Blanca, mother to the House of Evangelista, is HIV+ but it would be a terrible shock to the system if she suddenly took a turn for the worse. And the previews showing young Damon obviously ill, with a fever, were concerning as well.
Of course the spectre of AIDS now hangs even more heavily over the series after last week’s not-so-festive holiday episode, but with Damon suddenly becoming ill while at a dance rehearsal it causes concern with Blanca, especially since there is no reported flu going around. And that immediately leads her to question whether Damon and Ricky have engaged in unsafe sex. Damon assures her they have used condoms … although one did come off once. That was enough to alarm Blanca and after having a discussion with Pray Tell, who admits that he’s stopped getting tested, a plan is put into action to get all the boys of her house, including Pray Tell, tested once Damon is feeling better. They all agree, and after a few stressful days the results are in: everyone is negative … except Pray Tell. But he lies to the boys so as not to rain on their parade, but confides the truth in Blanca, fearful that he’ll waste away in a hospital where a nurse will refuse to bring his food (as he saw with his friend in the previous episode … and something that really happened in the early days of the crisis). But Blanca assures him that they will fight this disease. And they’d better because Pray Tell is my favorite character on the show!
The episode also dealt with issues of body image, particularly among the transgender characters. Candy Abundance kept throwing herself into the fire when there was a body category at the ball. As Pray Tell admonishes her, this is a category for the real women, the curvy girls, not a face category that Candy always wins. And Elektra warned her not to do it, and was not happy when Candy brought shame to the House of Abundance. But Candy found some support from Angel and the two cooked up a plan to get some ‘affordable’ silicon injections to give them a bit more tits and ass. But the option Angel picked out did not meet Candy’s definition of affordable, but the woman doing the injections would make sure they didn’t breathe funny like Lisa. I don’t know who Lisa is, but every time they brought her up, I laughed.
Candy did find a more affordable option and Angel had some trepidation when she saw the woman who would be doing the injections, a bit of a grotesque who said she did her own injections … and it showed. Yikes! But Candy went for it and competed in the next body category with her newly plumped behind and scored tens across the board. But the procedure came with a price as Candy collapsed on the floor and later saw visible evidence that something was not quite right. From the looks of things, Lisa may be in better shape than she is.
Angel, meanwhile, was questioning her relationship with Stan. She seems to have gotten over being snubbed on Christmas, but now he seems to be having some problems in the bedroom. Blaming it on too much booze, Angel is certain that his issue isn’t the booze but what she has between her legs. Stan tries to assure her that it doesn’t bother him and relates a time he went into an adult bookstore and was turned on by the ‘She-Male’ magazines, but Angel is convinced that he’s lost interest in her because of her little friend and because she doesn’t have the curves that she thinks his wife must have. Their evening ended with Stan being thrown out of her apartment … which is actually his apartment since he’s paying for it.
FX
And Mother Elektra has her own body issues down there. This week we met her sugar daddy (played by Christopher Meloni) and learned they have been together for ten years — more than both of his marriages combined. But Elektra is seriously entertaining having her bottom surgery despite her lover adamant that he likes his girl with something extra. After first stealing the money from the Salvation Army for her surgery, she now tells her children that she’s perfectly happy the way she is. But she’s not, and you can clearly see the anguish on her face and all the way into her soul. She wants the surgery but she is compromising herself for her man, who isn’t really anything more than a sugar daddy who passes through town every now and then.
After placing second in a competition against someone who is recenty returned to the scene after her own surgery, Elektra has a real heart-to-heart with her — and this is probably the first time we’ve actually seen this vulnerable side to Elektra, bringing some real humanity to the character — and she is told she needs to please herself above all. So at the risk of losing her cash flow, Elektra signs the papers to proceed with her operation.
Another strong episode for a series that is quickly becoming one of the best on television, and while everyone is excellent, I have to give a standing ovation for Billy Porter’s performance as Pray Tell. Watching him as he got his diagnosis was just devastating, and Pray Tell reminding Blanca that President Regan wouldn’t even say the word AIDS was a very important reminder of how people with the disease were looked upon then. It’s also a reminder that the virus is still out there 35 years later, and hopefully Pose will remind people about that.
Pose airs Sundays at 9:00 PM on FX.
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