Pose :: Nightmares and dreamscapes

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Back to the drama this week, folks, but thankfully it wasn’t the complete tearjerker I expected from the previews. If you remember Season 1’s AIDS Cabaret that Pray Tell and Bianca put together for the patients at the hospital where Pray’s boyfriend Costas was dying, this year we have the third annual AIDS Cabaret ready to raise the curtain. By the way, that episode was also how Sandra Bernhard, now a series regular, was introduced as the AIDS ward nurse Judy Kubrak. This week’s episode started with a sickening ‘Back to the Future’ category — but still no lip sync in honor of Candy — that ended with Pray Tell collapsing on the stage.

Ironically, Pray had just started taking the AZT for his condition, basically forced on him by Bianca and Judy after his own butter remedy didn’t seem to be working. Pray would have rather clogged his arteries with cholesterol than poisoned his system with the drug, but seeing as Bianca was doing better — and still reeling from Candy’s murder — he decided to forgo the butter and take the AZT. Waking up in the hospital with Bianca and Judy at his side, the doctor revealed that as his symptoms manifested so quickly they are not AIDS-related but actually related to the AZT. Pray was right about not taking the meds all along … and he wasn’t shy about letting either of his well-meaning friends know it. Unfortunately while he was stuck in the hospital having the poison flushed out of his system, and luckily it was something he could recover from, Bianca was stuck with organizing the cabaret, a daunting task with a House of noisy children and her own dyslexia.

Bianca also has another issue to deal with — her landlord Frederica Norman who isn’t too thrilled that Bianca is plastering the nail shop with flyers for the cabaret. Bianca thinks Frederica has an issue with gay people, but that’s not it, she doesn’t like ‘the AIDS’. Frederica also lets Bianca know that as she so cavalierly accused her of only caring about the disease because it killed her hair dresser (and that had to be a dig by the writers at Nancy Reagan, who didn’t even say the word until her own hair dresser was taken ill), it also affected her family when her cousin Christopher died of ‘skin cancer’ … and no one came to the funeral because they all knew the truth. But Frederica also reveals that she had considered becoming an actress at one point, taking singing, dancing and acting lessons but decided it wasn’t right for her because she didn’t like being told what to do. But that’s not going to stop her from inviting herself to sing at the cabaret.

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But while Bianca has her hands full in the real world, Pray Tell is dealing with his own demons, fever and drug-induced as they may be, a sort of Ebeneezer Scrooge visited by ghosts of the past. One was his stepfather, a man who sexually abused Pray as a child. He asked for forgiveness — and then blamed Pray for seducing him — but Pray knew the only way to finally rid himself of that spirit, of that memory, was to forgive the man, however insincere it truly was. But it did the trick. Costas also paid him a visit, convincing him that he still had a lot of life to live. But there was one particular restless spirit that was particularly vexing to Pray — Miss Candy Abundance herself, living her best afterlife hanging out with luminaries such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Liberace, celebs that all died of AIDS … because she was also infected (now, this is all in Pray Tell’s fevered mind so we don’t know if that is a fact or not). But Candy still has an axe to grind with Pray and is there to lure him to her side of the veil, because while he’s been in a situation time and again having to say goodbye to friends and lovers, it’s going to get to the point where he’s going to be the last man standing at the ball room until his time comes and then the only person he’ll have standing over him is Bianca with her crocodile tears. Miss Candy knows how to deliver vitriol covered in honey. But he refused to take the bait. Instead, he walked down the hall to his own dream cabaret and gave us a thrilling performance of ‘The Man That Got Away’ from the Judy Garland version of A Star Is Born. Sadly, it was all in his head as Judy found him standing in the middle of the room in a daze.

Come the day of the cabaret, Bianca was notified that Pray was refusing to attend. Not because he was still sick — he was due to be released in the next day or so — but because he was still mad at Bianca and Judy for making him take the AZT. But the show must go on and Judy, and a shocking green sequined gown, sang Prince’s ‘Sometimes It Snows In April’ with backup from Damon, Lulu and Ricky. It’s not a song I’m familiar with but her performance was subtle and emotional and nearly brought me to a sob. Next up was Frederica performing Sondheim’s ‘I’m Still Here’ from Follies. For Broadway babies, what could be more glorious than La Lupone singing Sondheim on prime time television? You don’t hire Patti Lupone and not have her sing, and the moment was sheer joy. But … there’s something behind Frederica’s sudden desire to take to the stage. In fact, she’s doing all she can to distract Bianca, even inviting her to dinner to talk business, while her son and his goons empty out her nail salon, board up the windows and change the locks. Ouch.

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But the cabaret continues with only a partial performance from Elektra of Madonna’s ‘Sooner or Later’ from Dick Tracy that was … a nice effort but Frederica’s facial expressions said it all. At least Elektra, and her children, accept the delusion that she was good. Actually it was so bad it was good, and we have to give a hand to Dominique Jackson for selling the performance. Last up was Bianca doing Stevie Wonder’s ‘Love’s In Need of Love Today’. She gave a terrific performance and as she completed the first verse she saw Pray had finally gathered himself together to attend. Motioning him to join her, he finally did and the two again gave us a performance that sent chills up and down the spine, just like they did last year. It was a powerful moment, particularly as the camera panned across the faces of the patients, and if you didn’t get a few tears in your eyes, you need to check your pulse.

The cabaret was a success, earning more than $4,000, Pray Tell came home to have dinner with Bianca and children — who put him back on his butter diet — but Bianca got the rude awakening we were awaiting as she discovered what Frederica had done to the shop. But Bianca isn’t someone to be trifled with, and she’s already filed a lawsuit with the New York Housing Department. The next day she, Pray, Angel, Damon and Lil Papi stage a sad little protest outside the shuttered shop, but Pray knows it takes a crowd to be noticed. Out of nowhere the Evangelistas and the Wintours show up in solidarity with Bianca … even Elektra, because she has an outfit that needs to be seen. Mrs. Norman and her son happened to be driving by and witnessed the protest with her name painted on signs calling her a criminal, and her reaction was … ‘Oh, shit.’ Frederica may have met her match.

What did you think of this episode? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.