Pose Season 1 Ep. 4 Recap: 'The Fever'

Photo: FX

After focusing on the bonds between parental figures and the children they take as their own, Pose returns to the terrain of gender and sexual identity in 'The Fever.'

More specifically, it deals with the question of what makes someone real, and how that question weighs on the lives of transwomen like Angel, Candy and Elektra. Judging by Pray Tell's exultation that "spring has sprung," we're a few months removed from the winter time events of "Giving and Receiving." And if spring means anything, it means the blossoming of plump fruits, the fruits in this case being the juicy booties and tig ol' bitties of the girls walking in the ball's juicy category. While Elektra bemoans the category as a sign the scene is taking a vulgar turn, her daughter Candy is eager to show off her body. She ignores Elektra's warning and gets rewarded with a Brittanica-worthy read from Pray Tell and 6's across the board from the judges, the lowest score ever for a member of the House of Abundance.

Outside, Angel tries to comfort Candy, telling her they're statuesque, not curvy--but there's a place where they can buy some curves tho'. The words "pump party"--risky underground get togethers where transwomen inject themselves with silicone to get that DD cup or apple bottom ass-- immediately entered my head. Candy and Angel go to Clarissa, the assistant to a former uptown doctor who's now operating under the table. She's very knowledgeable, but her $1,000 fee is too rich for Candy's blood. Instead, she tries to fake her curves with some tragically obvious padding, and the crowd subsequently chops her to shreds. It earns her another read from Elektra, and they lash out at each other in a "I quit! Bitch you're fired!" scenario.

Afterward she heads to Miss Orlando, who is less reputable but cheaper than Clarissa. The whole scene looks very sketch, but Miss Orlando rubs salt in a big wound when she tells Candy and Angel they won't be able to pass without curves. And with that Candy slides her a few bills and hikes up her skirt to get her first injection. It pays dividends at first, as she serves some sickening Jody Watley realness at the next ball and wins her category, before passing out from a fever and waking up on a couch across from Elektra. It's here the two women finally begin to come to an understanding.

"Why the fuck would I come to you? The only thing you like to talk about is you...you don't want children, you want subjects, Candy snaps when Elektra asks why she didn't ask her about injections. "I hate what I see when I look in the mirror," she admits, tearing up. Surprisingly, Elektra lets down her guard, admiting she isn't happy with her own reflection either, and tearfully but firmly stating she's getting her reassignment surgery, damn the consequences. Not only does she show vulnerability of front one of her children, she even goes to get Candy some soup. And Elektra's heart grew three sizes that day...

But much of "The Fever" is about uncovering the human being underneath Elektra's flawless exterior. While a younger woman like Angel is still learning the highs and lows of being a kept woman, Elektra has been in the life for more than a decade with Dick Ford, a wealthy businessman. Despite his obivous affection, he fetishizes her as a forbidden fruit, his attraction based on thrill of "getting away" with sleeping with a transgender woman. He also makes it clear he will leave her if she goes through with the surgery. Until now, Elektra has always come off as larger-than-life and indomitable; but in her scene with Dick, she is small, soft-spoken and powerless, wincing when he condescendingly refers to her as a "penthouse princess."

"I don't feel incomplete, just inconvenienced," she tells Aphrodite Xtravaganza, who sashayed back into the ballroom after undergoing surgery in Bangkok. Elektra recognizes in her a freedom she lacks, and it causes her to break down. Like her later interaction with Candy, this is a different side of Elektra, one where her interactions with others are not combative or driven by an ulterior motive. Ultimately Aphrodite pushes her to do what she needs to do for her own happiness. "How lucky are we?," Aphrodite says. "We create ourselves. Shit we are the real Dreamgirls."

Angel is also struggling with what will make her feel real. While Candy and the other kids assume her life is perfect because she can pass through the straight world without detection, she's confronting her own body image issues. She opts out of Miss Orlando's services, but her insecurities come out when Stan can't rise to the occasion the next time they're together. She asks if he's losing interest, then if he's more attracted to Patty, since she's curvier and had his kids, then if he'd still like her if she had reassignment surgery, before accusing him of treating her like the porno fantasies he encountered in bookstores before kicking him out.

While she angrily tells Stan she wants to know what his deal is during their fight, it really feels like she's trying to figure out her own. Does she want reassignment surgery or not? Does she want curves or is she happy being more statuesque? Can she let herself believe men like Stan are truly attracted to her, or will she always fear she's a fantasy they'll grow bored with? My misgivings about Stan aside, it's understandable he wouldn't have the language to explain his attraction to Angel. In his world, sex means flipping through copies of Playboy, marrying a beautiful cisgender woman, likely having mostly missionary sex with said woman and keeping a cisgender mistress on the side. Nothing in his background could have prepared him for meeting and falling for Angel. They're from very different worlds, but they are both struggling to understand and define themselves.

While "The Fever," could refer to the disorienting angst the episode's three leading ladies feel about their own bodies, it's literal meaning is also laced with some deadly insinuations. The ever-present spectre of AIDS rears its ugly head again, as Damon throws up during dance class and comes down with a terrible fever. He admits to Blanca he and Ricky have been having protected sex, but the condom came off once. Her mind goes to the worst case scenario, but she leaves him alone when he grumbles about her dipping into his personal business. I found myself getting irritated with Damon when he bristled at Blanca's questions, and shaking my head as one misinformed thing after another spilled out of he and Ricky's mouths when they fought about whether or not they were infected. But their igorance makes sense, given the era (though sadly, some are still misinformed in 2018) and in Damon's case, his deeply conservative upbringing. His parents barely talked to him about sex, let alone gay sex. Talking about the disease those people get would have been unspeakable.

It's the blind leading the blind, so Pray Tell--who's stopped getting tested himself--arrange for he and boys to go get tested. I was tense during the entire sequence; Pose may revel in fantasy, but off the ballroom floor, reality rules.  So it's sad but unsurprising Pray Tell's results come back positive. His reaction is devastating to watch--Billy Porter takes you through all five stages of grief in less than five minutes--but he puts on a brave face and lies to the boys, before eventually telling the truth to Blanca, their shared secret deepening their bond.

'The Fever' ends with Damon performing in a spring showcase, with his performance earning a standing ovation and a "that's my baby" from Blanca. I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I'm happy the episode ended on a hopeful note. But on the other hand, Damon's success doesn't feel earned to me at this point. He's got talent, and he has the nerve, but things almost seem to come too easily to him.

One thing the 'The Fever' makes clear is becoming your authentic self is paramount for emotional survival. However, that achievement doesn't come without a cost. And if Murphy and Co. want me to stay invested in Damon's artistic pursuits, he's gonna have to start coughing up the coin.

Other Thoughts:

• All the actors came to play as usual, but Billy Porter and Indya Moore were this episode's MVPs. Moore in particular was spot on in conveying confusion, anger, sadness and self-doubt during Angel's fight with Stan. The scene where Elektra tucks while tearing up in front of the mirror was also quietly brillant. 

• Another short but telling scene: Candy examing her once smooth, plump butt, now riddled with busted, hardened silicone. Common sense says she should have known better than to trust Miss Jack O' Lantern, I mean Miss Orlando. But systemic social and economic oppression are a motherfucker. Hopefully Clarissa does a better job on Angel. 

• Was Ricky imitating Bill Cosby while taking care of Ricky? Well it was 1987, and The Cosby Show was the show. Jell-O Pudding eatin'...

The Shade of It All/Those One Liners 'Tho

• "The tittiness of it all!"

• "Is the category bore me to death?"

• "Well can a bitch get the wholesale price?"

• "You're whistling past the graveyard."

• "You're rebellious and usually boring, but I still have use for you."

• "If I squeezed you I wouldn't be able to get enough out of you to fill a Dixie cup of lemonade!"

• "These legs are real. These cheekbones are real. This whittled waist is real."