 |
| Photo: FX |
Largely on the sidelines last week, Pray Tell takes center stage, and unsurprisingly, Billy Porter knocks it out of the park, channeling all the feels as the larger-than-life emcee confronts his personal demons and darkest fears.
Pray is rushed to the hospital after passing out during a ball.. The doctors suspect internal bleeding and a low platelet count, likely due to AZT, the medication he was so adamant about not taking. Blanca and Judy try their best to console him, but their words don't make a dent.
"I'm sick of it...I'm sick of not knowing how fast or how slow I'm gonna go," Pray Tell says, his voice cracking. While hospitalized, Pray Tell meets Lewis, a black gay man suffering from pneumonia, which is likely a result of contracting AIDS. He scoffs when Pray Tell mentions the balls, and balks when Pray calls him a "posh queen." "I'm a college educated man," Lewis replies. I am not a queen." It's a short, terse conversation, one underlining the masculine/femme and class schisms that still exist in the LGBT community.
However, all of this a warmup to the real psychodrama. Louis later suffers a fatal heart attack, and Pray gets a sedative in the arm when he tries to stop staff from treating him. He wakes up to a roomful of flowers from well wishers. But what kind of well wishers leave cards that say "Die bitch?" Guess who's back? Miss motherfuckin' Caaaaandy!" And Candy is living her best afterlife; photoshoots with Mapplethorpe, lunch with Lee--that's Liberace--and hanging out with Alvin Ailey. "I'm with people who understand me," she says, and Pray Tell connects the dots: Candy was living with AIDS. She--or her ghost--asks him pointedly why exactly is he fighting so hard to stick around? Another ball? To drink in a bar where the number of patrons gets smaller and smaller? To drown in his own bile while "Saint Blanca" holds his hand? She encourages him to take a bottle of pills and join her, but he resists.
"Love's In Need of Love Today" makes much better use of Candy and the impact of her death, framing it as part of much larger question about what it means to be alive, and the struggle to find a reason to believe things will get better when there's not much evidence they will.
His former ballroom antagonist isn't the only person to visit his bedside. Pray Tell's stepfather also makes an appearance, and while neither man explicitly says what went on between them, the stepfather's pathetic comeback ("You seduced me!") says enough. Porter has been candid about his own history of sexual abuse, and when he screams "I forgive you!" it feels as if the character and the actor are attempting to cleanse themselves of the grime dumped on them by their abusers.
Costas, a former lover who died from AIDS last season, also shows up. However, as happy as their reunion is, it cannot last. As the lyrics to song Pray performs in his fever state underscore, Costas, like so many, is gone. It's futile to carry a torch for a man who's flame has gone out.
Pray Tell's bout of sickness has put planning the AIDS Cabaret squarely on Blanca's shoulders. But that's not what's really bothering her; as she confesses to Angel, she's feels guilty for pushing Pray Tell to go on AZT, and believes she'll be responsible if he dies. Angel, like a good sister(I know technically Blanca's her mother but they feel like sisters in moments like this) reassures her that's not true.
Meanwhile another battle is brewing with her landlord Frederica. She starts things off on a typically bitchy note by tearing down a flyer Blanca put up for the AIDS Cabaret in her salon. Blanca dismisses her as in denial and out of touch. However, Frederica responds by naming the people she's lost to the disease. She then invites herself to the cabaret, going on and on about how she wanted to be a performer but couldn't stomach being told what to do. Of course the woman playing Frederica is legendary Broadway star Patti Lupone, so it's only right she come and make the girls gag with a sickening rendition of "I'm Still Here."
But just when Blanca thought it was all good, the other shoe drops. Turns out Frederica is using her attendance as a distraction so her son can clean out and board up Blanca's shop. Blanca won't go down without a fight, filing a lawsuit and holding a protest--mama plans on doing two a day--in front of her salon.
Backstabbing, wannabe Elizabeth Taylor tycoons aside, the cabaret accomplishes its goals: raising money and providing necessary catharsis, for both the audience and the performers. During the show Blanca reveals her HIV status, and Pray Tell pulls himself up to join her for a duet on the Stevie Wonder classic that gives the episode its name.
Pray Tell eventually checks out of the hospital. However, an unwelcome guest has followed him home. "Every dark night of your soul, Candy's gon' be there," she taunts filing her nails. But the fight has returned to Pray, and he snaps it's not his time. And while I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Candy being used as the ghost of sequined, suicidal temptation, if 'ole girl was gonna haunt anybody, it'd be Pray Tell.
The scene puts a fine point on the series' central message: choose life, even when the world has given you every reason to lay down and die.
Other Thoughts/The Shade of It All
- Ricky and Damon touching Lulu's hands to comfort her during Judy's song about loss was a nice, subtle way to show she's still missing Candy.
- Candy was serving "Greatest Love of All" Whitney and I'm here for it!
- Well well, Miss Elektra showed up to not one, but two events for the community. But mother is not a singer. No ma'am.
- "Did she always have dyslexia?" Oh Papi if you have to ask it doesn't matter anymore.
- "Bring it like it's 2015!" Nothing ages faster than the future. But the girls were bringing the looks.
- "I said back to the future. Not Sinbad after Weight Watchers!"
- "Now get up and put on some cologne that make you smell like an old whore."
- "This bitch is crazy. First she wanna evict me now she wanna be my friend?"
Comments