This week we only got one ball, so only one scene with Pray Tell, but that didn’t stop our girls from chasing their dreams and disposing of bodies, but more about that later. Let’s get into it.

We open the show this week with Angel (Indya Moore) filming why she should be the new Fresh Face of 1990 with Mrs. Ford (Trudie Styler). After a passionate plea, she leaves Mrs. Ford’s office sure she’s won the competition. So she takes her winning attitude, struts right into the ball, and kills it in the denim competition. The next day, while practicing poses with her favorite photographer, Papi (Angel Bismark Curiel), she receives a call letting her know that she didn’t win the Fresh Face contest.

While on a walk with Papi after the bad news, Angel and Papi share a kiss. Angel tries to pull back and apologize, but instead, she and Papi both admit that they enjoyed kissing each other. As a matter of fact, Papi decides that this is the perfect time for him to declare his love for Angel. In one of the sweetest scenes of the episode, Papi lets Angel know that she’s special to him and asks her out on an official date. Later, though, we find out that Angel never said yes to Papi and as a result, he’s been walking around pouty for the past few days. Angel admits to him that she’s scared to ruin the friendship they share but eventually agrees to go out with him. While getting ready for her date, Angel gets called into Mrs. Ford’s office where she learns that she is being sent to a Wet N Wild shoot with a promise that her face will be in drug stores everywhere.

Angel starts off super nervous during the shoot but once she starts using the poses that she and Papi practiced she’s a hit with the photographer. She gets so wrapped up in her shoot she loses track of time and realizes she is going to be late for her date with Papi. When she tries to leave, the photographer lets her know that she’s booked till 9 p.m. and she can either be a social butterfly or a superstar. Angel stays and misses her date with Papi. Later that evening, Papi wanders in the house to find Angel bragging about her day. When she tries to apologize for standing him up, Papi shuts her down and tells her that he’s not going to let her apologize for doing what she had to do, which was to chase her dreams. He does let her know though, that he’s a prize too and one day she’ll see that.

On the dominating front, Electra (Dominique Jackson), the mother we love to hate, is meeting with her drug-addicted client Paul (Frank De Julio), for some more punishment. Paul wants to add a gas mask that slowly releases drugs and after agreeing to an additional $300 tip, Electra okays the mask. That is until she comes back to the room and finds Paul dead after choking on his own vomit. Electra leaves Paul in the harness and runs straight to Blanca’s for help. Blanca (Mj Rodriguez) wants to call the police, but Electra is unwilling because she knows that the police will never believe a transsexual’s word, even over a dead white man’s. Realizing she went to the wrong person for help, Electra rushes off to find Candy (Angelica Ross), with Blanca in tow. Candy tells them that if they go to the cops Electra is definitely taking the fall and Electra is not going to like Rikers Island prison. She takes Electra and Blanca to meet her friend Euphoria (Peppermint) before they decide to call the cops.

Euphoria shares a story of being assaulted by a john and how the cops took his word for it over hers, and how it resulted in her spending time in Rikers Island last summer. Knowing that calling the cops isn’t an option, Candy takes Electra to the one person who she knows can help solve their problem, Ms. Orlando (Cecilia Gentili), the cheap “plastic surgeon” that Candy got her messed up butt implants from last season. Word in the community is that Ms. Orlando is good at making people who were alive, but aren’t anymore, disappear, and she’s clean about it. After a sizable cash payment from Electra, she agrees to help them. With the help of a suitcase, lye, thread and pleather, Ms. Orlando has the girls wrap Paul’s dead body in a cocoon, sew him up, and place him in a trunk in Electra’s closet with other boxes on top of it. She tells them to sew him up super tight with no openings so that when he starts decomposing, he won’t leak over Electra’s shoes. While she does this, she tells the story of a woman she knew in Honduras who killed her abusive husband and all the women of the town came over in solidarity to help her with the cocoon so she wouldn’t get caught.

Two weeks later, Blanca finally meets up with Electra and tells her that Paul has become just another fading missing person news story. She lets Electra know that she has been worried about her and asks how she’s been doing. Electra tells her that she’s dealing with the fact that Paul’s body belongs to her now. She lets Blanca know that Euphoria was right, they may compete at the balls, but when times get rough, their community closes ranks to protect their own. As the show ends, we see Blanca and her children in the drugstore celebrating Angel’s first ad for Wet N Wild.

Ballroom Highlights

Even though we only saw one ball this week, I can’t stop thinking about that heart-shaped fascinator Pray Tell (Billy Porter) was wearing.
I loved seeing the softer side of Electra this week. Her mother-daughter heart to heart with Blanca while protecting her from whatever was going to happen with Ms. Orlando, and her constant prayers for Paul was a nice departure from her otherwise self-centered demeanor.
The music in this episode was so good! Songs included Bobby Brown’s “My Prerogative”, Janet Jackson’s “Black Cat”, Vanity 6’s “Nasty Girl”, and Evelyn “Champagne” King’s “Shame”. I almost missed a few scenes from singing too loud.

No new episode next week. Recaps will be back in two weeks!

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This Is A Ball, Not A Brawl: ‘Pose’ Season 2, Episode 2 Recap

Photo: Michael Parmelee/FX

Frank De Julio

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