The countdown to the final season premiere of Pose is officially underway.
After debuting the official trailer for season three earlier this week, FX and the rest of the Pose team are keeping anxious viewers satiated with a steady drip of exciting new updates and teasers. Next on the docket? Promo photos — and wow, what a sight to behold.
“Come thru Elektra!!” wrote Pose co-creator Steven Canals in a tweet that featured a glossy new photo of Dominique Jackson’s fan-favorite character. Dressed in an iridescent purple PVC minidress with matching sky-high stilettos, Jackson looks radiant as she stands — long legs slightly bent, hands outstretched in front of her — on a thin glass platform that appears to be floating on top of a body of water. Canals finished the tweet by teasing a bit about what we can expect from her character in the upcoming season, saying, “So excited for ya’ll to see the final season of Pose where we dig into her history. Trust and believe, you’re not ready.”
In a separate tweet spotlighting a similar photo of Mj Rodriguez’s central character Blanca, Canals wrote, “Look up the definition of ATE in Urban Dictionary and this is what you’ll see. When I tell ya’ll Mj Rodriguez ACTED all damn season. Baaaaabbbbyyy, ya’ll aren’t ready.” In the photo, Rodriguez wears a disco ball-inspired, glass-plated bodice with a pair of shimmering pants made from fringed tinsel. The actress looks incredible, with her hair blowing in the wind as she effortlessly serves in profile. Like Jackson, Rodriguez is also standing on top of water.
In the past, Pose promo photos have always told a story, often hinting at some of the themes that would be explored in the season. Those for season two, for instance, featured central characters Blanca, Elektra, Pray Tell (Billy Porter), and Angel (Indya Moore) striking their fiercest poses against backdrops meant to evoke Vogue covers. Fittingly, the groundbreaking series’ second season focused on how Madonna’s record-breaking classic single “Vogue” shifted the once-underground culture of ballroom. And in a storyline roughly inspired by trailblazing trans model Tracey “Africa” Norman, season two also saw Angel make major strides in the modeling industry, even as she tried to keep her gender identity a secret.
Judging by these photos, it’s still unclear exactly what the show’s third and final outing will be about. But knowing what we already know, it’s not hard to imagine that these photos, showing two trans women essentially walking on water, could be speaking to themes about accomplishing the impossible. In the season three trailer, Judy (Sandra Bernhard) praises Blanca for her work as a nurse’s aide, saying, “This job is not for the faint of heart. You’re a trans woman of color working in a hospital.” Later, Blanca says, “We rose from the bottom and we became stars.”
Pose has always been about trans women pushing back against systems designed to keep them down and, somehow, managing to rise above it all. When you think about it — is that really so different than walking on water?
The third and final season of Pose premieres with back-to-back episodes on FX on May 2.
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