The groundbreaking FX show “Pose” will come to an end after the upcoming third season, show co-creator Steven Canals announced on March 5.
“It was a very difficult decision for us to make, but this has been an incredible journey, and we have told the story that we wanted to tell the way that we wanted to tell it,” Canals said in a video-recorded statement. “Although we know you will be sad to see the show go, this season will be filled with all of the love and laughter and tears that you have come to expect from the Evangelista family. I, along with our incredible collaborators, never intended on changing the television landscape. I simply wanted to tell an honest story about family, resilience, and love. We love you and hope you will join us in celebrating this final season.
The final season of the acclaimed show is slated to debut with a two-episode premiere on May 2 at 10 p.m. on FX. While the first season had eight episodes and the second season ran 10 episodes, the final go-around will have just seven episodes. The first two seasons are also on Netflix.
The show, which is also led by co-creator Ryan Murphy, follows New York City’s queer ballroom scene from the 1980s into the 1990s and navigates the HIV/AIDS crisis, sex work, relationships, the competitive ballroom landscape, and the everyday lives of folks in diverse chosen families consisting of transgender and gay individuals of color living under one roof.
“‘Write the TV show you want to watch!’ That was what I was told in 2014 while completing my MFA in screenwriting,” Canals added. “At the time we weren’t seeing very many Black and Latinx characters — that happened to also be LGBTQ — populating screens. And so I wrote the first draft of a pilot the ‘younger me’ deserved. ‘Pose’ was conceived as a love letter to the underground New York ballroom community, to my beloved New York, to my queer and trans family, to myself.”
Despite the success of “Pose,” many folks have expressed disappointment over the lack of recognition for the show. “Pose” received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Television Series – Drama and Billy Porter became the first out gay Black man to land an Emmy for Best Actor in a Drama Series for his role portraying Pray Tell, but the trans stars who have helped make the show a hit — including Indya Moore, Dominique Jackson, Angelica Ross and MJ Rodriguez — have been snubbed on multiple occasions. The show has been recognized with Emmy nominations such as Outstanding Casting for a Drama Series, Outstanding Period Costumes, Outstanding Hairstyling for a Single-Camera Series, Outstanding Drama Series, and Outstanding Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series.
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