Dominique Jackson, Steven Canals, Billy Porter, Our Lady J, Indya Moore, Janet Mock and Mj Rodriguez
Dominique Jackson, Steven Canals, Billy Porter, Our Lady J, Indya Moore, Janet Mock and Mj Rodriguez (Photo:
Rich Fury/Getty Images)

The category is: Grand finales. On Thursday, April 6, Pose released the trailer for its third and final season. When the show comes back to the small screen on May 2, the FX drama will be set in 1994, Pray Tell (played by Billy Porter) will reflect on his legacy while living with HIV-related issues and Blanca (Mj Rodriguez) struggling to balance being a mother with her career as a nurse’s aide. In the trailer, Blanca convinces her old friends to return to ballroom with one of her empowering speeches. “We’ll do it together, as a family,” she said. “I’m done running from myself, my destiny. I’m not running no more. Who’s with me?”

We all are, Blanca! Created by Steven Canals, Brad Falchuk, and Ryan Murphy, Pose dramatizes New York’s ballroom scene of the 1980s and 90s. The show broke fresh ground for queer representation upon its 2018 premiere by featuring television’s largest-ever cast of transgender actors in series regular roles, as well as the largest LGBTQ cast for a scripted series. In 2019, Porter became the first gay Black man to win an Emmy for lead actor in a drama for his portrayal of Pray Tell, a designer and ballroom emcee. 

Back in 2019, Porter told Deadline he hoped Pose would affect the perception of the LGBTQ community and the HIV stigma by creating empathy while pushing the conversation forward. “From what I see and hear on the ground, people seem to really be responding positively to it,” he said. “I’m not sure if we’re not just simply preaching to the choir still. I don’t really have control over that. I would hope that we would be able to maybe affect some people who never heard of this before and create a space for change. That would be my hope.”