Candy's Fate on 'Pose' Sheds Light on the Frightening Reality Facing Trans Women

June 2024 · 3 minute read

What came about to Candy on 'Pose'? Her personality's storyline highlights the occurrence of violence in opposition to trans women.

Source: FX

WARNING: This article comprises spoilers from Season 2, Episode 4 of Pose

Critics keep lauding the FX drama Pose as one among the maximum essential shows on television these days. And after its fresh Season 2 storyline that includes Candy Ferocity — who’s played through actress Angelica Ross — the all-too-difficult and often-violent plight of transgender women was once after all dropped at the forefront.


Though the episode was once challenging to watch, it forced us to just accept a hectic reality that very a lot existed in 1990 and, devastatingly, nonetheless exists as of late. 

What came about to Candy on Pose?

In Episode 4, the breakout persona — and co-founder of the House of Ferocity — used to be discovered useless in a motel room closet. Though Blanca confident her friends that police had been on the lookout for the offender, Elektra briefly pointed out, "The NYPD doesn’t care about a murdered transsexual. We’ve never been treated with respect or dignity."

Source: FX

But Angel refused to let her good friend’s demise be forgotten. "Candy would’ve wanted us to fight," she instructed the grieving group. "She would’ve wanted us to stand up and say this is f----d up."

At her memorial, Candy’s ghost equipped closure to several of the characters, including Billy Porter’s Pray Tell, who she had an ongoing feud with. "I forgive you," she said to the emcee. "You need to know I was a forgiving woman. How the f--k else you think I dealt with all the backstabbers in this world?"

Filming this episode nearly broke the actors.

Angelica was given a head’s up about Candy’s fate through series creator Ryan Murphy, but published in an interview with TV Guide that taking pictures the precise scenes was deeply emotional.

Source: FX

"I was devastated, but I understood the responsibility of it," Angelica, who is a trans woman like her character, shared. "When I got the script, I literally had to take breaks reading it because it was so heavy and so much. It was beautiful."

Even when lying in the casket, she struggled to keep from crying. "My makeup artist had to touch up my makeup several times," she admitted, including that the second the solid held up their lighters in the funeral home hit her the toughest. "I hear the sound of the lighters and I broke. I was crying Niagara Falls tears."

The episode ended with one final ballroom performance from Candy and a heartbreaking statistic: More than 1,000 trans and gender nonconforming folks had been murdered round the global since 2016.

Source: FX

"I honestly feel like the phoenix that is sort of rising out of Candy’s ashes," Angelica defined in a talk with EW. "I am Candy. Candy is me, and so the reality is that walking out of my house today, the possibility is that my story could end the same way. My story can end in violence, too."

Ryan advised Deadline that he didn’t really feel it used to be proper to jot down about the epidemic of HIV/AIDS and no longer the violence trans women revel in each day. "It’s important to talk about this issue right now in our culture," he mentioned. "At best, [their deaths are] on page 24 in a newspaper and then the next day they’re gone and forgotten."

We look forward to seeing what different powerful issues Pose will touch on this season. Watch new episodes each Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET on FX.

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