In 209, written by Janet Mock and Our Lady J, something similar happens: Blanca's business landlord burns down Blanca's nail salon to drive her out. But then instead the episode is about Elektra, Lulu and Angel taking Blanca to the beach for the weekend to cheer her up.
And the season finale written by Ryan Murphy & Brad Falchuk & Steven Canals works the same way: We start with a crisis in Blanca's health and some problems in the Ball community. But then rather than those problems inciting complications they incite community. And the episode becomes just a series of wonderful moments of different members of this extended family being together and helping each other.
As I wrote on Friday, one of the big lessons I took from UCLA was the need to have conflict in every scene. And yet, each of these episodes is profoundly compelling without any of that. Why is that? Why doesn't it get boring?
Maybe in part it's because in the broader context this is a show about a community of people who others reject and persecute. And so those issues and hardship are there hanging over the narrative even if they're never alluded to. Episodes that focus on the friendship within their community are compelling precisely because that's what we want for them more than anything, and what they often aren't given.
But I also wonder if they're so refreshing because they refuse to take the path we expect. We've all been trained by a million hours of television, movies, books and video games to expect conflict.
And in each of these episodes, we start with what looks to be a major, episode-long problem: illness; loss of a business; a dead body. Which is to say, the episodes prime us to believe we're in familiar territory.
But then instead of following through with the beats we expect we get amazing moments like the four of them singing in the car at the end of 209, or the dancing at the ball in 210. And they land even bigger by virtue of not being what we expected.
POSE: It's a great show. 💙💚💛💜💗
