WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Pose Season 3, Episode 3, "The Trunk," which aired Sunday on FX.
The latest episode of Pose Season 3, "The Trunk," opens in 1978 with a young Elektra down at the piers turning tricks to survive. At the end of the night, Elektra's friend reveals that she's lost her house keys, meaning Elektra has to return home where her mother, Tasha Jackson, is waiting up. It becomes quickly clear that the normally unflappable Elektra is afraid of her mother -- and for good reason. Her mother is deeply cruel and invalidating towards Elektra's identity. Tasha is also physically abusive towards her daughter.
As their fight escalates, Elektra decides to leave her house. Tasha, for her part, denies Elektra the opportunity to take any of her things, including the trunk that she will eventually use to store the man who overdosed during one of their BDSM sessions earlier in the series. After walking out, though, Elektra regains her pride and puts her lipstick back on, saying to her mother, "This is who I am. Farewell, mother dear." However, with an episode titled "The Trunk," you better believe that trunk is coming back.
Back in 1994, Elektra goes to her new job, which is running a phone sex operation (cleverly called Star 69). At the office, Elektra gets a call from Lulu, who tells her mother to not come looking for her. Soon after, Elektra is confronted by two police officers, who take her in for questioning. As the cops reveal, they're working to clean up the city under orders from viral video star Rudy Giuliani, who was at that time the mayor of New York City. They want information on some of Elektra's clients that they can make an example of.
And while Elektra initially refuses to name anyone and asks for her lawyer, the police tell her that they'll get a warrant to search her workplace and home. This scares Elektra, who knows that they'll find the trunk with her dead client. Elektra then says she'll play ball and uses what's supposed to be a phone call to her lawyer to contact Blanca. She asks her daughter to go and get Elektra's money as well as remove the trunk containing the body. After the phone call, Elektra is brought to mens lock-up, as the police have essentially reneged on their word and indeed arrested her.
Blanca and Papi head to Elektra's apartment, where Ricky -- who has been staying with her after leaving Pray Tell in the previous episode -- lets them in. When Papi and Ricky struggle to lift the case, Blanca tells them the truth about what's in the trunk. Although they're reticent to help for fear they'll get in trouble with the police, Ricky and Papi do indeed help, and they get the trunk to Blanca's apartment. They store the trunk in Damon's room, but they're able to smell something terrible coming from the trunk, which is understandable because there's a dead body inside.
Blanca then reminisces about the history of the trunk, causing the show to jump back to 1983 when Blanca, Candy and Lulu were all Elektra's children. In those early days, Elektra and her children were in a particularly shoddy apartment and struggling to afford food.
That night at the piers, Elektra meets Cubby, Angel and Lemar, who are homeless teenagers at that time. Lemar and Angel, who are cousins, ran away together and met Cubby along the way. When a man propositions Elektra and Angel, Elektra refuses to allow Angel to prostitute herself and instead tells them to go and ask for Blanca at their apartment. Elektra then tells them that she is now their mother. The trio go running to Elektra's apartment, where they eat Chinese food with their new housemates.
After the power goes out, though, Elektra comes up with a plan to finally get enough money to help her family survive. They head back to Elektra's home, and after causing a ruckus while attempting to remove an air conditioner, they get into the house. Elektra and Blanca start carting the former's trunk out, but they're confronted at the door by Tasha. Initially, she threatens to call the cops, but Elektra threatens to make a scene, and Tasha agrees to give up the trunk and let them go.
From there, Tasha -- who claims to be lonely -- tries to start playing nice with Elektra, saying that she can come home provided she tone down who she is a bit. However, this is anathema to who Elektra is as a person, and she refuses to be anyone but her authentic self for anyone else. "My whole life is dedicated to toning it up," Elektra says, "about settling for more. [...] I am sorry that you are only able to look upon me with fear and disappointment. I'm sorry that you won't allow yourself to see me. The pain of your disapproval will no longer distract me from going after everything I deserve in this world." Elektra and Blanca then leave.
Pose then returns to Blanca's apartment in the '90s. Christopher soon arrives and immediately smells that something is amiss. While Blanca tries to redirect Christopher, he starts investigating Damon's room and discovers the trunk. After Christopher gets frustrated that Blanca isn't being honest with him, she tells him the truth. At first, Christopher is shocked, but he soon comes to understand how systemic racism kept Elektra from going to the police. After that conversation, Blanca bails Elektra out of jail. However, Elektra is initially annoyed that Blanca let so many people in on her secret. Afterwards, Elektra and the others throw -- with some minor mishaps and the body slipping out of the trunk -- throw the horrifying thing into the water near a sewage treatment plant. The trunk is officially gone, and its denizen is buried at sea.
Back in 1983, Elektra takes her children to their significantly nicer new apartment. At first, they're confused, but Elektra reveals that the apartment is their new home. Elektra tells her children that she wants them to start winning trophies at the ball, though she doesn't explain just where she got the money for the apartment. However, Blanca soon investigates Elektra's room and her trunk. Inside, Blanca finds only a picture of Elektra and her mother, making clear that she sold all of her nice clothes and finery to afford the apartment.
Yes, "The Trunk" jumps around a lot, so we're in the '90s again. In Blanca's apartment, Christopher reveals that he pulled some strings and got the changes against Elektra dropped. However, Elektra gets angry about this, as she doesn't want to be beholden to a stranger. Blanca, though, explains that the things that Elektra did for her and the House of Abundance when they were coming up makes them even. Blanca then gives Elektra the picture of her and her mother, which she'd been storing for all of those years. Elektra then explains that the reason she named her house Abundance was that, with her family at her side, she "finally had everything."
Oh, and Blanca got accepted into nursing school, which everyone celebrates.
As Blanca and Elektra reminisce about their time together, Pose looks at when they walked the ball as a house for the first time. Elektra and her children go to the ball and absolutely dominate, winning by a decisive margin in pretty much every category. After they finish and get their trophy, Elektra declares that they are the House of Abundance, thus revealing just how that legendary group was founded.
Created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Steven Canals, Pose stars Mj Rodriguez as Blanca Rodriguez-Evangelista, Dominique Jackson as Elektra Wintour, Billy Porter as Pray Tell, Indya Moore as Angel Evangelista, Ryan Jamaal Swain as Damon Richards-Evangelista, Hailie Sahar as Lulu Ferocity, Angel Bismark Curiel as Esteban "Lil Papi" Martinez-Evangelista and Dyllón Burnside as Ricky Wintour. New episodes air Sundays on FX.
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