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Sad news for “Pose” fans. The series’ creator, Steven Canals, took to social media on Friday to announce that the groundbreaking show’s upcoming third season will be its last.

According to Canals, the decision was one the creative team made voluntarily.

“It was a very difficult decision for us to make,” said the Bronx-born writer of Puerto Rican descent. “But this has been an incredible journey and we have told the story we wanted to tell–the way we wanted to tell it.”

“Pose” centers on New York City’s drag “ballroom culture” of the ’80s and ’90s–the underground queer scene that was made up of chosen “families” of dancers and models. The series was innovative for its trailblazing diverse cast, made up mostly of Black, Latinx, queer, and trans performers.

The show was the star-making vehicle for Latinx queer and trans performers like Mj Rodriguez, Indya Moore, and Angel Bismark Curiel.

According to Variety, the third and final season will take place in 1994 and focus on Rodriguez’s character, Blanca, as she “struggles to balance being a mother with being a present partner to her new love, and her latest role as a nurse’s aide.” The third season will also explore the devastating impact of the AIDS epidemic through Billy Porter’s Emmy-Winning character, Pray Tell.

According to Steven Canals, “Pose” was the type of show he had always been dying to see on TV, but one that Hollywood wasn’t in the habit of producing.

“’Write the TV show you want to watch!’ That’s what I was told in 2014 while completing my MFA in screenwriting,” Canals said in an additional statement. “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.”

In likewise bittersweet statements, the rest of “Pose”‘s creative team bid farewell to the show that was life-changing to so many people.

“My life has been forever changed because of ‘Pose,’ a drama series that centered around trans and queer people, people living with HIV/AIDS, and Black and Latinx people – without trepidation or apology,” executive producer Janet Mock wrote in a statement.

She continued: “It’s left an indelible mark on our culture, modeling that a TV show can be successful and entertaining while also casting authentically, hiring LGBTQ talent in front of and behind the camera, and moving people living on the margins to centerstage.”

“‘Pose’ has been one of the creative highlights of my entire career,” said series writer and co-creator Ryan Murphy.

“To go from the beginning of my career in the late 90s when it was nearly impossible to get an LGBTQ character on television to Pose — which will go down in history for having the largest LGBTQ cast of all time — is a truly full circle moment for me.”

Now that “Pose” has proved it is possible, hopefully there will now be more shows that aren’t afraid to center queer people of color as the center of their own narratives. The newest season of “Pose” will premiere on May 2nd, with the final episode airing on June 6th.

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