Transparent Season 3. Part One

TV’s best comedy/drama/tragedy, Transparent, is back for Season 3 in all of its sexual/pansexual/transsexual glory as creator Jill Soloway brings us back into the tumultuous lives of the fallible Pfefferman family.  Here’s a look at Episodes 1-3…

Episode One:  Elizah
It’s a bummer that the first show out of the gate is probably the weakest episode of Transparent we’ve seen.  While the show starts promisingly with Rabbi Raquel (the magical Kathryn Hahn, promoted to full-time cast member this season) jogging through misty woods to a soundtrack of Jacques Brel’s “Ne Me Quitte Pas”…this episode is devoted almost entirely to one storyline.  While Maura (Jeffrey Tambor) works one of her first shifts at the LGBT community center hotline, she receives a call from a confused young trans girl named Elizah.  When Elizah hangs up on her, Maura is so moved and involved that she spends the day tracking her down...   

Even this weakest episode of Transparent is full of taste, style, edge, and intelligence from start to finish.  But this tale plays out like a very sophisticated after-school special from the 80s, had we been more enlightened then.  The Elizah character feels contrived, and this is the only episode of Transparent that feels forced.  One of the show’s many revolutionary elements is not just in the casting of trans actors for trans roles, but how remarkable those actors are, and how fully integrated they are into the storylines.  Episode One is like “A Very Special Episode” that feels beneath the extraordinarily high level of artistry the show achieves week after week.  Plus, one of the ways in which the show soars is the balancing of all of the family members’ stories.  When The Leftovers did single-cast-member episodes, they deepened the texture and widened the context of the narrative and the characters.  Here, we just miss our other beloved Pfeffermans. 

Episode Two:  When the Battle Is Over
We’re now back in full-family mode in this episode, as we see Sarah (Amy Landecker) back with her husband (Rob Huebel); Ali (Gaby Hoffman) still with professor Leslie (Cherry Jones); Shelly (Judith Light) still with Buzz (Richard Masur); and Josh (Jay Duplass) still lost.   

This episode gets back to a special and compelling element to the show:  watching our protagonists make “bad” decisions, often based on sex and sexuality (you know, like people do in real life).  Transparent is wildly and wonderfully uncomfortable to watch…we see events and decisions colliding, and see the dangers ahead for the characters, but we’re always 100% aware of why they’re doing what they’re doing.  Rabbi Raquel is such a powerful counterpoint in the show, because she’s the most sure-headed:  the Pfeffermans are all “unlikable” in that they are incredibly selfish, sometimes disgusting, and always unflappably human.  

Episode Three:  To Sardine and Back
It’s amazing that Transparent can go to one of its weakest episodes ever to one of its all-time strongest so quickly.  In this episode, Sarah doesn’t get on the synagogue board; Maura gets a new hairstyle; and Rabbi Raquel reunites with an old schoolmate.  And in the big set piece, the entire cast unites to celebrate Maura’s birthday, in which she makes some startling revelations. 

The birthday dinner scene, which employs almost every major character in the show, plays to all of Transparent’s strengths.  The writing, directing, and acting in this sequence is stunning:  not only does this creative team keep multiple plates spinning in the air simultaneously, it seems to effortlessly keep the family dynamics in constant turmoil and upheaval.  In front of everyone, Maura announces that she’ll be having gender reassignment surgery without first telling girlfriend Vicki (Anjelica Huston); and says she’d like to be called “Mom” from here on in, without a thought to Mom/Shelly’s feelings.   

It’s these moments where the show is peerless:  not only does this scene refuse to turn Maura into a martyr for easy audience digestion, but it gets to one of the most provocative ideas in the show:  Maura may think she’s transitioning, but she still thinks like Mort in terms of his patriarchal privilege.  Maura does and says whatever she wants in the moment, with little regard to others’ feelings.  She’s still “the father” in terms of cultural gender family roles.  When she refers to being at the dinner with “family" and "chosen family,” we hear Shelly say “I guess we’re not the chosen family.”  This is a show concerned about words and the effect of words, not just in regards to sexual identity issues, but across the board. 

Look for Chris to survey episodes 4-6 soon. Have you started watching Season 3 yet?

Comments

[NATHANIEL R]

I'm letting this serve as a reminder to me that I really need to start watching season 3 (loved the first 2 seasons).

[Rob]

It's a brilliant show. all around. And, I have to say, it has one of the loveliest theme songs of any series out there, ever.

[Suzanne]

Yeah, I tend to go back and forth on the show because I find the characters so irritating and privileged, but the theme song is incredibly beautiful. It seems that streaming shows are bringing back great theme songs - House of Cards, Kimmie Schmidt and Orange is the New Black (I love Regina Spektor) are also shows that make me stop and play their theme songs, every time.

[DJDeeJay]

I'm almost done with season 3 and while the show is still so great, i'm finding this season troubling. Major things happen with no consequences (Maura has a major physical and emotional breakdown in a mall and we never hear of it again?) and major character shifts pop up without showing us how they got there. So many parts work but this season's stories and moments feel so disconnected.

Also, in that last paragraph: "When he refers to being at the dinner with his “family and his chosen family,”

I'm sure you didn't mean it, but that should be "When SHE refers to being at the dinner..."

[eduardo]

Elizah a weak episode? HELL NO. It's a terrific opener for the season. It might not be as showy and flashy as Kina Hora last season, but it's incredibly nuanced and poignant. And Jeffrey Tambor is taking his third Emmy based on this single episode alone. His reactions during the phone call scene with Elizah are tremendous.

When the battle is over is an OK episode, it takes the action of the rest of the characters where they were left at the end of S2.

To Sardine and back is one of the best of the season. The whole Pfefferman dynamics during the dinner after Maura announces her "gender assignation surgery" (please correct me if the name is wrong) is priceless. And LOL @ Shelly when she claims she also transitioned.

P.S. I just want a turtle like Nacho ♥,