As my schedule always forces me to
wait until summer to review some of the more important series on TV that I
otherwise ignore, it is only now that I'm getting around to the third season of
Amazon's Transparent. Considering how
astonishingly good and genre-defying the series is (Season 2 made my top 10
list), it is not due to the lack of the quality that keeps me behind. And as
the series progresses, it continues to make strides.
In one of the most shocking
departures, the third season premiere devoted almost its entire length to Maura
(two-time Emmy winner Jeffrey Tambor) spending her day trying to track down
someone who called an emergency hotline she was volunteering at, apparently on
the verge of committing suicide. Her long and surreal search ended with her
collapsing of exhaustion, and the ambulance arriving to get her, classifying
her as a 'him'. The stay at the hospital forced her to finally realize that forty
years of living a lie was long enough, and she has deciding to go through
gender-reassignment surgery.
Her announcement of it to her
family at her seventieth birthday was, in atypical Pfefferman fashion, done
with a certain level of support that, frankly, is missing from almost
everything her ex-wife and children have come to expect. Indeed, the most harsh
reaction came from Rita (Anjelica Huston) her/his current girlfriend who has
been supporting him ever since their getting together last season, but couldn't
understand why she couldn't tell her alone. In typical Transparent fashion, their conversation was interrupted by the
entire Pfefferman clan, who were in the middle of playing a game, and
gossiping.
It's hard to tell how the rest of
Maura's family will deal with this because they are almost entirely
self-involved. Sarah (Amy Landecker) is now back to cohabiting with her
husband, and trying to get involved with religious matters at her temple, where
she was unanimously rejected by the board. (Considering how self-involved she
acted when it came time to press the flesh, its a wonder they didn't
excommunicate her.) Ali (Gaby Hoffman) is now trying to teach religious studies
at the university her lover/mentor (Cherry Jones) works at, but considering that
we learned that this just may be a fling for her, and her general
unfaithfulness, it doesn't seem like it will last long either. Josh (Jay
Duplass) who gutted his relationship with Raquel last season, now seems on the
verge of wrecking his career in music as well; only his relationship with Ali
seems more secure. And Shelly (Judith Light) has decided to take the journey
her husband is on, and make it all about her, trying to create her experience
into a one-woman show. It's no surprise that the most real emotions come from
Raquel (Kathryn Hahn, doing Emmy worthy work), now having questions about her
relationship with God following her miscarriage last season.
Transparent
is not an easy series to watch. Some will be put off by the subject matter
altogether, others will be baffled by the constant shift in tone from drama to
comedy sometimes in the same minute. But one can't deny that Jill Soloway has
created one of the most stunning portrayals of a family in transition. There
are stunning visuals, daring flashbacks, and some truly biting comedy. This is
a series important not just for the trans-community, but for the world of the
family in general.
My score: 4.75 stars.
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