Transparent: The Series and the Craft

[spb_text_block title="PODCAST - TRANSPARENT: The Series and the Craft" pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] Transparent: The Series and The Craft By Jacob Krueger [/spb_text_block] [divider type="standard" text="Go to top" full_width="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [spb_text_block title="Transparent" pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] This week we're going to be talking about the series, Transparent. This is a series I've been wanting to talk about for a very long time. And we're going to do so from a different perspective than we usually do when we talk about TV series. Oftentimes on this podcast, when we've spoken about series we've talked about big picture stuff. We've talked about theme and engine and structure. But today, what we're going to do is zoom in really close on one particular episode. We're going to look at Season 3 Episode 5, and we're going to break it down to its fundamental craft elements: the way that the scenes are actually constructed. If you've seen Transparent Season 3, you know that episode 5 is a kind of monumental moment in the season. A lot of threads that we’ve been following all end up coming together. So if you haven't watched the season, you should be aware that there are going to be some spoilers ahead.     At the end of Season 3, Episode 4, Josh’s former babysitter and lover, Rita has killed herself. And as we enter Episode 5, Josh is dealing with that emotional fallout, trying to explain to his transgendered parent, Maura, that Rita is dead. It's a devastating scene for so many reasons. One of the beautiful things about Transparent is that all of these characters are always doing the best that they can, but they are also all incredibly selfish and self-centered. So, what we see between Josh and Maura is really a scene in which Josh shares the devastating news of Rita’s death, and Maura makes it all about her-- a scene in which  Maura fails to comfort, or even hug her son, and instead gets caught up in her own desire not to believe that Rita’s death was a suicide. And this builds to a culminating moment, when Josh asks Maura if she knew that he and Rita were having sex, way back when he was a kid and she was babysitting him. Maura insists that she didn't know, but reveals that, in fact, what she thought she was paying for Rita to be Josh’s best friend. Josh responds, appropriately, “that was really fucked up.” And Maura agrees that it was. So, we start with this really, really heavy scene and this presents a challenge for the writers of Transparent. One of the beautiful things if you watch Transparent is the dance that Transparent is always doing between light and dark, between comedy and drama, between sadness and beauty and selfishness and love. And we witness this juxtaposition in the way the piece is constructed. As so often happens in Transparent, this incredibly heavy scene is juxtaposed with a much lighter one. And it's that lighter one that I actually want to talk about, because this is a scene that has the potential to be a total flop, especially bouncing up against a scene where the stakes and the emotional drama are so high. To give you a little bit of background, Sarah Pfefferman, Josh’s sister, has been spending this whole season trying to become a more active part of her synagogue community. But she keeps getting rejected from the board. And, primarily, the reason she gets rejected is because of her unconventional relationship with her husband, with whom she's living and raising children, even though they're separated and he's dating other women. She’s also not well liked because of her desperate need to be accepted. Sarah has managed to wrangle the Rabbi, Raquel, who is Josh's former girlfriend, into allowing her to throw a big Havdalah ceremony in the school gymnasium.