Transparent S4 E4-6: A Widening Family Circle

by Chris Feil

E4 - "Cool Guy"

Maura wasted no time in discovering her father still alive in Israel to actually meet him, even if Allie led most of the confrontation. Upon meeting Moshe, it’s doubly infuriating that Maura has to do the labored explanation of her gender before Moshe even begins to explain himself for abandoning her. It’s two kinds of very personal injustice intertwining for something almost unspeakably painful - the kind of moment that Jeffrey Tambor has aced from the very beginning of Transparent.

Moshe does explain himself however, and is given an unexpected parallel in Josh. Transparent continues to examine inherited generational baggage in holistic ways - here with the title of “Cool Guy” hanging over the episode and both men’s psychologies. For Moshe, the Cool Guy was his carefree persona to which he escaped, and Josh has always hurtled towards being that Cool Guy, shaded by his premature sexual experience. Both of their actions grow from similar roots; as Moshe puts it: “Shame is a funny thing.”

Elsewhere Sarah instigates a threesome with Len and Lila, much as we suspected she would. And after some hard first attempts, Sarah soars in her improv class with the invention of a character: Mario, a trash-talking Jersey alter ego.

E5 - "Born Again"

After the first meeting didn’t go all that well, Moshe proposes flying all of the Pfefferman fam out to Israel as an opportunity to make amends. Which means also involving Moshe’s family he built since escaping to Israel. But as Maura begins to cope with the notion of her father’s entire other family, we take a look at someone who has never yet taken her rightful place in Maura’s family circle: Davina.

We have had small pieces of Davina’s story in the past, usually either on the fringes of or contextualizing Maura’s journey. But here we kind of tumble into Davina’s background in a beautifully organic way. Davina takes up residence in Allie’s apartment under the Pfefferman home (I’m already bracing for impact of the awful Airbnb guests finding out) after things with her increasingly unsupportive boyfriend go south. She begins to tell her background poolside and the episode dips into an almost Malickian lyricism, drunk on her voice both still chained at the foot and liberated from yet another constraint (or asshole).

Alexandra Billings has been such a steadily brilliant presence on Transparent, able to casually embody its joys and sadnesses without much material. She ends the episode in full performance on stage, a season high in its catharsis both in her story itself and to finally spend more time with her outside of Maura’s story.

E6 - "I Never Promised You A Promised Land"

The Los Angeles Pfeffermans meet to Israel Pfeffermans! It’s an exceeding awkward and bruising afternoon lunch, despite all of the beauty of the seaside and the overall sense of togetherness. What is more hurtful: the indifference of the Israel Pfeffermans to Moshe’s abandonment or the painting of Moshe as an attentive father? It appears avoidance tactics aren’t just a thing for the Los Angeles Pfeffermans.

More Jesus Christ Superstar, this time for a peacemaking sing-a-long on the bus to Jerusalem. We’ve spent a few episodes away from Allie’s experience in the West Bank, but you can quickly feel it mounting into something cataclysmic for Allie. As with her past fascinations and obsessions, we should be very worried that she’s getting herself in over her head once again. While the Pfeffermans are all able to embody a varied spectrum of the Israeli-Palestinian debate in this scene before Sarah deflects into song, once again no one sees the personal implications for Allie’s impulses.

But once at the Wailing Wall, Allie takes further risk by wandering onto the male side of the divide. As even she seems to wonder at her ability to pass, it seems she might be heading towards something more personal than political.