Transparent 2.01: Kina Hora

Back to the family-iar (A+)

Everyone has heard of ‘second-album’ syndrome. Finding immediate success with a debut - followed by the intense pressure to release a follow-up, of equal significance and hoped success - all under the restricted time-frame to deliver before the hype disappears and people move on to the next thing.

When Transparent, the American comedy-drama television series about a transgender parent created by Jill Soloway for Amazon Studios, debuted early in 2014 it was an instant revelation and turned out to be one of the most sublime pieces of television in years.

Riding the wave, Transparent emerged at the forefront of social change as transgender issues rightly became a part of public discussion. ‘Transgender’ was even the word that experienced the second greatest rise in usage in 2014.

The show went on to dominate award shows, including winning Golden Globes and Emmys - it was the first series from a streaming video service to win a Golden Globe for Best Series.

Season one felt magical, some unique alchemy that Soloway and her cast and crew cooked up one summer that couldn’t ever be replicated.

Could the 5 hours we spent with California’s Pfefferman family improve on the first? Well if the first episode is anything to go by it’s only going to get better.

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Transparent has always been more than just its zeitgeist-y subject. Where season one mainly focussed on Maura Pfefferman’s, played by Jeffery Tambour, journey from her life as Mort and her family coming to terms with the revelation, in a dramatic fashion. It seems that with this second series we’re going to be fully immersed in mess of the whole Pfefferman Clan - there were a lot of mentions to wider family members who I’ll feel we’ll meet.

The Pfeffermans are an affluent jewish family made up of divorced parents, Maura (born Mort) a retired college professor and Shelly (Judith Light) and their three self-absorbed children: the oldest, Sarah (played by Amy Landecker), middle sibling Josh (Jay Duplass), and the youngest Ali (Gaby Hoffman), are all wonderfully terrible, complicated, people.

It’s eldest daughter Sarah and her girlfriend Tammy’s wedding. From the immediate opening shot - a 4 minute long, wide, single shot positioned just behind the wedding photographer - Kina Hora proves to be the perfect ‘previously on’ for new viewers.

This is the Pfeffermans in their element; Sarah is controlling, Ali bored and miserable, Josh drags in his Rabbi girlfriend (played by the amazing Kathryn Hahn) and Shelley lovingly dotes on Maura as she gets more acidic with the bumbling photographer.

Weddings can often be an over-used trope in TV shows but Soloway, who directs the episode, makes a deliberate choice not to focus on any specific family member. She lets the camera sit there as the actors move in and out of frame.

It’s a shot that you’ll want to pause, print off and hold in your hands and glance at every so often - a memory made physical, a snapshot of a family being their true selves.

This show is about families, however non-traditional and the almost suffocating intimacy and love family members have for each other. No (wo)man is an island. All families, especially the Pfeffermans, are built on infinite, small, intimate details.

The wedding photographer, down on his knees trying to control the loud-personalities in front of him, in the space of 4 minutes he moves from being useless to “a little anti-Semitic” to transphobic, when he calls Maura: “Sir”. Maura checks with her family to make sure she heard him correctly, then confidently strides off.

The photographer, reflecting societies general ignorance, most probably just slipped up (on the transphobic front at least) as he’s not painted as a ‘bad-guy’. He quickly apologises but it’s too late Maura, and Transparent, doesn’t want to deal with people that won’t respect her.

Cut to the opening credits - yes I’ve only just hit the credits, the cold-open is just that good!

These long tableaus are one of the strongest cinematic elements that Transparent employes. It’s a show that works best when it’s characters think that nobody is watching.

What’s not said is always dramatically more important than anything that is vocalised, after-all Maura kept silent about her gender-identity for over 60 years.

There is so much beauty in the stillness in Transparent, scenes which normally make the cutting room floor in any other network show. These moments are golden nuggets, scenes where characters are given time to breath and be there obnoxious selves.

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Notes: Oh I could have gone on forever talking about this episode, but I thought that I would focus on just the opening sequence. I’m so excited for the Berlin flashbacks and to know more about Hari Nef’s character!

Best line of the episode said by the outstanding Tig Notaro: “She’s collecting us like her lesbian Pokemon”

Watch the whole of series 1 and the first episode of series 2 on Amazon Prime now. The second season can be watched in full on the 11th of December.

Cast: Jeffrey Tambor, Gaby Hoffmann, Amy Landecker, Jay Duplass, Melora Hardin, Judith Light, Alexandra Billings, Kathryn Hahn

Episode written, produced and directed by Jill Soloway

All photos: Amazon Studios