My thoughts about movies and TV shows I've been watching

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Thursday, March 31, 2016

Powerful, thoughtful, open-ended conclusion to Season 2 of Transparent - bring on Season 3!

Season 2 of the Amazon series Transparent has a suitably moving, beautiful, and open-ended conclusion that leaves us waiting eagerly for Season 3 - kudos to Jill Soloway for taking on this challenging subject matter and managing to build a thoughtful drama with plenty of comedy and plenty of pathos, plenty of sex and nudity as well but amazingly the program is never for a second lurid or sensational, all the sexuality is integrated seamlessly into the plot and character development. Also, rather amazingly, despite their many flaws and errors of judgement, we like all of the main characters and recognize them for their accuracy and universality - and yet the situation for each is unique and, for most viewers, quite unconventional. The season ended w/ 3 powerful episode: Yom Kippur, with Josh telling his family it's over between him and the rabbi, Raquel, and his mother bursts into hysterical sobbing; Maura and daughters go to a woman's festival and Maura feels left out and physically threatened as no transgender women are allowed - and she speaks out. And then the last episode guilds to some beautiful moments: Ali learning more about her family history, immigrants from Germany just before the Nazi attacks on Jews, and wrestling with decisions about her education and her sex life: should she become the lover (or net toy, I would say) of the predatory gender-studies prof?; Sarah after trying various kinky experiments and lots of recreational drugs turns to her Jewish roots for some kind of comfort; Josh, led on by mother's new boyfriend a very likable Buzz, mourns for the first time the "death" of his father; and Maura herself begins for the first time to come to terms w/ her own sexual feelings and has her first trans relationship. Where will these go? Season ends with them on a Pacific beach - "on the shore of the wide world ... where love and fame to nothingness to sink."

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