March 28, 2024 The Newspaper Serving LGBT Los Angeles

“Transparent” Season 4 Suffers from Neglect

It’s hard to remember anything about a truly great show except the feeling it gives you afterward. I can’t remember just why I was floored by the “Transparent” pilot when it first aired in 2014. All I can recall is that meeting the Pfefferman family was like nothing I’d experienced onscreen before. The tragically self-obsessed, often hilariously oblivious members of that family spoke over one another in a way that was almost shockingly realistic. They dealt with each others’ shortcomings by raising their voices higher. Each person believed their own problems to be the loudest, most important problems in the room – as well as those most deserving of empathy. The scene was set. It was rich, it was new – Jill Soloway had created television’s first truly modern family.

Three years later, with “Transparent’s” fourth season showing up on Amazon not long after Soloway announced that she would be stepping down from the showrunner role on the show, the Pfeffermans haven’t changed. And that’s the problem.

Season 4 finds all the usual suspects gathered around plates of half-eaten bagels and lox (freshly purchased from Canter’s Deli, where they once had a “standing order”) talking over one another, alienating each other, and keeping secrets. As usual, the 30-minute episode doesn’t spend too much time with any one character, favoring the scattered, mosaic approach Soloway loves. We see the youngest daughter, Gaby Hoffman’s Ali, struggling with a painful childhood memory. We see our beloved matriarch, Jeffrey Tambor’s Maura, keeping back the news of a new relationship, this time with a cisgender male. Meanwhile, Judith Light’s Shelly has moved in with her ambivalent son Josh (Jay Duplass) and Sarah (Amy Landecker) is back with her husband Len – sort of. She’s mainly fantasizing about a woman (the magnificent Alia Shawkat) she encountered at – you guessed it – Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous.

In short, no one has learned their lesson yet. Everyone’s unhappy, and everyone’s dealing with the same bullshit. It’s the pilot all over again. But in the time that’s passed between “Transparent’s” extraordinary first episode and its fourth season, something important happened. Viewers changed. Our expectations grew and our needs became more complex. The viewership of “Transparent,” in Trump’s America, is very different than the viewership that first encountered the show in the sweet, prelapsarian political climate of 2014. And Trump, for once, actually isn’t all that much to blame. Soloway, in making such a brilliant show in the first place, created a monster: A group of viewers who simply won’t stand for anything less than the full, perfect truth. Now that “Transparent” has stepped away from that truth and into the realm of caricature, Soloway finds herself hoist by her own petard. She made us smarter, needier, more empathetic viewers, and now we’ve become much harder to satisfy.

So what would actual satisfaction look like in terms of “Transparent?” It’s hard to say. What’s certain is that it wouldn’t look anything like how the fourth season looks, with its heavy-handed criticism of the TSA (Moira receives a pat down for having a “groin anomaly”) and its even heavier-handed discussions of the Israel-Palestine conflict. What happened to “Transparent” in its fourth season is what happens to some of the best shows in their second, third, and fourth seasons: They begin to take the criticism too seriously, along with the praise. They begin to believe that it is not only possible to be all things to all people – they believe that they are responsible for being all things to all people.

Thus the political hodgepodge of season four, the writing of which sounds, during many scenes, like an overheard discussion of current affairs by college freshman. The too-earnest passion is there, and so is the scatteredness, the faint try-hardness of it all.

One could make the case that “Transparent” started to forget what it was about the minute it took its eye off of Maura, the ostensible main character whose transness was, for some seasons, the point of the show, and its main event. But even that wouldn’t be quite true. When it comes to art that emerges as pure, beautiful, and politically needed as “Transparent” did, it’s only a matter of time before the culture that so desperately needed it begins to need something more.

Related Posts

Long Beach Named One of the Best LGBTQ Cities

January 18, 2022

January 18, 2022

For the 10th year in a row Long Beach has been named one of the best cities in the nation...

WeHo Wins ‘Most Business-Friendly City Award’ from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation

November 30, 2021

November 30, 2021

The City of West Hollywood has been awarded the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation’s 2021 Most Business-Friendly City Award....

Jonathan Van Ness Offers His Services As A Life Coach

September 15, 2021

September 15, 2021

Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness who identifies as non-binary has teamed up with Skillshare to host a virtual class...

Drive N Drag Los Angeles

February 14, 2021

February 14, 2021

Drive N Drag will be coming to the Rose Bowl, Pasadena. Featuring RuPauls Drag Race Alumni favorite Aquaria, Asia O’Hara,...

WeHo Carnaval 2020 Cancelled

October 29, 2020

October 29, 2020

One of the year’s biggest events in West Hollywood, The Halloween Carnaval, has been cancelled.  The massive Halloween party has...

“The Mismatch Game” Hosted By Dennis Hensley Is Going To Zoom

September 23, 2020

September 23, 2020

With COVID restrictions affecting several businesses and theater spaces throughout the Los Angeles area many have had to make adjustments. ...

Date Night In Times Of COVID

August 23, 2020

August 23, 2020

As things to do in times of COVID-19 dwindle down to staying in your home and watching a specific streaming...

Longest Running Escape Room In LA Goes Virtual

August 5, 2020

August 5, 2020

Escape Room LA, in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles, is the longest running escape room in Los Angeles going...

USC One Archives to Host Screening of Film on Black Trans Woman to Honor Black History Month

February 1, 2020

February 1, 2020

Meet Mary Jones, a black transgender woman born in New York in 1803. Described as a “man-monster” in the press. ...

HRC to Honor Dan Levy, Janelle Monáe at Award Ceremony in DTLA

January 27, 2020

January 27, 2020

Award Season is upon us, and the LGBTQ+ Community is not immune. HRC announced today that actor Dan Levy will...

VIDEO: South Coast Chorale’s Tribute to Gay & Civil Rights Activist

January 24, 2020

January 24, 2020

67 years ago, openly gay civil rights activist Bayard Rustin was arrested on a discriminatory, anti-gay “lewd conduct” charge for...

IN PHOTOS: WeHo Dodgeball at Sin City Classic LGBTQ+ Sports Festival

January 23, 2020

January 23, 2020

Hosted annually by The Greater Los Angeles Softball Association (GLASA), Sin City Classic brought together the United State’s finest athletes last weekend for three...

GUEST COLUMN: Queer Mindfulness Meditation

January 22, 2020

January 22, 2020

InsightLA is a non-profit meditation center offering practices of mindfulness and compassion that are both secular and Buddhist in origin. ...

LONG BEACH PRIDE Unveils New Logo, Drops “Lesbian & Gay” From Name

January 16, 2020

January 16, 2020

Formerly known as  the Long Beach Lesbian and Gay Pride, the new and improved Long Beach Pride – the organization...

LGBTQ+ Ally Taylor Swift to Receive GLAAD’s Vanguard Award

January 7, 2020

January 7, 2020

GLAAD announced Tuesday, Jan. 7 that Taylor Swift with receive the Vanguard Award at the 31st Annual GLAAD Media Awards. ...