Amazon's Transparent - Episode 1.04 "Moppa"
Maura finally comes out to Ali, and they join Sarah on a field trip to the mail - where they all get rude lessons in womanhood. Josh is forced to confront his past thanks to questions from Syd about his longtime relationship with Rita.
No one in the Pfefferman family wants to be alone. The one exception may be Ali. She doesn't mind being alone but she also doesn't have a strong grasp on who she is as a person. Maura has been alone for too much of her life. And now, she's finally realizing how much time she has wasted waiting for the "right" time to come out. Sarah and Ali are accepting of who she is but are just so puzzled why she waited until she was 70 to do this.Coming out was a freeing experience for Maura and now she's more willing to hang out with her family. She invites the girls to brunch and they spend time waiting and getting makeovers. It's a pleasant afternoon even though it's clear Ali doesn't really want to be there. But then comes the issue of the public bathroom. The family now all identify Maura as a woman and so they walk into the ladies' room like it's no big deal. Sarah casually refers to Maura as dad and that leads to a mom rudely calling her a pervert and asked her to leave. Not everyone in this world is accepting of who Maura is. That's a struggle she will constantly face. She leaves so as not to deal with it. Only to end up in a more compromised position using a porta potty at a construction site as well as feeling more alone than ever before. She's furious that no one around her is able to recognize that she is also here and deserving some semblance of respect. She is defeated and that's woefully tragic to see at the end of the fourth episode.
And then, Sarah is hopelessly in love with Tammy. It's all she's willing to talk about. It's the core thing defining her life right now. But she's also extremely worried that Tammy is not going to follow through on their relationship. Tammy won't tell Barb about her and she's always having to reschedule their meet-ups. Sarah needs some level of commitment in order to make sure she's not some crazy person standing outside Tammy's house - just like a stalker. And yet, she is coming across as creepy and desperate for Tammy to reciprocate those feelings.
Josh, meanwhile, has moved on from the artist/lover/pregnant girl to Syd, Ali's one friend who is privy to all of the Pfefferman family secrets. She rightfully calls Josh out on not wanting to be alone when she's trying to walk out the door following their sexual encounter. He instead focuses so intently on the thought that both of his parents knew about and were okay with his relationship with Rita, the babysitter. That is a disturbing thought. He calls it a wet dream but there's a bit of an eerie undertone to all of it as well. I'm not quite sure how it's going to play out. But it does mean that Josh is never physically alone throughout "Moppa." The same cannot be said, unfortunately, for Maura and Sarah.
Some more thoughts:
- "Moppa" was written by Micah Fitzerman-Blue & Noah Harpster and directed by Nisha Ganatra.
- Today in flashbacks, we learn that Maura was able to be herself to someone else. She went to a hotel and came out to her friend Mark/Marcy who rightfully says that Daphne Sparkles is too stripper-y of a name.
- Sarah just thinks she can send her full-time nanny over to do Maura's laundry. Yeah, right.
- There's nothing a brother-sister dance party can't solve, right?
- Does Shelly know about Maura or not? I really wanna know.
- Ali: "What am I suppose to call you now?" Always the polite question to ask - although I did enjoy her invention of "moppa."
