Jeffrey Tambor’s character will be killed off in the final extended episode of Transparent after the actor was accused of sexual misconduct.
The award-winning Amazon show’s creator, Jill Soloway, confirmed in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that Maura Pfefferman’s death will be the inciting incident for the finale as her family deals with the fallout.
“We were all in mourning in many ways, and we all had to process together,” they said. “It was important [for the show] to go through all those stages. The show has always been a reflection of who we were and we were mourning our own narrative.”
Tambor was removed from the show after allegations of on-set harassment from his former assistant Van Barnes and co-star Trace Lysette. Barnes claimed he had propositioned her, made lewd comments, groped her and threatened her if she shared her story, while Lysette released a statement on Twitter alleging similar impropriety and “multiple uncomfortable experiences”.
“He came in close, put his bare feet on top of mine so I could not move, leaned his body against me, and began quick, discreet thrusts back and forth against my body,” Lysette wrote about one experience in particular. “I felt his penis on my hip through his thin pajamas.”
The decision to kill Tambor’s character off follows on from Netflix’s move to kill off Kevin Spacey’s character in House of Cards after he was accused of sexual misconduct.
The final extended episode will be musical, a decision Soloway claims was integral to the intended message.
“People say when they’re making musicals that there are moments when the characters have to sing because they can’t put something into words,” they said. ”I think it’s the same thing with what our show went through, we felt like we needed a different way of looking at the family. And we did it through song.”
