Beginning with an extended flashback to Weimar Berlin, we learn that Gershon now goes by the name of Gittel, and that she has had a “transvestite pass” procured for her by Magnus, her boss at the Institute for Sexual Research. We meet Rose and Gittel’s mother – Maura’s grandmother (the same actor who played the woman Maura had a dalliance with at a cross-dressing camp in the 90s) – to whom Gittel supplies with money for the US visas. The latter takes Rose back to stay with her at the Institute, where she gives her the ring – now a kind of anti-talisman – revealing that the Treblinka story is at least partly family folklore. Later their mother turns up at the Institute, where Gittel is performing in an Adam and Eve-inspired production, with the documents, but Gittel refuses to leave Magnus – perhaps worried, ironically, that America would not offer the same sort of freedom as Germany. Rose and her mother depart without Gittel.
Back in the present day, Josh is channelling his nervous energies into a Crossfit class (he ends up vomiting) and into buying Fussypuss a tour van (he ends up having a panic attack). Syd has grown infuriated by Ali’s ideas about commitment and tells her she will no longer attend the Idyllwild Wimmin’s music festival with her (described by Leslie in a previous episode as a “forest full of tits”). Instead, during a visit to their mother’s – whose mood and interiors have been overhauled by the calming and upbeat presence of Buzz – an apparently unbothered Ali enlists Sarah to accompany her instead.
Maura decides to volunteer for the crisis intervention hotline at the centre, where she bumps into a still-furious Davina. Back at her reluctant host’s home, Maura does some practice run-throughs of potential conversations, with Shea playing the role of a suicidal person – before the latter reveals that she has genuinely had thoughts about harming herself in the past and “still has her days”. Maura returns to her old house and finds Ali and Sarah preparing for their festival trip, onto which she wangles herself a spot. The trio begin their car journey there, with Ali and Sarah raucously singing along to the Indigo Girls, and Maura in the backseat, struggling to get a handle on the words.
Talking points
Mental health. Aside from the anxiety that came to the fore in the previous episode – something that is clearly becoming an increasing problem for Josh – this has not been a particularly prominent aspect of Transparent so far, which is somewhat surprising considering mental health and suicide prevention is often a considerable part of the transgender conversation. This episode sees that rectified in a small way, thanks to Maura’s volunteering and Shea’s openness about the pain she has experienced.
Progress. In the flashback, Rose and Gittel’s mother confronts Magnus about his “sex circus”, who retorts that this is in fact “the future”. There is a painful dramatic irony here – not just considering the regime that was about to come into power in Germany, but the crawling pace at which certain kinds of equality would develop over the following century.
Meanwhile, Ali is supposedly forging a groundbreaking relationship with Syd – her innovation mainly motivated by the fact that she’s trying to seduce Leslie. Syd has already called bullshit on her queer theorising and monogamy-bashing in the previous episode but now is realising that the pair might not feel the same way about their relationship. Despite Transparent being something of a trailblazing enterprise in its own right (not just in terms of its plot, but also in its use of transgender writers and actors), the series recognises that progress is not always linear, nor totally tangible.
