Jill Soloway’s Transparent series, airing on Amazon, walked off with five Emmy’s back on September 20th. Two months and 20 plus days later, on December 11th – Amazon rolled out the second season. All the episodes are available now and you can space them out, or binge watch all 10 of the half hour shows in one afternoon if you like.
I watched the first two episodes tonight. The titles are Kina Hora and Flicky-Flicky Thump-Thump which won’t make a lot of sense to many or even most of you, at least until you’ve seen both episodes. But to help, I’ll offer a bit of a leg-up for you.
Kina Hora is a version of a Yiddish expression, and it is often used in a variety of circumstances – but the long and the short of it is this.
No evil-eye! May the evil-eye look elsewhere.
In practice, it is said by a well-wisher as praise to ward off the evil eye. It compares to Knock on wood.
So that’s the title of the first episode which opens at the wedding of Sarah Pfefferman, played by Amy Landecker and Tammy Cashman played by Melora Hardin. This wedding required everyone to be dressed in white, and every member of the wedding party and every guest was. Soloway opens with a four-minute shot of the wedding party attempting to pose for a group picture. Every one is not completely happy, as some unexpected family members are present, and there’s bad blood in the air, plus the photographer is a putz. So while some photos are taken – the upshot is when this happens:
Mort/Maura Pfefferman (to the photographer): Do you want my chin up or down? Photographer Reggie: I think chin up for you, sir. Mort/Maura: Did he just call me ‘sir’? Shelly Pfefferman: Yes he did. Mort/Maura: That’s it. We’re done. (As in we’re out of here).
And with his former wife Shelly in tow, Mort/Maura storms off.
We are now just 4 minutes into Season Two and things are not only off to a rocky start, but they’re going to go downhill from here. And it won’t matter how many Kina Horas have been said.
Flicky-Flicky Thump-Thump is a sexual activity reference. Not one that any of us have heard before, and I won’t describe it in detail. What I will say, is that back in the Seinfeld days, a certain sexual act was called The Move. Jerry: Did you close with the swirl? Hope that helps.
Okay in this episode we have another party/gathering, and as the wedding party in the previous episode crashed and burned, this party, held by Josh Pfefferman (played by Jay Duplass) is for music industry folks. Josh is launching his latest musical find – a band consisting of three women. But besides the music industry types, all the Pfeffermans are there. Some secrets are revealed, and some hard feelings are exposed with all the rawness and pain that such things can create.
But the party doesn’t totally crash and burn until Tammy arrives. And shortly thereafter, people, being smart when they should be smart, have determined that now would be a good time to leave, as an emotional downpour has certainly dampened the festivities, so all are heading home. Maura tells Ali to tell Sarah to make sure Shelly gets home safe as he/she has a stop to make.
The Arts - JustMeMike's New Blog 