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“Transparent” recap (1.7): Symbolic Exemplar

Ali (Gaby Hoffmann) is really concerned with what this “high femme” business is all about. I sort of have to wonder what Syd (Carrie Brownstein) meant now a few episodes back when she was being versed on the spit-roasting evening Ali was planning to have and noted that this was, “classic Ali.” Is Ali changing up her outer appearance for a TA, who happens to be trans, who thought she was a dyke, also a “classic Ali” move? Syd takes Ali shopping for “high femme” looks and Syd explains femme looks further because Ali is still having a difficult time understanding the “high” part. (Somewhere in here is a joke about how high she was on MDMA and how high femme she wants to get, too.) Am I right?

Syd: I’m low femme. Ali: OK, so what I am? Syd: You’re middle earth femme. Ali: Like, the hobbit? Syd: No, like the people who live under the subway. Like, mole people femme.
They finally find just the right outfit-a corset top with a frilly red cowgirl rockabilly skirt. The outfit shows Ali’s cleavage like whoa. Syd’s eyes light up at all the “boobage” and Ali is stunned to see this side of herself for the first time. I have a great idea: Maybe Syd and Ali should just get together. Ali likes the boobiness, and Syd has to admit she’s way into this super hotness too. I see something there.

In a flashback, a younger Ali commiserating over a dress she’s supposed to wear for her Bat Mitzvah. Maura tells her it’s a lovely dress, but Ali can’t imagine how her Dad could possibly know anything about dresses. Maura decides to try to convince Shelly to cancel the entire thing. (But we all know what her real motives are-she wants to go to that sleepaway camp weekend with Marcy.) Shelly tells Maura, “I want you to be a man and save the god damned day.”

Over at the Pfefferman house in present time, Tammy has gone ahead and taken out the midcentury fireplace and built-in bookshelves without really running it by Sarah first. Sarah is a little bit jolted at first, but then she finds Josh’s old Michael Jackson glove and pirate box and she goes into a nostalgic state. Still, she wonders if Tammy was going to throw this stuff out had she not shown up in time, and Tammy doesn’t exactly seem that concerned in easing Sarah’s mind.

Dale the TA picks up a dolled-up Ali, red boots, fringe jacket and all that high femme-ness-and takes her to his cabin in the thick woods of LA. ‘Course he’s cruising in an old truck and his cabin is totally manned out, with plaid this and masculine that. Ali seems turned on, especially when Dale pops open a beer. She immediately pops off her jacket in return. He sits down so she follows suit once more, but he says, “Nobody said you could sit down,” and she widens her eyes like a damsel in distress and obliges in this sexy, role-playing game she thinks she’s gotten herself involved in.

Somewhere in another part of town, Josh and Sarah are trying to score some medical marijuana. I’m actually not totally versed on California marijuana laws so I had no idea it could be that easy to just walk out of an office with a card and a bag in hand in a matter of hours. Then again, the doctor they speak with seems very interested in telling Sarah how sexy and attractive she is (and she doesn’t seem to mind the flattery either.) They walk out with some Jedi Kush and Sarah tells Josh about Maura’s upcoming Trans Got Talent Show that she wants everyone to come to. Josh doesn’t seem to think that’s a great idea-and no one should be surprised. To add insult to injury, Josh claims Maura has no talent, and questions what kind of possible “talent” she has now that she’s a “chick.” Oh no he didn’t!

Meanwhile back at the ranch (Dale’s house), Ali and Dale are just getting down to business. He instructs her to call her “Daddy” after everything she says. He tells her to hike up her skirt and show him her panties. She’s way into playing along. And there, underneath the red tulle and her proud stance is Ali’s bush, may we hear it roar. Dale is like, “What the fuck is that?” I already have a feeling about where this is going, and I’m right: Dale decides he’d better trim/shave/cut back Ali’s hair downstairs and for a moment I wonder if she’ll object, but she goes for that, too.

Josh is having a date with Rabbi Raquel, but I’m bored. I like Raquel, I think she’s totally lovely, but she’s getting caught up with the likes of Josh and that’s disconcerting. They start going into sex-mode but Josh can’t quite get his mojo going, so he stops and apologizes to Raquel, who emphatically proclaims that it’s OK. He admits that he’s upset about the “Trans Got Talent” show and Raquel suggests that she stay at his place and cook him a nice meal that’ll be waiting for him when he gets back. I’d much rather see how Ali’s date is progressing, which has now relocated to a sexy shop where Ali and Dale are picking out a dildo. Will it be pink? Will it be realistic? Will it be big or small? Dale suggests, “You have to let the dick choose you.” She goes for a big red one.

Everyone has arrived for the big event-“Trans Got Talent!” Tammy and Sarah are in high spirits, but what Tammy doesn’t know is that Sarah is especially, especially high. We’re aware of Tammy’s sobriety, so it’s anyone’s guess as to how she’s going to handle this. Sarah is explaining why she’s there to someone else, to see her Dad-er, her mom-her “Moppa,” she finally explains. (In this episode, Sarah has taken to calling Maura “Moppa” on such an adorable level; I can’t help but giggle when she says it-because she’s so boisterous.) Speaking of, she then spots Josh in a sea of queens, and she’s like, “My brotha! Ova heeya!” I love when she does that thing with her voice.

The two find Ali and they sneak off to a room to puff, puff pass off Sarah’s new vaporizer pen. Ali points out her date for the evening, Dale the trans TA, and Josh is like, “Um, I just realized something. That means now four out of five Pfeffermans prefer pussy.” Smartest thing the kid’s ever pointed out. As the talent show begins, Tammy is picking up on Sarah’s free-feelin’ tipsiness. Ali leans over to Josh and proclaims Maura looks just like their Aunt Lily, but Maura is a total stunner in her showgirl diva stage costume alongside Davina. They do their rendition of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know” and the Pfefferman gang starts laugh profusely at the display. Which sucks.

Then, to make matters even worse, Dale asks Ali if she wants to get out of there to go fuck in the bathroom with the new red dildo they just got. The whole sexy tryst is broken into pauses when they can’t get the dildo box open, and then Dale drops a now lubed up dildo on the bathroom floor and expects Ali to be wet, ready and willing to get down and dirty right then and there, after he washes it off. Ali finally gives up.

Meanwhile Sarah spills her drink and some of it gets on Tammy, who has a major freak out and Sarah to walk out on her. Sarah finds Josh already in the parking lot, and he sees Tammy’s truck-it’s filled with broken down pieces of wood from their house, and he’s pissed. He goes back solo to the house to find Tammy’s stepdaughter Bianca there. He can’t believe what he’s seeing-the whole house is different. Bianca seems less concerned and asks him if he wants to join her, she’s packing a bowl. Josh takes kindly to that idea, but the wheels are turning now, because there’s a new, mysterious girl sitting next to him-and just maybe he can seek a little revenge on Tammy. They get in the pool together and they’re splashing around when in walks Sarah and Tammy. Uh oh.

Tammy spots Sarah’s secret stash-now better known as Bianca’s Saturday night, previously Josh’s childhood keepsake pirate box, and she races out to the patio to yell down at the pool buddies-teenage Bianca with adult Josh. Shit, I do not want to be on the receiving end of a Tam Tantrum. I’d also like to point out that there’s a very lonely Rabbi Raquel still waiting at Josh’s place with cold dinner and half empty wine glasses. Needless to say, this night hasn’t been the smoothest for anyone, especially Maura, poor thing. She’s left alone after the talent show wondering why her family rejected her so deeply and left without saying a word. Davina and Shea try getting her to come out for a drink, but she insists she wants to be alone.

Ali gets a ride home from Dale who calls her a “chaser” because he assumes she just wanted to get to know him because he’s trans. I have to wonder if that’s because she gave up on the unsexiness of the dildo incident in the bathroom. Hey, haven’t we all been there? Sometimes chemistry is sustainable in the heat of a moment, but when you’re washing things and taking bits of the bathroom floor off of the sexual toy you’re about to enjoy-when you have a gut feeling that you are involved in something that isn’t mutual, that maybe you took something too far, it’s fair to exit yourself out of that situation. She rips off her tightly laced corset in a moment of combined abandonment and sudden regard for her self.

Back at Dale’s house, Ali has a rude awakening-his house is not the man cave she thought it was. There’s a flat screen TV, candles in the fireplace, and Dale in the kitchen, offering her a cup of tea. Ali looks stunned. It’s not the only late-night house visit. Maura surprises Shelly at the front door of her house, and the look on her face says it all, Shelly gives Maura a deep and meaningful hug. They come together in a moment of mutual understanding.

A symbolic exemplar is a person who has to struggle with the knowledge that there is an inner life different from the one outwardly being seen or treated in a certain way, where they are expected to be a symbolic model for something-a woman, a man, a trans man, a trans woman, a lesbian, a dyke, a gay man, a low femme, a high femme, a father, a mother, a sister, a brother, a lover-“It is vulnerable to their very humanness,” so says The Rabbi As Symbolic Exemplar, a book by Rabbi Jack H. Bloom. This episode was a true lesson in learning that we are human beings, not symbolic exemplars of the people others expect us to be, or of the people we expect ourselves to be seen as, but still, what examples of ourselves should we give?

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