Then Ansari had his #MeToo reckoning and I assumed his reputational fall would mean the end of Master of None, which maybe it did, because the third season, which has just launched on Netflix, is Master of None in name only: a marketing conceit drawing on the cachet of the previous seasons but offering something totally different. It's not funny, and nor is it particularly dramatic. It's a type of television that, if it exists at all, doesn't yet have a name. Let's call it Dullavision. Its central distinguishing feature is its extreme narrative slowness and long, static shots of great compositional beauty showcasing architecture/interior design/landscapes and the microdoses of action taking place within them.
So little happens that it's pointless to offer a synopsis and, given our era's paranoiac but justified obsession with our decreasing attention spans, I find it hard to believe I watched four episodes and almost three hours of it before taking a break. It's possible endurance is the point: In episode four, the season's high point, one of the central characters undergoes IVF in a filmic depiction so full of informational content, so painful, so repetitive, so devoid of emotional or narrative respite, it's not at all accurate to call it entertainment, yet I was on the verge of sleep when it started and extremely wide awake by its end.
Afterwards, I asked Zanna whether it was right or okay for Ansari, a man, as the show's director and co-writer, to tell the stories of the breakdown of a lesbian relationship and one woman's journey through IVF. She said it was more complex than that. I agreed with her. And if that anecdote proves anything, it's that it's hard to tell stories that are both true and interesting.
SHE SAW
It's been more than three years since a woman accused Aziz Ansari, the creator of Netflix series Master of None, of sexual misconduct while on a date in 2017, and four years since the show's second season. We enjoyed the first two, especially Greg who thought season two was a bonafide masterpiece. I can't be expected to remember much of the year in which I had a 3-year-old, 1-year-old and newborn but I do remember the show was funny, creative and cinematic. Season three is also creative and cinematic but it is barely funny and hardly features Ansari at all, which was the right choice.
After reading about his behaviour on the infamous date in 2017, I just have no interest in watching Ansari's love troubles on screen. I don't want to see him being a lovesick goofball, adorably missing all the signals and putting his foot in his mouth now that I know what I know. Thankfully he seems to have read the room on that one and the series focuses primarily on the character of Denise, Ansari's co-writer on the series, Hollywood hot shot Lena Waithe, and her dissolving relationship with her wife Alicia (Naomi Ackie).
The show breaks new ground in that it's about a Black lesbian couple without being about their blackness or gayness. It normalises their race and sexuality in order to give us a slow study of a deteriorating romance, with episode four being a painfully accurate 54-minute journey through IVF. I did wonder what Ansari had to say about being a Black lesbian or a woman going through IVF? Because Waithe co-wrote every episode, it's hard to say how much of Ansari is in the writing but his cinematic vision is clear. He directs the entire series.
An amateur photographer who clearly has an eye for composition, Ansari doesn't move the camera at all, preferring beautiful frames that characters move in and out of, giving the show a classic cinema feel. It's completely devoid of showy dramatisation and instead focuses on the human drama and emotional turmoil of quotidian life. Every time I thought something big was going to happen - Denise is going to choke on that sandwich - it didn't. It was just a two-minute shot of Denise eating a sandwich.
This season of Master of None is unique. I expect that many of the audience who watched previous seasons for the humour of Ansari will find it disappointing, but I loved it. It's possible I might never want to watch Ansari - at least as a lovable schmuck - on screen again, but he can keep working on artful and meaningful shows like this ad infinitum.
Master of None season 3 is streaming now on Netflix.
