Screens: Amazon

Sarah Invites Maura Into Girl World

A ladies' brunch date reveals terrifying new terrain for Maura. Fortunately, Sarah is a sure-footed guide.

As Maura continues her coming-out process on Transparent, the fourth episode shows us more of the mentors who've helped her to figure out, over the years, how to be the woman she's meant to be. In a flashback to twenty years ago, we see her with Marcy (née Mark), who gives Maura her name. Today, at the Shangri-La, neighbour Davina helps Maura with her hair and tries to fix her walk as well. ("My knee--" "I know your knee.") Davina is also the one to relay to Maura the warning Davina herself received around the time of her transition: that, in ten years, none of the people she came out to would still be in her life, which turned out to be true. For Maura, though, even though it's still early days, it seems like if the rest of her loved ones do fall away as in Davina's dire prediction, she'll always have Sarah.

The structure of the show is such that, so far, we haven't found out much about what Mort and Sarah's relationship was like before Sarah accidentally ended up becoming the first member of her family to find out Maura's secret: maybe they've always been very close and affectionate, and Maura's transition has just changed the focus of their conversations. The third episode, "Rollin," found Maura, in a typically parental caretaking gesture, passing on the house to Sarah after her impulsive decision to leave Len. It's not quite accurate to say that "Moppa," the season's fourth episode, shows Maura and Sarah's parent and child roles reversed, but Sarah is more the caretaker, at least for this half-hour; she's added herself to Maura's support team.

Being the first -- and for a while, only -- to know what Maura is going through has put Sarah in a position she doesn't take lightly. She's been loving, generous, and encouraging, not just with Maura, but, as we see when Sarah checks in with a hung-over Ali, also when she's talking about her: she corrects Ali on her pronouns; she explains why Ali can't out Maura to any of their other family members. Later, Ali whines, "Why is he doing this now?" to which Sarah counters, "Why? Why did he wait so long?"

But Sarah's real time to shine comes when Maura, Ali, and Sarah go for brunch at a fancy department store. The wait for a table is so long that they agree to get made over by the artists at one of the makeup counters, and Maura is clearly thrilled to be included in such a feminine pastime -- and one that comes with chilled cucumber mint water, no less! As a lifelong out woman, Sarah foresees a potential problem Maura might have, and warns her, "Just so you know, like, now that you're going to spend time in this world: you need to know, the makeover is free, but they expect you to buy everything that they use, and each thing is like a hundred bucks a thing." Turns out Sarah had nothing to worry about: the clerks have probably never had a mark as easy as Maura, who loves being doted on and is susceptible to every upsell: "I should purchase the serum, don't you think? ...I should buy a great many of these products!" (It's just too bad she turns her head at the moment Maura indicates to the clerk that she wants to buy two ounces of snake oil serum, not the one Sarah advised.)

The cucumber mint water leads all three ladies to the restroom before brunch, where a couple of bitchy teenagers start hissing about whether Maura's in the right restroom. Maura immediately goes into a flight response -- even more so when the girls' mother comes out of a stall and confronts her. But Sarah is not about to let anyone bully Maura out of her rightful place to pee; when this stranger tries to tell Maura she's in the wrong bathroom, as Maura shamefully turns in on herself, Sarah steps up: "This is my father! And he's a woman! And he has every right to be in this bathroom!" The woman tries to argue the point, on the grounds that her children have been traumatized by the sight of Maura in the ladies room, but Sarah's not having it: "Oh, you mean the little snickering bitches over there? They look really traumatized." When the stranger escalates the situation by calling Maura "a pervert," Sarah has to shut it down.

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Like all polite people, I try not to bust out that particular word too much, but if you've seen the episode, you know it fits.

Maura may not feel able, yet, to fight for all the space she now has a right to claim. Fortunately, she has a tough, determined friend in her corner who'll take on all comers.