On my way to my office this morning, the streetcar I had just exited passed through an intersection too slowly for those waiting to cross. The light had turned, and now the group of eastbound pedestrians I had joined were being blocked by the streetcar. We collectively began crossing the street, but were held up by the overlong public transit vehicle. As the car finally got close to giving us the space we needed to cross, the people around me began moving forward. As the car finally cleared the way, however, we discovered there was another group of people on the other side of it. Many around me were visibly surprised by this, and it was clear the same could be said of those on the opposite side. We all had to reconsider our paths across the street, because nobody anticipated further, human-shaped impedances. Everybody saw this roadblock from the perspective that was directly in front of them, without considering the others surrounding them, because that is what always happens.<\/em><\/p>\n When the first season of Master of None was released in late 2015, I fell in love with it immediately for reasons closely related to my appreciation for Aziz Ansari\u2019s later standup specials. As Ansari aged, he had started to embrace giving entertaining lectures about technology and immigration, those lectures just so happened to also contain jokes and be delivered in Madison Square Garden. Master of None took a lot of those same talking points and injected them into a funny, well-shot and less-well-acted-but-still-fantastic sitcom. I watched the first season over a weekend, and then I watched it again over the following week. When the second season was released recently, I watched it as quickly as my work schedule would allow. It remains among my favourite television shows, next to the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Atlanta.<\/p>\n The most obvious things to talk about when looking at Master of None\u2019s quality are self-evident: the characters are persistently thoughtful, woke folk who never feel like people telling you how woke they are (because their modern thoughts are always punctuated with tremendously funny jokes). The show is a sitcom about interesting, modern topics frequently told in an abstract sort of way; it has elements of a modern Seinfeld equivalent mixed with the storytelling freedom of Louie, all poured through Aziz Ansari\u2019s personal filter. For obvious reasons, that results in an immensely positive final product.<\/p>\n So many people have discussed this show\u2019s exceptional quality, and so many of the same points do not need to be reiterated by me. You can trust that I agree with the following: the storytelling in New York, I Love You is wonderful (especially as the narrative begins focusing on the deaf bodega employee), the filmmaking inspirations are wise ones for a comedy show, the Thanksgiving episode is perfect (as are the mirrored opening-ish and closing shots), and its persistently deep cut pop culture references always seem to work. That the second season premiere was both an extended homage to Italian neorealism and featured multiple Diane Lane jokes makes it truly a one of a kind show. All of these (and so many other) elements are obvious, so they don\u2019t bear relisting. I prefer to talk about the things the show does poorly, because it helps reframe what it can do so well.<\/p>\n Like so many sitcoms before it, Master of None is often hilariously unrealistic. So few people have the freedom to move to Italy for three months to learn to make pasta, least of all while simultaneously paying rent on their apartment back in New York City. (The cheque for The Sickening cannot have possibly been big enough to cover this.) Nor do best friends happen to have a wedding to go to right in that three-month window, least of all a wedding of somebody they dated for eleven years (not to mention a bride who seems to be unaware her longtime ex was even coming to her wedding until he arrived). The convenience of Francesca and Pino\u2019s temporary residence in New York is also ludicrous, but nothing compared to the career luck Dev has in spurning a seven-season television contract for a much more exciting new show that he came up with.<\/p>\n That said, I am willing to accept all of these things. If a sitcom were truly realistic, it would be boring; nobody wants to deal with the \u201chow did the characters in Friends afford their apartments?\u201d question ever again (not even wannabe writers who basically posed the same question in the paragraph above). Master of None is more modern than its sitcom predecessors, sure, but only because it was made later in the history of human civilization; Master of None and shows like Friends are still cut from the same well-tailored velvety cloth. What makes Master of None so good in spite of this is something that involves looking at the Friday Night Lights season two conundrum.<\/p>\n In season two of Friday Night Lights, a bizarre number of absolutely insane plot twists occur. Jason Street has a miracle baby, Buddy Garrity goes full Blindside with Santiago, and (of course) Landry kills somebody. Given that it is now about seven years since I saw this season, I\u2019m sure I\u2019m forgetting things, but the only truly important one is that, again, Landry kills somebody. The writers of the show would later disown the idea as soon as they could without getting fired, saying they were under network pressure to make the show more salacious in order for it to continue. Fine. But season two wasn\u2019t as bad as people seemed to think: the broad strokes may have been painted with discount acrylics pulled out of a dumpster, but what saved the show was that the characters\u2019 reactions to these insane ideas never felt unrealistic. They would consistently lose control over their actions, but their reactions to those actions felt proper. I maintain a belief that watching Landry\u2019s grief for having killed a man (then covering it up, and then also bringing his policeman father into it) was interesting, despite the fact that it came from a plot rife with absurdity.<\/p>\n This defence was a bridge too far for most, including the show\u2019s writers, which I understand. But it\u2019s also what gets me through the silly elements of Master of None, so it seems worth mentioning here. Dev and company are in ludicrous situations, but their reactions in these situations feel real enough that it elevates the show beyond its silliness, and allows you to focus on the good stuff as opposed to the bad, or the bad that is supposed to appear as good.<\/p>\n The one element of the show that I find the most difficult to parse in both seasons is that I think a lot of these characters might be assholes, people who are frequently too self-involved to realize how insufferable they\u2019re being. I mean, Dev and Arnold leave a wedding to go live their best lives and then come back to the wedding before Arnold grabs a microphone and gives an impromptu speech. This is not exactly the sign of a considerate person*.<\/p>\n *That ep-is-ode is not my fav-our-ite thing \/ that ep-is-ode is not my fav-our-ite THING!<\/em><\/p>\n I compared Master of None to Seinfeld earlier, the latter being a show where its two primary characters knew and seemed to be comfortable with being assholes*, but on Master of None it consistently feels like the people on the show do not understand how self-involved they are being. I would be incredibly curious to know Aziz Ansari and co-creator Alan Yang\u2019s take on this, because I\u2019m sure they have interesting thoughts about it, but as it stands I see Master of None as a show about a group of impulsive people who I could never stand to be around. Again, this does not make it a bad show (in fact it probably makes it better), but the fact that the show may or may not realize this raises questions about the lens I\u2019m supposed to watch this show through. Am I supposed to see myself in Dev? Am I supposed to see his indecisiveness and think about my own life? Or am I supposed to reframe my own life because I see his actions and am frustrated by them?<\/p>\n![\"master1\"](\"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/master1.jpg\")
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