Shtisel Season 2 and Season 3
May. 8th, 2021 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAs these seasons are short, I have watched them by now. The show continues to be very good while making me argue with several of the character choices on both a Watsonian and Doylist level. I continued to love how three dimensional and complex the characters and their relationships were.
Season 2 and season 3 introduced new-to-the-viewer relations (I knew it) complete with complicated family dynamics, doubled down on the "how to be an artist and an orthodox Jew at the same time" not solely for Akiva, and tripled the dating plotlines. Also an ongoing theme through all three seasons: grief and loss.
I had a sense Malka would not survive for long despite making it out of the coma, which doesn't mean her death didn't hit me hard when it came mid season. Incidentally, the visual of her sitting by the sea was a beautiful visual note to go out on. Something that struck me in the second half and in s3 was that Malka was the sole character who interacted with (nearly) all the other family members regularly, i.e. Malka didn't just have scenes with Shulem, she also had them with Giti, with Ruchami, with Akiva, and in s2 with Nuchem and Libbi. Because otherwise, for a show utterly focused on a family in a tightly knit community, it's odd that the storylines are kept fairly separate. Giti staying at her father's flat for a while in s2 was the exception rather than the rule. I think she had about two lines of dialogue with Akiva in the season, none with Zvi Arye or Tovi, definitely none with the sister who only showed up in that one s1 episode, and I don't recall any scenes between Ruchami (or later once he's grown up Yo'sele) and Akiva, either. Libbi and any cousin not Akiva? Zilch. This isn't a complaint, because I found the stories we did get very compelling, but it's an observation.
Going back to Malka: her confusion at the start of the season when she remembered Nuchem but not Shulem introduced an ongoing characterisation element for the Shulem and Nuchem relationship, Shulem's resentment (and in the immediate post coma situation as well as in the last will reading half a season later, not a little heartbreak) that he's been a model son taking care of her yet his mother somewhat prefers the troublesome younger brother. (The obvious irony is that Shulem does exactly the same with his two sons. Poor Zvi Arye, who followed his father's footsteps as a scholar and strangled his artistic talent in order to do so is a constant afterthought, while Akiva who does the opposite gets all the paternal attention.) What I love is that to the end, we see Malka not solely in the context of her family but also within her life at the retirement home; arguably her most intense scenes were with her frenemy Shoshona, and Malka sitting at Shoshona's bedside and holding her hand killed me.
In many ways, the Akiva and Shulem storylines in this show are an odd yet fascinating mixture of RomCom motives with grief exploration. Shulem missing his dead wife and fucking up every single relationship he has with a woman over the seasons by a mixture of taking them for granted until it's too late (Aliza, and in some sense also Nechama) or being with them for the wrong reasons (Menukkha) manages somehow to be entertaining, not infuriating (not least because the show leaves no doubt these ladies are all better off without him). I'll say something about Akiva in s3 later; in s2, the show uses the "realising the friend who's been there all along and whom you can relax with and confide in could be the one" trope with him and Libbi, with their fathers as well as Akiva's temporary lost balance between art and orthodox life as temporary obstacles. The show complicates the art question by offering two other counter examples - Zvi Arye, who gets a late chance to become a professional singer after all and at first loves it, then gives it up for fear it will tempt him away from his wife, family and religious duty, and Libbi's father Nuchem, whose general role as somewhat unreliable shady troublemaker obsessed with financial success gains an unexpected depth through the reveal of his love for classical music in general and Mahler in particular which he tries to stiffle in himself for fear it would overwhelm him. (Several episodes later, the sight of Nuchem silently conducting the fifth symphony from memory on Shulem's balcony is quite touching.) Akiva/art is the other on/off love affair of the first two seasons, and the solution of him finally committing to art for good is even more a relief than the season ending on a happy note for him and Libbi, because honestly, giving up your passion for art, be it music or painting or reading, is not something even compelling world building will ever get me to root for.
Which brings me to the Weiss clan, where I found myself arguing with the way the series chose to continue with Ruchami more and more while finding her mother Giti's story continueing to be superb. As you might recall, these two were my s1 favourites. And when I say "arguing", I don't mean disagreeing on a Watsonian level, though that, too. My problem is this: Ruchami, fiercely competent (and justifably angry with her father) teenager of s1 who passionately loves reading (which includes Tolstoy and selling one of his novels to her brothers as "Hannah Karenina"), in s2 after things between her parents continue to be critical (more about this in a moment) falls for a Jeshiwa boy, Chanina, she observes from afar and decides to get married to him. So far, so 15 years old. (We never learn how old exactly Chanina is but he comes across as being intended to be her age.) Her parents are understandably horrified, especially Giti. The season then goes on to sell us on teens Ruchami and Chanina actually being good for each other, and the writing and acting does make believe it, but it also means Ruchami's entire emotional life is wrapped up in Chanina. I'm not saying this is unlikely for a fifteen years old with abandonment issues, I'm saying I miss the way s1 had her love books for herself and their own sake (instead of being passionate about Chanina getting to learn all he wants), and gave her relationships with her brothers (there's no conversation between her and them in the entire s2). This gets even worse in s3 where Ruchami and oldest brother Yo'sele, despite getting a "match the parents disapprove of" storyline just like she did a season earlier, might as well live on a different planet, and Ruchami's entire emotional focus is on her longing for a child. We never ever see her reading again. Look, I didn't expect her to become Yentl and get to be a Talmudic scholar herself in disguise, but why not show her talk with Chanina about books they've both read, now and then, or show her reading? I'm not saying a female character can't find fulfillment in marriage and family without this; but a character whose earlier characterisation gave her these passionate interests and then takes them away, that's just more upsetting to me than probably intended.
(I.e. when Zvi Arye decides not to continue with his singing, with when Libbi's story about her father is later taken up with Nuchem's silent conducting, I know the narrative and I are on the same page with the emotions this evokes. But I'm not so sure about Ruchami.)
(It doesn't help that the actress playing Ruchami happens to be the same actress playing Esty in Unorthodox, either.)
Meanwhile, Giti. The advice she was given and decided to follow at the end of s1 - to pretend Lippe's month long absence had just been a dream and not to talk about it - has predictable bad results, with her suppressed rage coming out in all sorts of ways, mainly, but not exclusively, in her determination not to let her daughter in s2 and her son in s3 make a match that, she fears, will ruin their lives. It doesn't help that Lippe early in s2 does something behind her back again (plot point to complicated to explain briefly having to do with the naming of their sixth child and Giti's fears). The amazing thing is that show manages to pull off making it understandable why Giti does not leave her husband for good beyond her fears of social ostracism by showing Lippe (who was mostly absent in s1) as well intentioned (if often short sighted), generally a good father (he manages to provide both Ruchami in s2 and Yo'sele in s3 with a sympathetic ear and pleading their cause to Giti without sabotaging her - the cause pleading happens in private, he presents a united front with the kids), and actually in love with her. By providing a counter example in s3 - a friend of Giti's is also abandoned by her husband but as opposed to Giti does not take him back, gets a divorce instead and is far happier for it - , the show also makes it clear that Giti's sticking-it-out choices are not the only ones available in her community, they are specific to her (and Lippe), and might not be the right ones, but they are hers. Which is why even when Giti does things I disagree with on a Watsonian level, I'm happy with her story on a Doylist one.
(it also helps that the show continues to put Giti's organizing and business skills introduced in s1 to good use in s2 and s3.)
s3 makes a time jump, brought up, I take iti, by real life difficulties, which means that when we see the characters again, everyone has visibly aged and several years have past on the show as well as in real life. The show creators also prove they have things in common with Susan Howatch by killing Libbi off between seasons for Akiva's character development. (BTW, this means each season has a dead woman the characters mourn for. S1 starts shortly after the death of Dvorah, Akiva's mother and Shulem's wife; s2 kills off Malka; s3 deals with the grief for Libbi.) I briefly was angry but caved under the power of good writing and acting, because I'm a sucker for well executed working-through-grief storylines. Also, the show then ups the stakes and does a well executed "pretend marriage becomes real" trope. And Racheli, Akiva's new love interest, is different from both Elisheva in s1 and Libbi in s2, each a three dimensional woman in their own right. Plus Akiva having become a father puts him full circle and in a way completes his growing up through the seasons story.
With all the drama, I would fail at reviewing if not mentioning the humor that continues to be plenty and great through both seasons. Often the dark emotional moments manage to be funny at the same time. (As when Akiva is hit with a whole busload of bad coincidences, from his friend picking the wrong baby at Kindergarten, thereby causing a visit from the social worker, which is the very moment when Nuchem - who as Libbi's father is completely destroyed by her death - makes a suicide attempt in the same flat the baby is in; as the audience, you don't know whether to gasp or to laugh.) Also, for a show that lets a character state that dissolving an engagement is worse than marrying and divorcing, it presents a hell of a lot broken off engagements, and Nuchem's comment in Yiddish about Akiva in this regard ("he is like a dreidel") had me snorting. And the next generation is following suit, given Yo'sele's s3 story. (Again: why not a scene between either Ruchami and Akiva, Yo'sele and Akiva, or Ruchami and Yo'sele, show?)
Lastly: I hear it's uncertain whether or not there will be an s4. On the one hand, this season's ending would be a good place to leave all the characters in, otoh, an s4 would maybe finally give Ruchami back some of her s1 interests and qualities? I don't know what to hope for. Anyway, I'm glad I watched this show.
Season 2 and season 3 introduced new-to-the-viewer relations (I knew it) complete with complicated family dynamics, doubled down on the "how to be an artist and an orthodox Jew at the same time" not solely for Akiva, and tripled the dating plotlines. Also an ongoing theme through all three seasons: grief and loss.
I had a sense Malka would not survive for long despite making it out of the coma, which doesn't mean her death didn't hit me hard when it came mid season. Incidentally, the visual of her sitting by the sea was a beautiful visual note to go out on. Something that struck me in the second half and in s3 was that Malka was the sole character who interacted with (nearly) all the other family members regularly, i.e. Malka didn't just have scenes with Shulem, she also had them with Giti, with Ruchami, with Akiva, and in s2 with Nuchem and Libbi. Because otherwise, for a show utterly focused on a family in a tightly knit community, it's odd that the storylines are kept fairly separate. Giti staying at her father's flat for a while in s2 was the exception rather than the rule. I think she had about two lines of dialogue with Akiva in the season, none with Zvi Arye or Tovi, definitely none with the sister who only showed up in that one s1 episode, and I don't recall any scenes between Ruchami (or later once he's grown up Yo'sele) and Akiva, either. Libbi and any cousin not Akiva? Zilch. This isn't a complaint, because I found the stories we did get very compelling, but it's an observation.
Going back to Malka: her confusion at the start of the season when she remembered Nuchem but not Shulem introduced an ongoing characterisation element for the Shulem and Nuchem relationship, Shulem's resentment (and in the immediate post coma situation as well as in the last will reading half a season later, not a little heartbreak) that he's been a model son taking care of her yet his mother somewhat prefers the troublesome younger brother. (The obvious irony is that Shulem does exactly the same with his two sons. Poor Zvi Arye, who followed his father's footsteps as a scholar and strangled his artistic talent in order to do so is a constant afterthought, while Akiva who does the opposite gets all the paternal attention.) What I love is that to the end, we see Malka not solely in the context of her family but also within her life at the retirement home; arguably her most intense scenes were with her frenemy Shoshona, and Malka sitting at Shoshona's bedside and holding her hand killed me.
In many ways, the Akiva and Shulem storylines in this show are an odd yet fascinating mixture of RomCom motives with grief exploration. Shulem missing his dead wife and fucking up every single relationship he has with a woman over the seasons by a mixture of taking them for granted until it's too late (Aliza, and in some sense also Nechama) or being with them for the wrong reasons (Menukkha) manages somehow to be entertaining, not infuriating (not least because the show leaves no doubt these ladies are all better off without him). I'll say something about Akiva in s3 later; in s2, the show uses the "realising the friend who's been there all along and whom you can relax with and confide in could be the one" trope with him and Libbi, with their fathers as well as Akiva's temporary lost balance between art and orthodox life as temporary obstacles. The show complicates the art question by offering two other counter examples - Zvi Arye, who gets a late chance to become a professional singer after all and at first loves it, then gives it up for fear it will tempt him away from his wife, family and religious duty, and Libbi's father Nuchem, whose general role as somewhat unreliable shady troublemaker obsessed with financial success gains an unexpected depth through the reveal of his love for classical music in general and Mahler in particular which he tries to stiffle in himself for fear it would overwhelm him. (Several episodes later, the sight of Nuchem silently conducting the fifth symphony from memory on Shulem's balcony is quite touching.) Akiva/art is the other on/off love affair of the first two seasons, and the solution of him finally committing to art for good is even more a relief than the season ending on a happy note for him and Libbi, because honestly, giving up your passion for art, be it music or painting or reading, is not something even compelling world building will ever get me to root for.
Which brings me to the Weiss clan, where I found myself arguing with the way the series chose to continue with Ruchami more and more while finding her mother Giti's story continueing to be superb. As you might recall, these two were my s1 favourites. And when I say "arguing", I don't mean disagreeing on a Watsonian level, though that, too. My problem is this: Ruchami, fiercely competent (and justifably angry with her father) teenager of s1 who passionately loves reading (which includes Tolstoy and selling one of his novels to her brothers as "Hannah Karenina"), in s2 after things between her parents continue to be critical (more about this in a moment) falls for a Jeshiwa boy, Chanina, she observes from afar and decides to get married to him. So far, so 15 years old. (We never learn how old exactly Chanina is but he comes across as being intended to be her age.) Her parents are understandably horrified, especially Giti. The season then goes on to sell us on teens Ruchami and Chanina actually being good for each other, and the writing and acting does make believe it, but it also means Ruchami's entire emotional life is wrapped up in Chanina. I'm not saying this is unlikely for a fifteen years old with abandonment issues, I'm saying I miss the way s1 had her love books for herself and their own sake (instead of being passionate about Chanina getting to learn all he wants), and gave her relationships with her brothers (there's no conversation between her and them in the entire s2). This gets even worse in s3 where Ruchami and oldest brother Yo'sele, despite getting a "match the parents disapprove of" storyline just like she did a season earlier, might as well live on a different planet, and Ruchami's entire emotional focus is on her longing for a child. We never ever see her reading again. Look, I didn't expect her to become Yentl and get to be a Talmudic scholar herself in disguise, but why not show her talk with Chanina about books they've both read, now and then, or show her reading? I'm not saying a female character can't find fulfillment in marriage and family without this; but a character whose earlier characterisation gave her these passionate interests and then takes them away, that's just more upsetting to me than probably intended.
(I.e. when Zvi Arye decides not to continue with his singing, with when Libbi's story about her father is later taken up with Nuchem's silent conducting, I know the narrative and I are on the same page with the emotions this evokes. But I'm not so sure about Ruchami.)
(It doesn't help that the actress playing Ruchami happens to be the same actress playing Esty in Unorthodox, either.)
Meanwhile, Giti. The advice she was given and decided to follow at the end of s1 - to pretend Lippe's month long absence had just been a dream and not to talk about it - has predictable bad results, with her suppressed rage coming out in all sorts of ways, mainly, but not exclusively, in her determination not to let her daughter in s2 and her son in s3 make a match that, she fears, will ruin their lives. It doesn't help that Lippe early in s2 does something behind her back again (plot point to complicated to explain briefly having to do with the naming of their sixth child and Giti's fears). The amazing thing is that show manages to pull off making it understandable why Giti does not leave her husband for good beyond her fears of social ostracism by showing Lippe (who was mostly absent in s1) as well intentioned (if often short sighted), generally a good father (he manages to provide both Ruchami in s2 and Yo'sele in s3 with a sympathetic ear and pleading their cause to Giti without sabotaging her - the cause pleading happens in private, he presents a united front with the kids), and actually in love with her. By providing a counter example in s3 - a friend of Giti's is also abandoned by her husband but as opposed to Giti does not take him back, gets a divorce instead and is far happier for it - , the show also makes it clear that Giti's sticking-it-out choices are not the only ones available in her community, they are specific to her (and Lippe), and might not be the right ones, but they are hers. Which is why even when Giti does things I disagree with on a Watsonian level, I'm happy with her story on a Doylist one.
(it also helps that the show continues to put Giti's organizing and business skills introduced in s1 to good use in s2 and s3.)
s3 makes a time jump, brought up, I take iti, by real life difficulties, which means that when we see the characters again, everyone has visibly aged and several years have past on the show as well as in real life. The show creators also prove they have things in common with Susan Howatch by killing Libbi off between seasons for Akiva's character development. (BTW, this means each season has a dead woman the characters mourn for. S1 starts shortly after the death of Dvorah, Akiva's mother and Shulem's wife; s2 kills off Malka; s3 deals with the grief for Libbi.) I briefly was angry but caved under the power of good writing and acting, because I'm a sucker for well executed working-through-grief storylines. Also, the show then ups the stakes and does a well executed "pretend marriage becomes real" trope. And Racheli, Akiva's new love interest, is different from both Elisheva in s1 and Libbi in s2, each a three dimensional woman in their own right. Plus Akiva having become a father puts him full circle and in a way completes his growing up through the seasons story.
With all the drama, I would fail at reviewing if not mentioning the humor that continues to be plenty and great through both seasons. Often the dark emotional moments manage to be funny at the same time. (As when Akiva is hit with a whole busload of bad coincidences, from his friend picking the wrong baby at Kindergarten, thereby causing a visit from the social worker, which is the very moment when Nuchem - who as Libbi's father is completely destroyed by her death - makes a suicide attempt in the same flat the baby is in; as the audience, you don't know whether to gasp or to laugh.) Also, for a show that lets a character state that dissolving an engagement is worse than marrying and divorcing, it presents a hell of a lot broken off engagements, and Nuchem's comment in Yiddish about Akiva in this regard ("he is like a dreidel") had me snorting. And the next generation is following suit, given Yo'sele's s3 story. (Again: why not a scene between either Ruchami and Akiva, Yo'sele and Akiva, or Ruchami and Yo'sele, show?)
Lastly: I hear it's uncertain whether or not there will be an s4. On the one hand, this season's ending would be a good place to leave all the characters in, otoh, an s4 would maybe finally give Ruchami back some of her s1 interests and qualities? I don't know what to hope for. Anyway, I'm glad I watched this show.
