Master of None (again)

I’ve written about Master of None before and if Aziz Ansari makes another series, then no doubt I’ll write about it again.

The previous series was a huge critical success for Netflix, netting Ansari and his writing partner Alan Yang an Emmy for Outstanding Writing. Standout episodes in that series included ‘Parents,’ a meditation on the immigrant experience; along with ‘Indians on TV,’ a critique on the media’s diversity problem. The fact that Ansari addressed these issues subtly, without succumbing to polemic, made them truly groundbreaking.

So Ansari is back playing Dev, an actor struggling to find meaning in a disposable world. At the end of the first season, Dev made the decision to turn his back on subsuming America for homespun Italy. Ansari, a foodie, made this trip himself when Season 1 wrapped, partly to inspire storylines, predominantly to research food. So like his creator, Dev ventures to Modena in the hope of turning his hands towards cooking, an art more noble than texting.

Food is everywhere in Master of None.

Season 2 begins in monochrome with Dev’s alarm clock having a tantrum. Unaware of how to pacify the analogue, Dev throws the baby out of the window. Despite being in a new city, the satire on technology persists. It isn’t long, however, before we see Dev at pasta school, swapping technological paranoia for artisanal fulfilment. Witnessing the satisfaction Dev derives from actually making something resonates with our generation: I could construct a witty text, but would get far more satisfaction out of building a wardrobe. Compared to our parents generation, there is a feeling that technology has deskilled us, put us in thrall of computers, made us powerless; and when inevitably the thing doesn't work, we're left to despair at our piss-poor practical skills. 

The plot of the first episode is hinted at in the first few shots.  Piled along Dev’s bedside is Vittorio’s De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief. In the film (which I have seen on Wikipedia) a working-class Italian acquires a job that will save his family from penury; however, when the bicycle he requires to get to work is stolen, an odyssey to reclaim the transport begins. In Master of None it isn’t Dev’s bicycle that's stolen, it’s his phone. For the protagonist in the movie, their whole livelihood and security hangs in the balance; for Dev it’s much worse than that: a girl’s number is on that phone, rendering a hook up without it impossible. Again, Ansari demonstrates his skill of appropriating the old for the new. You can tell Ansari knows his onions when it comes to foreign cinema, but this preternatural knowledge never slides into pretension: he maintains his gaze on the present, skewering a generation whose whole lives are contained within their mobiles.

'The Thief.'

I’ve also seen the two following episodes of Master and am pleased to say that they retain their quality. Episode 3 titled ‘Religion’ struck a particular chord, dealing as it does in the secularisation of society. Yes, children may be baptised, immersed or inducted into a faith, but do they follow it with the rigour of their parents? Ansari’s episode, co-written with his brother, looks at how religion is as much about family as it is about Gods. In the episode, Dev is warned by his father to affect a pious position when relatives come to visit. Dev is an infrequent attendee of Mosque; his position on pork is atheistic too. When the relatives arrive, Dev reads the lines his father has given him, but questions whether he should break character to reveal his true self. On a recent trip to Sri Lanka I saw my dad participate in coconut breaking and pujas to ward away the spirits, practices that seemed alien to me, yet comforting to him. By the end of ‘Religion,’ the heathens watching might accept as Dev does: that the past is a foreign place, they do things different there.

I’m deliberately rationing myself with Master of None, knowing full well that if it was up to me I would have gorged the whole lot in a single sitting; for Ansari, the foodie, has served up something truly delicious.

Master of None is available on Netflix.