Though in the vein of the semi-autobiographical work from Louis C.K. (Louie), Josh Thomas (Please Like Me), Lena Dunham (Girls) and others, Aziz Ansari’s new Netflix series Master of None marks a notable departure. It’s driven by curiosity, from lessons learned to stories told – Ansari is less critical than inquisitive, not so much a self-deprecator as a self-evaluator. Master of None opens up a world of Internet dating, social media discourse and openly existential anxiety, but rather than dissect or insert a sharp point-of-view, its creator explores in pure wonder.
For fans of the Parks and Recreation star’s stand-up, this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. Though often relegated on-screen to flamboyant and somewhat dogmatic personalities, Ansari’s performance style is, much like his series, observational and mindful. Master of None is so amiable, in fact, that it jars in relation to its auteuristic counterparts. It lacks Louie’s formal and thematic unpredictability; it’s not interested in the satire of Girls or the weight of Please Like Me, even if it's similarly concerned with millennial anxieties. Rather, the series is exploratory, settling into modernity and picking at it on a specific scale.
Don’t mistake that for thinness, though. Ansari and co-creator Alan Yang ask questions of a small and personalized scope to, holistically, create something that is deeply wise and genuine. Ansari plays a fictionalized version of himself, Dev, a low-level actor in the midst of starting a new relationship, trying to break into movies and striving to better understand the people around him (including his mom and dad, played by Ansari’s actual parents). The season blends the lightly-serialized storyline of Dev and Rachel’s (Noel Wells) blossoming romance with contained episodes whose titles speak for themselves: “Parents,” “Indians on TV,” “Ladies and Gentlemen,” “Old People.” Each of these position Dev against conflicting ideas of gender, race, class and work, with his ongoing conceptualization of love working as the seasonal throughline.
Confidently filmed in widescreen, Master of None benefits from rich cinematography and a stellar lineup of directors (including indie greats James Ponsoldt and Lynn Shelton). Because of Netflix's all-at-once release strategy and the singularity of Ansari’s vision – like Dunham or Thomas or Louis C.K., he writes most episodes and directs several – the series feels cinematic in both aesthetic and structural terms. This also might have to do with its assuredness: for a first foray into television, Master of None is remarkably polished, tighter and cleaner than any first season comedy in recent memory. Ansari imbues his television debut with a distinctive voice, and demonstrates surprising finesse with both story and tone.
Granted, the show’s premise allows for greater flexibility. But that element of specificity is precisely what yields such profound artistic rewards. By writing from the inside out, from a place of personal curiosity and engagement, Ansari taps into the common but underexplored stresses of modern life. In the astute “Parents,” the misconstrued and often reductively-discussed idea of privilege is rendered with honest relatability, as whittled down to the unassuming entitlement that children-of-immigrants show toward their parents. The episode “Indians on TV” boldly, if quietly, expands the conversation on cultural representation to Indian-Americans. “Ladies and Gentleman” tautly introduces Dev to gender dynamics at their most insidious. And the season’s highlight, “Mornings,” spans a year in the relationship between Dev and Rachel, exposing with gentle melancholy how love can fade, splinter, grow and deepen at the same time. Late in the season, there are several moments when the couple considers their future, and the fears they express cut deep both for their timeliness – mainly in terms of our modernized, malleable notions of work and family – and their authenticity.
As a television protagonist, Dev is somewhat anomalous for his ability to learn from mistakes. Again, Ansari is a self-evaluator: episodically, a problem in Dev’s character or worldview is confronted and corrected. This good-hearted traditionalism fits Master of None well, given how rare it is to the medium right now, especially among shows operating at this level of nuance and originality. The heavy cynicism so embedded in shows like Review and You’re the Worst obviously has its place – indeed, these are programs of a slightly higher ambition and quality – but Master of None is occupying an essential, long-vacated space alongside it. Further, this doesn’t mean to say that the series’ characters are sunny, cardboard cutouts. Dev may be open-minded, but he shows sternness in his relationship to his parents and his girlfriend, and is aware of but still penalized by his self-centered tendencies. Rachel, too, is flawed and flaky, and her attempts to balance settling down with getting older make for potent character work.
Where Master of None is less successful, ultimately, is in the show built around Dev and Rachel – a very small component of the series, but an important one nonetheless. Dev’s friend group is undefined and often uninteresting – buddy Denise (Lena Waithe, who makes a big impression) is always intriguing but is never given enough time to develop, while as best friend Arnold, the ever-peculiar Eric Wareheim seems to exist in an entirely different show. The banter never clicks, playing like an above-average stand-up routine. (It’s a common issue for first-time comedy creators.) This occasionally extends to the best parts of the show, too – in “Parents,” Dev and his Asian-American friend Brian (Kelvin Yu) spell out the episode’s main themes in a series of stiff and artificial back-and-forths. Ansari integrates observational dialogue that, at its best, hits beats rhythmically, channeling Woody Allen with an optimistic spin. But there are moments when the transfer from paper to screen is too coarse.
Yet that in-script negotiation – that attempt to strike such an intricate balance – is just as much a part of Master of None’s appeal. The season ends with an abrupt character turn that doesn’t quite convince, lacking real, conclusive punch. It’s grand and definitive where so much of the season is mild and messy – put another way, a contemporaneous conversation piece about marriage, fulfillment and culture turns into a meditation on the big, scary future. But the ending is also, in Master of None’s weirdly knowing way, just right: an outsized cap to a year full of lessons learned and truths unearthed, some stress-inducing and others noisily dictative. That feeling is universal: the world coming into clearer focus just as the clock starts to tick a little faster. Impulse can be necessary, a wake-up call or a proportional counter. And after providing a series of careful observations and quiet revelations, it’s hard to blame Master of None for wanting to try the big leap out for itself. This is a show driven by curiosity, after all – like Dev, it’s bound to learn its lesson eventually.
Grade: B+