Master of None season 3 is quite unlike anything that has gone before
The third season of Aziz Ansari’s Master of None is titled Moments in Love, and it puts Denise and Alicia's relationship centre-stage.
When writer/actor Aziz Ansari and Park And Recreation’s Alan Yang created Master of None in 2015, they delivered a quirky comedy drama that could devote an entire episode to one character alongside another that didn’t focus on any of the main cast at all, instead offering glimpses into the lives of everyday New Yorkers who would usually remain in the background.
It was an intriguing, often witty and enjoyable endeavour that ran for two seasons, anchored around Ansari’s character of Dev, a 30-something actor with a troublesome love life, and his close friends, including aspiring writer Denise (Lena Waithe).
Four years on from season two and Master of None has returned. It is a shortened, five-episode season subtitled Moments in Love that leaves both New York and Dev behind (Ansari, who directs and co-wrote each episode with Waithe, only appears briefly in two episodes).
Instead, the series focuses on Denise, now a successful author living in an idyllic countryside cottage with her British wife, Alicia (Naomi Ackie, starring alongside Waithe in the Master of None cast). In the first, almost hour-long episode (of the five instalments, three are 30 minutes or less) we see their life together in their beautiful home filled with antiques Alicia has sourced, and the moments they share, from folding the laundry to a dinner party with Dev and his girlfriend that brings us up to date with how his life is going (spoiler alert: it’s not going very well).
It is something of a homage to Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes From A Marriage as the episodes gently, languidly let us see snippets of a relationship that looks like it works on the surface, but has tension underneath thanks to the pressure on Denise to write a second book and Alicia’s yearning for a baby.
Often Moments In Love is achingly slow as the camera lingers on a fence, a bathroom with discarded towels on the floor, even a stationery cupboard (one three minute scene is just Denise eating a sandwich in her car). It’s certainly far removed from the Master of None of old – there are fleeting moments of humour here and there, but this is much more of a dramatic piece with few links to the original series (fans will miss Eric Wareheim’s Arnold, who doesn’t make an appearance this season).
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If you can be patient through the slower moments, however, you are rewarded with a stunning penultimate episode that is the best writing Waithe and Ansari have done together since season 2’s Thanksgiving, the memorable episode in which Denise was centre stage as she navigated the holiday season while coming out as a lesbian to her family.
She doesn’t feature in the fourth episode of season three, however, as it instead focuses on Alicia and her experiences of fertility treatment. It is a real, beautifully written, heartbreaking hour of television, superbly performed by Ackie (who most recently appeared in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe film Education).
All the scenes that have gone by add something to this powerful episode, and while the final instalment that follows it gives some resolution to Denise and Alicia’s story, it is this fourth chapter that makes Master of None: Moments in Love both memorable and well worth persevering with.
Master of None season 3 arrives on Netflix on 23rd May 2021. While you're waiting, check out our guides to the best series on Netflix and best movies on Netflix, visit our Drama hub for more coverage, or find something to watch tonight with our TV Guide.
