Master of None: Thanksgiving
May 17, 2017 3:16 PM - Season 2, Episode 8 - Subscribe

Over a series of Thanksgivings from the '90s to the present, Denise settles into her sexuality and faces the challenge of coming out to her family
posted by The Gooch (15 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 


There are a lot of great things to say about this episode, but on the shallow end, the extended bit on the Instagram name made me laugh harder than anything else in season 2.
posted by jameaterblues at 10:38 PM on May 17, 2017 [5 favorites]


Of course everybody knew. And everybody still acted cool.

I'm loving this series so hard.
posted by kandinski at 12:41 AM on May 18, 2017


I saw the description of this episode and wasn't excited as it didn't focus on Dev, but it turned out to be maybe my favorite one of the whole season.

I like to think Dev was trying to draw attention away from Denise's uncomfortable situation with his riffing on "titsandtoes" but either way it was hilarious. And his final scene yelling at Grandma about the pot-smoking made me crack up too.

Excellent casting / acting for young Dev and Denise too!
posted by mmoncur at 12:48 AM on May 18, 2017 [2 favorites]


the extended bit on the Instagram name made me laugh harder than anything else in season 2.

Dev: *shouting* What was that instagram name again?
posted by drezdn at 5:59 AM on May 18, 2017


This has been my favorite episode of the series so far.
posted by drezdn at 5:59 AM on May 18, 2017 [1 favorite]




I have two favs this season: The New York episode and this one. Loving that I don't have to choose between the two, can love them both hard. And I do. It's the kind of TV I want but never get. Until now.
posted by Bella Donna at 4:08 PM on May 21, 2017 [5 favorites]


God, this entire episode was a gift.
posted by Itaxpica at 11:45 PM on May 22, 2017 [4 favorites]


I love the timing of this show. Whether it's milking "Nipplesandtoes23" or a long awkward cab ride, the directors know when to take their time.
posted by rikschell at 7:23 AM on May 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


Lot's of great stuff in this episode. It's so cool that they got Angela Bassett and whoever played grandma was incredible - (IMDBing her it looks like she's done lots of little TV parts)

But my favorite part was the set design. They got so many details SO RIGHT. Really amazing how they created such a real feeling home and made it change over the years.
posted by latkes at 1:33 PM on June 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


For me, the cool old grandma always having known that they were smoking weed means that she always knew that Denise was a lesbian, and she didn't care either way.

Grandma has always had her own moral center, not society's. She does say, earlier in the episode, that she once had a boyfriend who was a pimp.
posted by kandinski at 9:41 PM on June 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


It was an amazing episode. The most moving and realistic part was the mom being overwhelmed, trying to hold it back and saying how she did not want to have her daughter's life being harder than it already was being a black woman in the world. It is heart felt cry of many parents out there. That scene resonated with the Religion episode because of the mixed feelings of the mothers wanting their children's lives to be easier and the children being independent enough to not want to be safe, just themselves but part of their selves is the parental love.
posted by jadepearl at 6:07 PM on August 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


I love how there's nothing like bringing a crappy girlfriend to Thanksgiving one year to make your family appreciate the nice, smart girlfriend they were rude to last year.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:47 PM on September 22, 2017


So I'm super late to watching this show but I wanted to say how meaningful Thanksgiving was to me. I grew up in a WASPy family, but gay. And so the coming-out stuff had so much resonance for me. But then the way the family interacted, the casual acceptance of emotion and foibles and.. Totally the opposite of my very buttoned up, emotionally clamped family.

I feel weird making these comments all about me, but one of the great things about this show and this episode in particular is how the viewer empathizes so well with the characters and stories. I like the little extra story in there about the kids smoking weed and the parents knowing, for instance, I think that's a detail a lot of their non-LGBT viewers could identify with.

Also this is old news, but this episode won an Emmy for comedy writing. Yay!
posted by Nelson at 6:45 AM on June 1, 2018 [3 favorites]


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