Master of None Season 3 Review

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Plot: A new season that chronicles the relationship of Denise and her partner Alicia. This new season is a modern love story that intimately illustrates the ups and downs of marriage, struggles with fertility, and personal growth both together and apart. Fleeting romantic highs meet crushing personal losses while existential questions of love and living are raised. Season 3 delivers an evolution of the series that remains tethered to previous seasons while breaking new storytelling ground of its own.

Review: After two critically acclaimed seasons, Netflix's Master of None seemed like it may not return for a third. With the second season ending in 2017, both Aziz Ansari and Lena Waithe moved on to other projects as they awaited the right story for the next chapter. Moments in Love continues the story but in a different way from the first two seasons. Gone are the teams of writers and directors and in their place Lena Waithe and Aziz Ansari scripted each episode with Ansari directing them all. The result is a wonderful change of pace that shifts the focus from Dev Shah to Denise to look inside a relationship vastly different from what took center stage in the previous seasons.

Filmed in the 4:3 aspect ratio that has become trendy these days and comprised of only five episodes (the first two seasons were ten episodes each), Moments in Love is a far more intimate and lowkey story than we have seen from the previous seasons. For the first 20 episodes of the series, Master of None clocked in at right around 30-35 minutes per episode. Moments in Love is comprised of two 50 minute episodes, two half-hour episodes, and one twenty-minute episode. Despite these varied times, each episode is titled as a Chapter and set over a long period of time, focused on the titular moments in the relationship between Denise (Lena Waithe) and Alicia (Naomi Ackie).

After orienting yourself to this new storytelling format, it becomes apparent that this is not the same Master of None we have come to expect. Yes, Aziz Ansari's Dev makes appearances but he is no longer central to the story. Time has elapsed since the conclusion of season two and Denise is now an acclaimed writer working on her second book. Her wife, Alicia, is an eclectic designer. The pair are living blissfully in Upstate New York and we see how their daily lives unfold. There is romance, there is humor, and there are minute details that populate their everyday routines that may seem dull to some viewers while others will immediately recognize them as the moments of love mentioned in the series title.

As the couple decides to pursue having a child together, Lena Waithe and Naomi Ackie navigate some truly challenging scenes together. With music continuing to be as integral this season as it was in the first two, we are privileged to watch two very talented actors appear effortlessly as their characters. Lena Waithe dives further into who Denise is then we saw in any of her episodes in the first two seasons and Naomi Ackie readily holds her own. The two have instant chemistry as this series takes us on every single up and down of a relationship as it careens from marital bliss to tumultuous moments that can redefine marriage.

Comprised entirely of static shots, Aziz Ansari echoes the works of filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, and David Fincher by keeping the camera unobtrusive and making this story feel like we are observing as flies on the wall. At times, it feels like we are spying on the moments in the daily lives of Denise and Alicia, forced to watch as events unfold and unable to see what occurs outside of the frame at any given time. It is somewhat jarring, especially compared to the first two seasons which were filmed in a more cinematic style. Moments in Love sometimes feels like an homage to the cinema of a bygone era, something Ansari channeled in the very Italian-influenced second season.

What sets Moments in Love apart from Master of None is that these five chapters are really a glimpse into two characters with some substantially transformative events and yet everything unfolds in a manner that is unexpected. This series does not offer a formulaic narrative nor a conventional one and I can imagine that many viewers may be underwhelmed or even bored. Ansari and Waithe set out to deliver a specific story and they succeeded. Moments in Love is a touching glimpse into a real love story that perfectly fits into our modern world while also being a beautiful throwback to the days before social media and the bombardment of fast-paced living. This is a nice little story that serves as a showcase for two talented actors and two talented filmmakers.

Master of None Presents Moments in Love premieres on May 23rd on Netflix.

Netflix

GREAT

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