While watching the immensely powerful opening shot of season two, with the Pfefferman family posing for a family photo at Sarah Pfefferman’s nuptials, I digress; I was skeptical.

The previous season was lauded by critics and showered with accolades, yet somehow I still found it to be a difficult show to swallow. Its utterly 21^st century plot about a father who comes out at an old age as a woman was executed with subtle humor, not risible but rather thoughtful.

The characters were seemingly selfish, jaded humans that felt difficult to appreciate. However, watching this second season opener, and all that followed, generated the realization that this uncompromisingly human show is not meant to be loved for its distinct family members, but rather for its ability to encompass the human journey towards authenticity that is generalized for all but implemented with specificity and finesse.

In the second season, the story ventures past Maura’s transition into a woman and instead focuses more on the Pfefferman family’s difficulty with dissatisfaction in life and the inability to find meaningful happiness.

As Joshua (Jay Duplass) and his newly pregnant girlfriend, Rabbi Raquel Fein (Kathryn Hahn), become increasingly entangled with Joshua’s son, born out of abuse, they discover the dissonance that decides their relationship’s fate.

Ali (Gaby Hoffman), the lone, quirky (or quirkiest) wolf of the family makes advancements on her family’s past to expose the reasons for their unhappiness while exploring her sexuality and beginning to identify as a queer woman. This research is woven with intimate attention to detail into the story through flashbacks of Nazi Germany, where the ones before them reside in an increasingly deleterious world.

Jeffrey Tambor is once again commendable as Maura, the patriarch-turned “moppa” (mom+poppa) of the family, exemplifies both the unique nature of the family as well as the many issues that arise as a trans woman.

Writer Jill Solloway does not touch on each issue with one scene or half an episode like another series of this nature may, but rather lets the issues accumulate into an immensely thought provoking span of ideas and thoughts that percolate the trans community and beyond. Is grievance of a loved one prohibited in the name of political correctness? Is a woman’s femininity put into question if she hasn’t struggled under the “oppression of patriarchy”? Solloway doesn’t attempt to answer these questions, but rather ponder them along with us, intentionally leaving it open-ended for us to decide, not as an audience but rather as a society.

“Transparent” has closed loose ends that tentative viewers may have felt were present in the previous season, and expounds on a universal journey for happiness through the sardonic, germane, tragic, and beautiful Pfefferman family.