“Transparent” to End With a Movie Musical

Judith Light in "Transparent"

Transparent isn’t ending, it’s “transitioning in a musical.”

The Transparent finale will be no traditional ending. Amazon Studios’ Jennifer Salke and series creator Jill Soloway talked to reporters during the Television Critics Association winter press tour Wednesday, about the decision to end the show with a musical finale.

“We would never have wanted to take a special, incredible show like that and just end it unceremoniously. It was Jill’s idea to do a musical movie,” Amazon Studios chief Salke told reporters during the session. “We signed off on that idea, trusting her that she would come up with something incredible. We all sat in the front row of a musical run-through of this movie where we were crying. It is really special.”

For Soloway making a documentary musical about her parent coming out was always on the table.

“As a family we were always doing musicals, so that was kind of the first impulse, was to use song — and in many ways, some people have said that Transparent has always been a show that wants to be a musical.”

The musical finale will bring the Pfefferman family’s story “full circle” according to Salke. The creative choice also allowed the creator to overcome Jefferey Tabor’s exit.

“When everything went down last year and we lost Jeffrey Tambor, we went through so much as a family that felt like this very emotional … there are no words,” she said. “There was no way, really, to just go back to a plain old season five.”

There’s still no premiere date for the fifth and final season of Transparent.