Unorthodox – Season 1 Episode 3 Recap & Review

Love

Episode 3 of Unorthodox begins with Esty looking at herself in the mirror and adjusting her wig as her and Yanky prepare for their third night sleeping together after marrying. Making love is awkward and she pleads with him to stop, telling him it hurts.

In the aftermath of this, Miriam arrives and hands over a box in a bid to help her make love with Yanky. Only, it doesn’t seem to work and their marriage continues to have issues. It becomes so problematic that Esty speaks to her Mother and tries to work out what to do. Unfortunately she runs into more barriers, eventually forced to give up piano lessons to please her husband.

In the present, Esty sneaks out her usual sleeping spot and decides to withdraw her application on the back of the hurtful words she received from Yael. As we see a letter arrive at Leah’s house, it turns out it’s too late as Etsy’s been accepted into an audition.

Back home, Esty’s Grandmother tells the family they should have been kinder to Esty before telling them what happened the previous evening, going on to admit she hung up on her granddaughter.

Esty heads to her doctor’s appointment and defiantly tells the nurse she doesn’t want to terminate her pregnancy. After an ultrasound, she learns more about this new, strange world she finds herself in including the internet and heading to the church and seeing a choir practicing.

Meanwhile, Moishe and Yanky pay their respects to Rabbi Samuel in the graveyard. Afterward they head to a local brothel where Moishe encourages Yanky to indulge in the pleasures on offer. It’s a stark contrast to the oppression of the women but Yanky refuses to engage with the hooker, telling her that Esty is his wife and he’s forbidden from touching someone else.

Instead, Yanky visits Leah again and implores her to call him if she hears anything. Instead, she screws up the note given to her and throws the paper in the bin when he leaves.

Later that day, Esty returns to Robert and asks for his help with her audition. Deciding she needs to follow through with this scholarship after all, she heads out with Dasia to a club while, unbeknownst to them, Moishe follows from afar.

Just as Esty is about to get into the music, Moishe starts taking pictures of her from the other side of the dancefloor. Moishe loses her in the crowd though as Esty heads home with Robert and sleeps with him. The affair is passionate and lustful; a complete contrast to her time with Yanky, which is where the episode ends.

With an episode revolving around romance and passion, the interesting cultural clashes come to a head here as we see the difference between the two communities. There’s all sorts of interesting juxtapositions and comparisons on offer here and the episode is chock full of these from start to finish. Whether it be the passionless love-making between Yanky and Esty compared to the passion of Robert, or even the way Yanky can’t cheat on Esty compared to her desire to find love, there are all sorts of interesting and well written instances like this throughout the hour of drama.

Of course, this empowering journey revolves predominantly around Esty and the first three episodes do a wonderful job building up to the climax of the story. Whether this one will top it off with a final hoorah or not, remains to be seen.