'Arab Labor' Returns for Season 3 on KCET
Rejoice "Arab Labor" fans (side note: "laborers" would be a great fandom name), the Alian family is returning for a new season. Season three of the critically acclaimed Israeli sitcom debuts on KCET on Saturday, December 6. The first two episodes will air back-to-back from 10 to 11 p.m.
Two new half-hour episodes will air every Saturday during the the same time block. Full episodes will also be streaming online indefinitely. New videos will be posted here weekly during the broadcast.
When we last saw Amjad, the ambitious journalist was offered his very own TV show. The catch? He had to host it dressed as a pink bunny. Meanwhile, Amal and Meir were forced to get married in Cypress because there's no separation of church and state in Israel and therefore no recognition of interfaith marriage.
Amjad goes on the show "Big Brother" in the season three opener to prove that Arabs and Jews can live together peacefully under the same roof. It's really all a stunt to convince his neighbors that Arabs aren't the reason why rent prices have dropped in their building. Needless to say, this season finds him continuing his heartbreaking yet comically futile attempts to become a part of Israeli society.
The groundbreaking series (the first Israeli TV show to present Palestinian characters speaking Arabic in primetime) seamlessly tackles divisive political, social, and cultural issues with irreverence and humor. KCET airs the show with English subtitles.
"Arab Labor" uses wit to poke fun of the cultural divide in Israel and the glaring differences in its mixed society.
Click here to catch up on the last two seasons and here to read recaps of season two.
Here are the synopses for season three:
In the season three opening episode, Amjad goes on the show "Big Brother" to prove that Arabs and Jews can live together under the same roof -- and that Arabs aren't the reason why rent prices in his building have dropped.
Amjad became a big star after being in the "Big Brother" house. He gets job offers from the biggest media companies in the country and he's represented by a leading agent. On the way back form a dinner party, in which he drank one beer too many, he's forced to stop at the side of the road to pee. Amjad turns from a beloved star to enemy of state when he's caught peeing on a national monument.
Amjad is invited to lecture at the Confederation House and dreams of a new career as a popular lecturer. However, he gets stomach worms a day before his lecture and his life becomes a nightmare.
A BBC crew travels to Israel for a story about Amjad and follows him and his everyday experience as a Palestinian in Israel. Amjad dreams of an international career to follow the BBC story. He tells the foreign reporters about the brotherhood and peaceful coexistence between him and his Jewish neighbors, only to find out that this isn't what they're looking for. They demand to see racism in the hopes of exposing the difficulty of being a minority in Israeli society. Amjad goes out of his way to look for racism and can't find it anywhere but in a cookie store.
The enlightened Amjad is invited to lecture on International Women's Day about his feminist outlook, which despises old values like family honor. He finds out at the same time that his little girl Maya is falling in love with Nadav, his Jewish neighbors Nathan and Timna's son. Amjad goes out of his way to stop the horror occurring under his own roof.
Yoske and Yocheved are tired of the endless attempts to sell their house to move closer to their grandchildren so they welcome an ultra-orthodox family that's interested in the apartment. The neighbors are horrified at the idea of their building turning religious and Amjad takes the blame.
Following his neighbor Timna's remark that there are no vegetarian Arabs, Amjad decides to become the first vegetarian Arab and turns into a symbol of struggle for animal rights. At the same time Abu-Amjad opens a meat restaurant in the middle of his now-vegetarian son's neighborhood.
Amjad decides to have a special birthday party for his father. He invites guests and musicians and doesn't spare efforts to make it the best birthday ever, until he hears his neighbors saying that "Arabs make a lot of noise." Amjad is convinced they're right and so he tries to find a solution to his father's upcoming "noisy" birthday that's supposed to take place in his house.
Amjad's world is about to crumble when a new rising star, an Arabic reporter/writer, catches the attention of the Israeli media. Bashie Siliman is sharp and suave, the exact opposite of Amjad. Bashir leaves the scared Amjad alone and out of work until he decides to fight and reclaim his place in the Israeli media.
In the season three finale, an alert wakes the whole building, sending everyone down to the basement shelter. Amjad and his family find themselves on the defensive with their Jewish neighbors who eye them as a suspicious minority in the midst of the apparent war that's taking place outside.
