Recently, IFC’s Evan Shapiro defended his company’s production and distribution of new chapters in R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet saga by comparing the “hip hopera” pioneer to postmodern trash god John Waters. Trapped, according to Shapiro, “challenges the traditional mores and sexual stereotypes of the current climate as boldly — and hysterically — as many films coming out of Hollywood or the indie movement.”

In the current climate of posture-as-polemic, it’s impossible to gauge exactly how seriously Shapiro intended us to take that provocation, but I certainly kept it in mind whilst watching Chapter 13 of Trapped (the first Chapter to be produced under the IFC deal), which premiered on IFCTV.com last night. New episodes are set to premiere every evening on the site for the next ten days.

From the first shot, it’s immediately apparent that Trapped’s production values have been elevated somewhat since Chapter 12 was released two years ago. The story has moved out of the closets and cupboards and kitchens of Slyvester and crew, and on to the streets of Chicago (or, at least, a decent facsimile thereof). There are sophisticated camera movements, and lush, dissolve-heavy montages. Whereas the soundtracks of previous episodes barely allowed Kelly the time to take a breath, Chapter 13 concludes with a musical interlude that’s actually about the passing of time.

Although Kelly still reads and/or sings each actor’s lines for them, he seems to be trying to create distinct vocal characters for some of the players in the story. In the previous twelve chapters, the only character that Kelly seemed to make an effort to differentiate was Bridget, the overweight white woman who has an affair with (wait for it) the midget. In Chapter 13, his new attitude towards acting is most noticeable in a scene in which the nosey neighbor glimpsed briefly in Chapter 7 fights with her husband. This is, I guess, a natural progression, as the shorts move from being primarily R. Kelly songs to being primarily mini-movies, but if it continues, it could have profound implications on Trapped’s signature, quasi-Brechtian manner of storytelling.

Elsewhere it seems as though Trapped’s unique logic has been smoothed down into something more traditionally cinematic. I particularly miss what I like to call The Two Kellys Effect, which was used in Chepater 11 and to greater effect in Chapter 12. At the end of Chapter 11, when Sylvester (played on screen by Kelly), James, Twan, Bridget and the midget are all in the kitchen pointing guns at one another, a second Kelly walks out of (where else?) the kitchen closet and delivers the chapter’s final bit of narration directly to the camera. Chapter 12 consisted of two parts: an argument between Cathy (the woman Sylvester wakes up next to in Chapter 1), her husband Rufus, and Rufus’ lover Chuck; and a phone call between Cathy and her friend Gwendolyn (who is also Sylvester’s wife). This part of the story itself didn’t demand Kelly’s presence as Sylvester on screen, but during the argument section, he appears a cigar-smoking apparition, fading in and out of the scene, visible to us but not to Cathy, Chuck and Rufus.

The Two Kellys Effect was, to my mind, Trapped in the Closet’s best chance at transcending camp value and approaching some kind of legitimate self-awareness as epic theater. The removal of that device is something of a double-edged sword. It certainly makes it easier to immerse oneself in the story, thus making Trapped feel more like a traditional drama, but I thought the appeal of Trapped was that it wasn’t a traditional drama — and that even when it begins to approach typical soap territory, it immediately takes a turn for the baroquely bizarre that’s virtually unparalleled elsewhere in contemporary culture.

Maybe Kelly’s artistic vision has changed; maybe the influx of IFC cash has given him the chance to fully realize his vision for the first time. Anything’s possible, I suppose. I just hope that Shapiro and Kelly and friends understand one thing: Trapped in the Closet isn’t really Trapped in the Closet without multiple alienation effects.