Here Are The Best Moments In ‘Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’
Image by Publicity Still
It’s been almost a year since the first season of ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ aired its finale on Amazon Prime. As we wait for Rachel Brosnahan’s character, Mrs. Miriam ‘Midge’ Maisel, to return to the comedy stage as a new divorcee and navigate life as a former housewife turned comedian, here are the few details that we’ve culled about season 2, coming out December 5.
For starters, Midge has a new dashing doctor co-star, Zachary Levi — a name as familiar to us as Justin Bieber is to Canadians. If Amy Sherman-Palladino could create seven seasons of ‘Gilmore Girls’ with an eighth that debuted eight years later, then the Golden Globes-winning TV series she created has a long schlep ahead. Or so we hope.
Before Midge and her Jewish Upper West Side life in the 1950’s makes a comeback, we at the Schmooze are reflecting on all the best moments from Season 1:
Episode 1: Midge’s First Comedy Set Reveals The Hardships Of Womanhood
After Midge’s businessman wannabee comedian husband Joel (Michael Zegen), reveals that he’s been cheating on her for months with his secretary, she does what any other sane person who just found out their husband has been cheating would do. She gets drunk on red wine, giving into the ‘stay at home’ wife stereotype, and believe it or not, the proper and prim Jewess goes to the Gaslight — a famous 50’s comedy club in Greenwich village — in a rain-soaked nightgown. In this drunken comedy bit, she shows the crowd how difficult it is for a woman to be well, a woman, under the microscope of their husbands and the pressure to be perfect housewives. To prove her point, she drops her nightgown to unveil her bare breasts and says that even after childbirth, her two prized possessions (besides her two children of course?) are “standing up on their own.”
Image by Hey Alma
Episode 2: The Yom Kippur Make-Up Dinner, ft. Matzo Ball Soup
The motive for the dinner itself was peculiar, as Midge tries to play the perfect wife and hostess despite her fuming rage against her philandering husband. Midge’s parents, Abe and Rose Weissman, join Joel’s parents Moishe and Shirley Maisel, for a dinner with the soon-to-be separated couple. Midge finds out that Joel’s father owns their luxurious Upper West Side apartment. But more importantly, Mrs. Weissman carries matzo ball soup in her purse — to show her daughter-in-law what a terrible cook she is, obviously.
Episode 3: Midge Ends up In Jail — Again
It’s the second time this season that Midge is thrown into a jail cell after being arrested from a comedy show for uttering an incendiary word. (‘Balls’ is hardly a foul word in our vocabulary, thanks to the 21st century). This time, she dons a red sweetheart dress from the Yom Kippur dinner she hosted the night before, explaining to felons how to remove stubborn blood stains. We’d like to know how we, too, can end up in a jail cell with Midge Maisel.
Episode 4: An Impromptu Speech At A Women’s Rally
Midge happens to walk past a women’s rally in Washington Square Park (“so many women in one place, is there a two for one special in panty hose?’ she quips) led by the real-life Greenwich Village activist Jane Jacobs. After eloquently putting in her two cents, Midge ends her speech by saying, “Women will fix it…. and accessorize it!”
Episode 5: Marvelous Mrs Maisel Gets A Job At A Beauty Counter
That’s right, Midge is a strong independent woman who doesn’t need a man (or that man’s father) paying for her apartment or clothing her children. Okay, so she moved back in with her parents, but she’s clearly making moves in the right direction. Nobody becomes successful overnight, after all!
Image by Amazon Studios
Episode 6: Rose Sees A Psychic To Repair Her Daughter’s Marriage
Contrary to typical Jewish tradition, Midge’s mother Rose is hell bent on seeing a psychic to repair her daughter’s marriage. “Miriam stopped wearing her wedding ring,” Rose huffs. The psychic assures her that another man will soon enter Midge’s life. We can’t help but wonder if that new man is Lenny, a well-known comedian who invites her to his upcoming show. Time (er, the psychic glass ball) will tell.
Episode 7: Abe Weissman Tries Setting His Daughter Up With A Charming Lawyer
Plot twist, it’s actually a divorce lawyer! Abe wants his daughter to move on and feel settled. Rose grabs a piece of celery as a de-stressing mechanism. Now we know where Midge gets her obsessive body complex from.
Episode 8: Co-parenting And Sex
Those terms could be mutually exclusive but Midge and Joel chose to mix them together like a big pot of cholent. We’re starting to warm up to Joel, who ends the finale by beating up a heckler at the Gaslight who starts up with Midge by calling her a ‘dumb bit**’. “Midge is good!” Joel screams back. No, Joel, she’s not just good, she’s great. But you should’ve known that all along.
Bonnie Azoulay is a Lifestyle intern at the Forward.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
