Episodes Synopsis: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

This week I re-watched a series I really enjoy called The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. If you haven’t seen the show yet it takes place in New York City in the 1950s and it’s about a young Jewish woman named Miriam “Midge” Maisel who seems to have the perfect typical American middle-class life. She has two kids, Ethan and Esther, and a loving husband named Joel. She goes to his comedy club night because he is doing stand-up but his jokes end up falling flat. She initially just came to support and bring her prized brisket in its Pyrex container, and tries to initiate conversation with Susie Myerson, the manager of the Gaslight coffee house where Joel does standup, but Susie isn’t interested. Unfortunately, Midge finds out on the night of Yom Kippur that Joel cheated on her with his secretary, Penny Pann, and she gets drunk and goes to the coffee house and does a standup bit about Joel’s affair. Susie is impressed with Midge and it changes her impression of her because she at first thinks Midge is just this annoying chatty housewife who brought a brisket. She becomes Midge’s manager and helps her navigate a career in comedy. Midge gets a day job at a department store called B. Altman to support her comedy career and at the same time is trying to please her family and move on from Joel after his affair, and she is also keeping her comedy career a secret from her family because she knows they wouldn’t approve of her doing a career in stand-up.

In Season 2, Miriam and her family go on vacation to Steiner Mountain Resort in the Catskills. Susie goes with Miriam and fits in with the camp volunteers, carrying a plunger she has named Pamela and touring the Catskills grounds. Meanwhile, Joel is still thinking of Midge but his dad, Moishe, encourages him to look for other girls during their time in the Catskills but he doesn’t seem to find any girl that could really top Midge. He meets a girl at the bowling alley who has a smart wit like him, and they connect. Miriam gets a call from B. Altman asking if she can come in to work a shift because someone called in sick and another quit, so while at the beauty salon in the Catskills she tells Rose, her mother, she needs to go back to work but doesn’t have a ride. One of the women getting her hair done tells Miriam that her son, Benjamin Ettenberg, can give her a ride back since he is planning on returning back to New York City for work (he is a doctor) and also doesn’t enjoy his trip to the Catskills much. Miriam gets a ride from Benjamin, and at first there is no evident chemistry, and compared to Miriam, Benjamin seems introverted. Earlier on in the episode, Miriam and her friends are participating in a game of Simon Says and then linger near the table of refreshments and gossip. Benjamin walks past them and the girls check him out, wondering why he just walked past them instead of flirting with them. When Miriam and Benjamin are driving in the car on the way back to the city Benjamin turns on the news and Miriam is bored, but when he turns it off she starts improvising a comedic take on the news and he can’t help but crack a smile. When they make it back he asks her out and they go on a date and afterwards they go to the diner where Susie and Midge regularly meet to discuss standup gigs and other career-related matters. Benjamin doesn’t know anyone at the diner but Midge knows everyone since her and Susie go there frequently, and it’s where they network with a lot of professionals who work in show business. Midge is extremely nervous at first to tell him she is a comic, but then she tells him and he doesn’t mind.

Midge gets a call from Susie telling her that she got a gig at the Concord, which is a venue at the Steiner Resort. When Susie introduces Midge to the venue manager, he is angry because Midge doesn’t look like the girl that Susie had sent him a picture of and told about, and he refuses to let Midge take the stage. Midge goes on anyway, and ends up talking about a lot of sexual stuff in her standup, but she ends up finding her dad, Abe, sitting in the audience, looking appalled. Midge gets nervous, and when she gets nervous she doesn’t end her set, she keeps going and talks about her parents’ sex life. Everyone else laughs, but Abe is clearly embarrassed. When she goes backstage, Midge is shaken and feels horrible about what she did, even when she gets all this applause and Susie and the venue manager praise Midge for her standup. Abe finds her backstage and tells her she is coming with him and they are going home.

Abe also has another problem to deal with as well. He gets a call from Bell Labs at Columbia University, where he teaches as a professor, that he is going to embark on a research project that he really wanted to work on. He brings his son Noah with him, and all of the faculty meet Noah and talk about how they have heard a lot about him, but then he meets one of the faculty members and the faculty member tells him Abe can no longer be part of the project. Abe asks him why and the member takes him and Noah into a secret surveillance room, and the faculty tell Abe he is suspended from the team because Noah is involved in a top-secret project with the U.S. government. When he asks Noah about the project, Noah says he cannot share information about the project. Abe is of course quite frustrated: he finds out his son works for the CIA and he finds out his daughter does standup as a career. After the night at the Concord, Abe tells Miriam that she cannot tell Rose, her mother, about her standup career until he says she can. He also feels like he no longer recognizes the little girl Midge used to be when they went to the Catskills as a family together. But Midge assures him that everything she shared that night at the Concord was all hers, all authentically hers.

In the episode “Look She Made a Hat” Miriam and her family are back in New York City and are observing Yom Kippur. Susie calls Midge and tells her she booked a gig for her on the same evening as her family’s Yom Kippur dinner. Susie tells Midge she needs to come for the gig, no excuses, and so Midge has to figure out how to break it to her family that evening that she is a comic and has a gig that evening. Earlier, when they were in the Catskills, she told Joel about Abe coming to her standup at the Concord and he listened empathetically to her and was supportive, but after seeing her with Benjamin while everyone was out on the lawn stargazing, he becomes jealous. During the Yom Kippur service at their synagogue, Miriam’s parents (Abe and Rose) struggle to keep the peace with Joel’s parents (Moishe and Shirley) because neither of them get along well with each other, and during the service they argue back and forth with each other. While this is going on Astrid, Noah’s wife, is getting absorbed in the service and passionately singing along with the rabbi. Astrid converted to Judaism when she married Noah and makes earnest efforts to learn about Judaism. In season 1, her and Noah come back from Israel and she brings back gefilte fish and a mezuzah and Rose, while pretending to love the fish, has Zelda secretly throw it in the trash, and when Midge sees the mezuzah and is impressed by its size, Astrid thinks she got the wrong size. Astrid is worried that Noah will leave her but Midge assures her Noah loves her just as she is. When they are at Steiner Resort, Astrid is fasting because she observes Tisha B’Av, an annual Jewish day of mourning, and doesn’t eat anything at breakfast. Moishe, Shirley, Abe, Rose, Midge, Noah and Joel all come to the table where Astrid is with big plates of food in hand and they ask Astrid why she wasn’t at Polynesian night the night before. Astrid becomes more and more agitated with the family because she is the only one out of all of them observing Tisha B’Av and no one else seems to care about this day. After Rose finds out about Noah’s secret activity with the government, she tries to get some details about it from Astrid. She finds Astrid reading from scripture with the rabbi in a little quiet room, and Astrid is super excited that Rose is joining her to study scripture with her, but Rose pretends to read the scripture while asking Astrid about Noah’s work with the government.

During the Yom Kippur dinner, which also marks one year since Joel and Midge separated, chaos ensues as Midge tries to tell her family she is a comic. Earlier in the day, Rose is at the meat market picking up meat cuts for the Yom Kippur dinner and Midge meets her there and Rose tells her they got Rabbi Krinsky to come to the dinner, and they are so excited. Zelda, the Weissman’s housekeeper, goes through all the trouble to prepare a huge dinner for them and giving strict orders to the other housekeepers in the kitchen. Ethan complains he had too much chocolate during the Yom Kippur service and isn’t hungry, and Zelda tells her how growing up in Poland, kids worked, they didn’t get to eat all this food she is preparing for them. Midge tells Zelda and the other housekeepers to hold off on bringing the food in, and so they repeatedly have to bring out the food and they bring it back to the kitchen. Everyone at the table complains that they are hungry and want to eat, but Midge keeps talking and beating around the bush and the family is distracted with other things before they finally tell her to just say what she needs to say, and she tells them she is a comic. Rabbi Krinsky comes to the Weissmans’ house but after hearing the family argue about Midge’s comedy career for the next five minutes, he says he has another commitment and then leaves. I was thinking, Dang, and they were so excited about getting the rabbi to come. But by this time, the family is so focused on grilling Midge about her comedy career (and her relationship with Benjamin) that they aren’t even thinking of the rabbi. After the chaos dies down, Astrid announces she is pregnant.

Benjamin and Midge go to an art show because Benjamin loves collecting art. Midge goes into a little room where there are a few paintings on the wall that haven’t been sold yet because no one cared enough about them, and there is a woman at the desk in the room knitting. Midge asks her about the paintings and the woman tells her no one has sold them yet, so she is free to take one. Midge takes the painting and her and Benjamin go to a bar to hang out. They meet Declan Howell, a reclusive artist who refuses to sell any of his paintings. Benjamin fangirls because he is a huge fan of Declan Howell. He is super intoxicated on the night they meet him and when the bartender cuts him off at six drinks because he is intoxicated, Declan stands up and recites a Shakespearean sonnet, fumbling through the lines (when I first saw this episode, I thought he was going to vomit so that’s why I closed my eyes. But he doesn’t.) Everyone applauds and Midge and Benjamin go up to Declan. Midge introduces Benjamin to Declan, but Declan doesn’t really care and is only focused on how hot Midge is and the painting she found at the art gallery. They talk and Declan opens up and lets Benjamin come to his studio only if he brings Midge. Benjamin is very reluctant to have Midge go because he is worried Declan might sexually harass her, but Midge tells him she has dealt with a lot of sexual harassment working as a comic. She lets him go with her anyway and they share a sweet kiss before he lets her up to his apartment. They go to Declan Howell’s studio, and they find his studio is a mess and there are bottles of alcohol everywhere. Declan comes out to see them and he has bloody cuts and bruises on his body, and when Benjamin tells him he can treat the cuts because he is a doctor, Declan refuses to let him. When Benjamin asks if he can buy any of his paintings, Declan refuses to sell any of them to him. Midge suggests that she can get Declan to let Benjamin buy his paintings and that she will take care of it, but he refuses to let her be alone with Declan, especially because Declan is intoxicated and has been also checking out Midge. Midge silently reminds him that she has dealt with men harassing her before and that she can handle this. Benjamin gives in and lets Midge talk with Declan. After talking with him, Declan lets Midge into the back of his studio to see his best painting. I was sad to not see the actual work, but realized it would have defeated the purpose of the plot because Declan didn’t want anyone to look at his work. Midge is in awe of this painting and can’t move because she is mesmerized by its beauty. Declan tells her he used to have a family but gave all that up to dedicate himself to his artwork, and his pain and suffering went into this work.

I am not sure when season 5 is coming out so I have been watching the reruns. After finishing The Crown, I was emotionally exhausted, so I needed some comic relief (Mrs. Maisel is a show about a comedian. Pun totally intended.)