The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Is Back and Midge Wants Revenge … for Some Reason
Midge is back and she is ready to take on the comedy elite—which she somehow thinks has wronged her.
Spoilers for Mrs. Maisel Season Four
Last season, Midge had the opportunity to open for Dwayne “Shy” Baldwin, a popular closeted Black comedian. They toured together, became friends, and it led to Midge finding out about Shy’s homosexuality. During one of the stops at the historically Black Apollo theatre, Midge worries about bombing and in her act decides to make jokes about Shy’s sexuality, which is at that point only rumored.
She is dropped from the tour and when we open on her set in season four, she declares that she wants revenge.
Which of course, leaves me wondering if she understands that she fucked up.
As she rants and raves to her agent Susie about feeling slighted by being left on the tarmac for making jokes, she seems completely unable to understand that she crossed a line. That playing around with outing a Black gay man in 1960, for laughs, is not exactly “just jokes.” It would be one thing for Midge to be that delusional about the situation, but no one around her seems to care.
“Once again, a man has stepped in and fucked up my life,” she tells the crowd with zero self-reflection. That episode, and the next, all deal with Midge struggling under the financial weight of all the money she has spent, but won’t be collecting.
I don’t mind that Midge is sometimes very unlikeable, but I do wish that someone would just have a bit of sense. It is for this reason that I still actually enjoy her ex-husband Joel as a character, even though I think he and Midge have by now moved on. He seems like the only one on this show with sense half the time. That’s not saying much, but it is more than a lot of the other regulars.
Midge says she wants to perform for herself, and if these past three seasons has been Midge being … generous, then I shudder to think about what selfish Midge looks like. I can have empathy for the gossip rags writing about her in a way that insinuates she slept her way to the top—but beyond that, Midge is in a chaos of her own making.
Being successful in show business is about compromise and being smart, not just being “yourself,” and combating sexism doesn’t mean that Midge’s failures aren’t her own doing too. It can be both.
Still, I woke up excited to watch these two episodes, because that is creator Amy Sherman-Palladino’s power. That being said, I do think that, as some other reviews have pointed out, the lack of any self-reflection, low stakes, and the fact that Midge is supposed to be so perfect is starting to just make things meh.
I’m hoping the show will pick up soon, if only because I think Rachel Brosnahan and the cast are excellent—but between the over the top Jewish stereotypes, the lack of really anything to say about class, politics, and race (you know, the things that made comedy in this period interesting and subversive), and the fact that Midge is Lorelai Gilmore on steroids—it’s a lot of the same.
(image: Amazon Studios)
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