At some point in episode one, certainly only after the Ferris wheel scene, your head is spinning with all the wit and speed of the dialogue. As if the makers of the series wanted to shout out loud: Miriam “Midge” Maisel is back! In the meanwhile fourth season, the eponymous heroine, who escaped her predetermined fate in New York’s Upper West Side in the 1950s, is actually back where she was at the beginning of the series – before a new beginning.
Once again a man ruined her life, she states in one scene. Miriam Maisel, we remember, switched from being the perfect housewife and wife (mother not so much) to comedy after her husband Joel dumped her for reasons he himself doesn’t understand. And as a stand-up comedienne, Maisel is so successful that in the third season she appears as the support act for the celebrated singer Shy Baldwin and is supposed to accompany him on his European tour. But Maisel makes a nasty joke in front of a large audience about Baldwin hiding his homosexuality from the world and his audience. He feels offended and fires her.
Truly marvelous would be for Midge Maisel to realize her own mistake
And so Midge Maisel moves back into her old apartment in season four – it’s now the 1960s – and uses all her charm to get a letter from the baker, butcher and pharmacist. By chance she meets her family – ex-husband, parents, parents-in-law, children – at the fair in Coney Island and has to confess why she is not in Prague as she claims. And this confession scene in the Ferris wheel is The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in top form: Rachel Brosnahan mimes her as usual elegantly, snippy and sharp and also the secondary characters – again Tony Shalhoub as Midge’s nerdy father Abe Weissman – are crazy as ever. The way everyone yells the punchlines from the individual Ferris wheel gondolas they’re in is as well-timed as battle rap.
The equipment will not disappoint fans either: Great costumes and scenery, tracking shots that you would like to see twice, there is so much going on at the fair. Also in the fourth season, the showrunner Amy Sherman-Palladino, which also already Gilmore Girls was responsible for, and her husband Daniel live what makes the series so unique. And yet something is missing.
Amazon always publishes the new season in double episodes on Fridays – and at least after the first two, your head isn’t just spinning with all the fast dialogues. You especially don’t know where to go with Mrs. Maisel.
How she picks herself up in her corniness and puts her life in order has already been seen in the first season. And what makes Maisel so marvelous is unfortunately neglected: the comedy career. After all, she lets her terribly grumpy manager Susy (Alex Borstein) know that she only wants to say what she really thinks on stage in the future. And then there’s the question of how Maisel deals with her own mistake of insulting Baldwin. She likes to blame the men in her life for her unhappiness, but this time she clearly screwed it up herself. And it would be marvelous to admit it – and learn from it.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, in double episodes every Friday, Sky. You can find more series recommendations here.