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I am an English and Film major, cinephile, and aspiring writer! When I'm not buried in school work and lectures, I'm usually in the depths of streaming services and their plethora of film options. Or reading.
The Season 4 premiere episode of Prime Video’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is written and directed by the series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino. Its main cast stars Rachel Brosnahan as Miriam “Midge” Maisel, Alex Borstein as Midge’s manager Susie Myerson, Michael Zegen as Joel Maisel (Midge’s ex-husband), Marin Hinkle as Rose Weissman (Midge’s mother), Tony Shalhoub as Abe Weissman (Midge’s father), Kevin Pollak as Moishe Maisel (Joel’s father), and Caroline Aaron as Shirley Maisel (Joel’s mother).
Our favorite underdog female comedian is back on the stage and on our screens! Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel continues Miriam “Midge” Maisel’s story with a brand new season.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s Revenge
Revenge is what Midge seeks after her career went downhill last season. After losing her spot as Shy Baldwin’s (Leroy McClain) opening act for his European tour, Midge is back where it all started: the Gaslight Cafe, her old stomping grounds. The place she frequented as a female comedian for the first three seasons before landing the biggest job of her life opening for America’s beloved Shy. She tells the audience all about what happened that one terrible night, and we’re plummeting back in time to continue what we’ve missed since then.
This previous season’s finale ended on a very confident cliffhanger, alluding to the possibility of a Season 4. At the end of Season 3, Episode 8, we watch (standing behind the backs of Midge and her manager, Susie) as Shy’s plane takes off into the twinkling night sky, Europe-bound, and Midge-less. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel‘s story continues in this new episode with Midge hysterically laughing in the back of a taxi cab, on that same night.
It’s a whole new side of Midge we’re seeing. After three seasons of ladylike and polite Mrs. Maisel, she’s finally in tune with her craziness and starts to undress and attack the taxi cab with a tree branch in the middle of the night. Naked on the streets without a care in the world. Off the rails? Oh, wait, that’s right. She did take her top off on stage in the very first episode of the very first season. That’s the thing with Midge; she’s unpredictable. One day she’s worried that people will notice she’s wearing the same outfit twice or that her hat doesn’t have a box, another day she’s in her underwear, screaming and causing havoc.
Embarrassed to return to a home where her parents still think her comedy career is just a phase and product of emotional trauma from her divorce, Midge and Susie bunk at The Gaslight Cafe for the night.
The next day, a plethora of storylines break out in order to resolve unfinished narratives in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 3. Midge was set to buy back her old apartment from her ex-husband’s father, Moishe Maisel, using her contract with Shy Baldwin as collateral to meet those financial requirements. Of course, that ended up exploding in her face, so now Midge has to come up with the money to pay Moishe. She had saved every penny earned from every show performed and planned to use that to buy the apartment.
Here’s the problem: she had trusted Susie to hold on to her savings, but Susie lost it all in a gambling dilemma. So now Susie is running around like a headless chicken with a heart that’s beating too fast trying to solve this issue. Her idea of a solution: work alongside her sister to burn down her late mother’s home for the insurance money.
Meanwhile, in Chinatown, Midge’s ex-husband (whom she divorced then drunkenly remarried in Las Vegas and is in the middle of divorcing again — long story) Joel Maisel and his club seem to be doing great. Maybe a little too great. His girlfriend Mei Lin’s parents run an illegal gambling operation just downstairs and sold the club space to Joel thinking it wouldn’t be so popular. The idea was to keep eyes off of their underground parlor, but with the much-earned success of Joel’s club, it raises some tension between Joel and Mei Lin. Though that storyline is shelved for later episodes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, I’m assuming.
Among all this, did I forget to tell you it’s also Ethan’s (Midge and Joel’s son, played by Matteo Pascale) birthday? It’s technically not, but both grandparents on both sides are celebrating it months in advance in order to accommodate the potential busyness of Abe Weissman’s schedule at that point in the future. Their characters are hard to explain. Just imagine four loud and contrasting personalities talking over each other at every point in time. When they’re put in charge of babysitting the grandchildren while Midge is away on tour and Joel is busy with the club, that means conveniently celebrating birthdays months ahead.
Midge finds them all at a fair, and instead of stopping to wonder why Midge is there in New York and not in Prague, Abe rushes everyone to continue the interrogation on the Ferris Wheel so as to not waste time. In true Weissman-Maisel fashion, this scene calls for chaotic back and forth shots between characters, everyone yelling over each other for all of New York to hear. This is the moment they decide to hash out and exploit their problems out in the open for a live audience. As The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel‘s fourth season premiere episode title references, it’s a Rumble on the Wonder Wheel.
Midge finally admits to being fired. Joel finds out that Midge had borrowed money from his father to buy their old apartment. Abe and Rose find out that she’s buying her old apartment back. And a flabbergasted What?! is expressed at least once from every character. It’s not going anywhere…
Now we’re back to the present of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Midge and Susie are at lunch discussing how to move their lives forward. Midge has a realization: she was fired from Shy’s tour because of what she said, and if she’s going to continue to pursue comedy, she wants to stop filtering her set. She unequivocally wants to be herself. Susie argues that if she’s ever going to open up for someone with a stature like Shy Baldwin ever again, she should maybe hold back on her backhanded insults and choice of profane words.
That’s when she declares that she doesn’t want to be anyone’s opening act anymore; they’re going to change the industry of comedy for women. Mazel Tov!
Final Thoughts on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 4 Premiere
Here’s what I think about this premiere episode: it’s about time they realize that. It’s been 26 episodes of female resilience and taking every opportunity they could to get to where they are. Though it seemed to recycle the same storyline of getting to some sort of “top” before being knocked back down again. Just with different external factors this time. The exhausting trope is overpowered by characters with unintentionally funny personalities and their charming back and forths.
Prime Video’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is surely a character-driven story, and it’s proven to be successful with its fourth-season run. As an audience, we starve for the way these characters navigate through their taboo-for-its-time life problems. With confidence on her shoulders, Midge walks down a city street during the night, knowing and hoping it will all work out in the end. But with the ways she’s handled things in the past, will it ever work out for her?
RELATED: Read our spoiler review on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 4, Episode 2!
I am an English and Film major, cinephile, and aspiring writer! When I'm not buried in school work and lectures, I'm usually in the depths of streaming services and their plethora of film options. Or reading.
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