3x06 Kind of Bleau

[8.3/10] So much of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is escapism and luxury. Even amid money troubles and theoretically just getting one’s first break, Midge and Abe and Rose and everyone in their orbit flit through wondrously-appointed backdrops and visit far-flung locales and revels in the show’s fantastic cinematography. Midge herself is a wunderkind, managing to will her way through sheer talent into a major gig, make friends with everyone regardless of station or position, and always have the perfect bon mot for any situation. There’s plenty of wish-fulfilment and fantasy there.

But I like it when something punctures that. When she starts to realize that not everybody lives that sort of harmed life and can demand on the leeway it provides. The show has hinted at that before via Susie, but we see it for real here with Shy. The show doesn’t overplay its hand, but the scene where Midge learns that, despite his stardom, despite his money, despite his seemingly charmed life, Shy is at risk and at a disadvantage because of his sexual orientation and because of the color of his skin. It’s a nice acknowledgement that not everything was as perfect in 1959 as Midge’s life may make it seem, and that there’s things even the worldly and ever-capable Mrs. Maisel doesn’t know or understand.

So when we see that Shy has been beaten up after a rough romantic encounter, when it’s confirmed that he cant’ stay at the same hotel as Midge, when we see him give an emotional “stool set” after all of this, it’s a nice dark counterpart to all the brightness that this series puts on tap, even when it deals with real issues. Midge and Shy are almost unbearably cute together, and there is still some fantasy-land atmosphere to how Shy lets his guard down and confides his real name to her. But it speaks to Midge’s acceptance of him, at a time when everyone else is justifiably tired of his “moods”, rather than the show eliding the harsher elements of the world that existed beyond the confines of the Upper West Side.

We get a little of that with Abe as well here. It comes almost out of nowhere, but I like the scene where he commiserates with a fellow forme agitator, played by Jason Alexander, who was blackballed from his successful playwright career after being outed as a communist amid McCarthyism, another dark chapter of American history that’s gone unremarked upon by Marvelous Mrs. Maisel until now.

I like it as a more serious counterpart to Abe's broad shtick with the young communists this season. Alexander gives a great performance, showing a genuine woundedness over how New York “broke his heart” after what happened, how it broke his spirit for being a creative. Similarly, it adds weight to Abe’s intent to rediscover his agitating roots, taking in his regrets for not standing by his friend, internally contemplating the talent that was lost when his pal was excluded from doing the thing he loved, and seemingly, given his furious typing, aiming to set all that right. For all his efforts to return to his rabble rousing days of yore, Abe has been searching for a cause actually worth fighting for, and seems to have finally found one.

Amid all of these serious and heavy business, there’s still some hilarious comedy. I love Susie’s business here. For one thing, it’s so triumphant when she coaxes Sophie to do her run through and then, one time lapse later, is jazzed that this cokcamemie scheme might actually work. Alex Borstein sells the “We’re doing it!” energy like a champ. Her going back to the Rockaway goons to secure a theater for the performance after their original venue falls through is a delight, especially with the gag about the marquee initially saying “Julie Andrews” and the goons telling Susie, “We got them to throw in the ‘Ms. Julie’ for free.” And Susie’s extended phone calls with Sophie, Gaving, and the director are a nice exercise in comic escalation.

But Susie also has some great interactions with Rose, who aims to get so drunk that she doesn't remember her daughter’s set despite being forced to watch it. Drunken Rose is a laugh riot, from her constant efforts to get more martinis, her humorous standoffs with Susie, and her fluid dance reaction to Shy Baldwin’s performance. Abe keeps up his end of the bargain with some comments about laugh quotients and asking Susie to do Midge’s routine to avoid any surprises. But there’s even some seriousness there with Rose feeling out of sorts and saying to Midge that if her daughter had gotten married all of this could be avoided.

That just leaves Joel and, ugh, the less said the better. This is a definite case of his heart being in the right place, but that being obviated by the fact that he’s a total asshole. It makes sense that he wants to succeed on his own since all of his former “success” was thanks to a combination of Midge and his father But he’s a complete ass to May over her exercising leverage to get him his liquor license. She should tally dump his ass. Likewise, he’s right to scold Archie for cheating on his wife, but when he gets into a fist fight with his best friend over it, it’s just him being a jerk,, Again, it’s well-motivated, because Joel knows better than anyone what a mistake Joel is making, but he goes about in such a terrine, oel sort of way that you just want him to go away.

Increasingly, Joel feels like a vestigial appendix on a show that no longer has need for him. But that’s partly because, for the moment at least, he’s the only character still rooted in New York. part of Midge’s motivation here, part of her struggle, seems to be that as much fun and success as she’s enjoying on this tour, she can feel her old life slipping away. She can’t see the kids as much. She cant go to the Catskills. She can’t do the “fun summer thing” that she’s used to.

But moving away from that routine doesn’t just mean having to cope with a change in how things have been. It means experiencing things outside of the comparatively cloistered world that you’ve lived in and know like the back of your hand. That comes with harsh realities, like whose talents can open doors to a new life for them, and whose talents are necessary to save them from a fate dictated by forces beyond their control, simply because of who they are. We aren't all so lucky, and despite her own hardships, Midge is coming to learn that.