3x07 Marvelous Radio

[7.2/10] Another episode with a lot of shtick in it. That’s not so bad, but it’s a little bit of a letdown after two powerful episodes in a row. The unifying theme here seems to be the characters being on the precipice of the new and different and retreating to the known and familiar.

You have Abe going back to Columbia and looking in on his class. You have Rose checking in with Benjamin and imagining the life she would have lived (and the townhome she would have lived in) if Midge had married him. You have Midge herself going to look at her old apartment. And both last and least, you have Sophie Lennon retreating to her old “Put That On Your Plate” character when it turns out that serious acting is hard.

There’s some good beats there, but everything is so broad. Abe chases his old department head and passively aggressively insults his former students while giving them an erstwhile benediction. Benjamin continues to be impossibly good and assuages Rose’s guilt, but her whole routine is very outsized. Midge....just walks into someone else’s home? It’s bizarre. And the episode holds our hand through her reminiscing, rather than letting Rachel Brosnahan’s superb acting convey all that needs to be conveyed.

We also spend a lot of time on Midge and Susie’s radio hustle, which isn’t especially amusing, even if it’s edited together nicely. Susie’s gambling problem comes back, in something that should have been a one episode laugh rather than a running gag. We check in with Joel and Archie (who’s sleeping at Joel’s) to little avail. I guess there’s some decent laughs to be had from Chester (of “Criss Cross” fame) subletting Jackie’s sublet from Susie. There’s just a lot of fluff here, and it’s not especially enjoyable.

That said, there is some decent and more weighty material. That starts with Abe’s conversation with his old friend Asher about the piece he wants to publish supporting his friend. There’s something sweet there, even if it descends into a pretty corny Abbott and Costello routine. The notion that Asher thinks the piece is good, but thinks it’s too personal, and Abe thinking it needs to be said regardless of his friend’s consent, in some ways making up for his past silence (seeking to assuage his guilt much as Rose did), is good material for both characters.

It lends itself to Midge’s one substantive moment here, where she turns down doing a characteristically horrible ad for none other than Phylis Schlafly (hello, fellow Mrs. America fans!). Abe’s statement to his daughter about what she uses her voice for was a little too on-the-nose, but I do like her eventually declaring that she won’t stand for this kind of crap, even if she does it in a pretty unprofessional way. (Which is, at least, characteristic for Midge -- she’s usually right but not always considering the consequences or best approach -- I’m thinking of her prior Sophie Lennon experience here).

It works particularly well as a contrast to what Sophie does with her play. The peak of this episode is Susie’s speech to Sophie, eschewing any blame for what happened on stage, and declaring that the difference between Sohpie and Midge is guts. Midge will stand up for what she believes in while Sophie just reverts to the easy and familiar, refusing to actually go out on a limb the way that Susie did. It’s a nice way for Susie to have a moment of triumph, in standing up for herself and correctly assessing the situation, even when she’s otherwise losing in her big shot to play in the big leagues here.

Overall, there’s a few good scenes here, but otherwise the episode’s suffused with broad shtick that didn’t really work for me,