1x07 Put That on Your Plate!

[9.2/10] I enjoyed so much about this episode that I don’t know where to begin. So let’s start with the easy stuff.

First and foremost, I love the montage of how Midge hones her act. There’s a great rhythm to it, with Midge experiencing some unique event, whether it’s an awkward interaction with her parents or a strange comment on the subway, and then slowly but surely playing with how to recontextualize it for her act until it’s perfect. It really demonstrates the craft and process that goes into what she does on stage and how she’s developing as both a performer and the writer over the course of all this.

Second, I find myself surprisingly interested in what Joel is up to here. There’s something sympathetic about the flashback to his dad telling him that you may have to mislead people in order to seem like a big deal, to where you can draw a line between that and him telling his wife that they were “fine” financially. You also understand how demoralizing it must be for him to move back in with his parents, find himself in his old room with army men and a doting mother who calls him a “bad boy.”

We haven’t gotten as much insight into Joel, and to be frank, I haven’t really complained about that. But the other side of the coin is that it’s compelling to see him regretting his choices here and trying to make up for them by offering something of substance at work and offering the familial equivalent of a business plan to Abe. I don’t want him back with Midge, but I appreciate that he’s had a certain awakening here, and is trying to make up for his mistakes and do the right thing, regardless of whether it puts him back into his old life.

Speaking of which, holy hell, does the sequence where Abe brings a divorce lawyer home for dinner feel like a page out of the Gilmore Girls playbook, and it’s utterly delightful! There’s such a frantic energy to the whole thing, where dynamics shift from moment to moment, family members labor under various misconceptions that are then punctured with comic flair, and the Weissmans hash it out for real for what feels like the first time over what’s happening with Midge.

At a surface level, there’s just so much great humor here. The running gags about ABe’s elderly colleague who can’t eat anything with lumps and often sees stars is outright hilarious. The shock of Rose and Midge when, instead, Abe brings home what seems like a handsome potential paramour for Midge is just as much of a hoot, particularly when they’re arguing in the kitchen over whether or not Abe is a “pimp” at a volume to where poor Mr. Blumenthal can hear. The sheer patter, the comedy of manners, as Midge, Rose, and Abe go back and forth over what’s really happening here and what should happen and what might happen is a comic delight the whole way through.

But it’s also a canvas for the Weissman’s truly held beliefs to come out to one another. I particularly love the conflict between Abe and Rose. Rose has been waiting for Joel and Midge to reconcile forever, with the hopes that things could go back to normal and fit the standards of society and their enclave that are so important to her. Abe is the opposite, someone whose whole brand is acknowledging the harsh realities of the real world (down to his opinions on four-year-olds’ birthday parties), who thinks it’s time for Midge, who’s largely moved on in her lie, to make it official. And then you have MIdge herself, who probably acknowledges that deep down, her dad is right, but rightly finds it presumptuous for him to try to direct her life like this when he doesn’t even know her best friend’s name.

All of those familial fissures are exacerbated by the fact that Rose learns not only that Joel did try to come back and was rejected, but that both her daughter and her husband kept it from her. It upsets her world, not only dashing her hopes for a reconciliation, but making her feel like the daughter she’s close to is conspiring with her husband to keep important details from her. (And that’s before she finds out that her usual psychic is some combination of gone and a fraud.) There’s real disagreements and frustrations brought to bear through all of this, and it’s woven in very nicely with the comedy.

At the same time, it all dovetails so beautifully with the “Midge’s comedy career” part of the episode. Susie has worked hard to get Midge a try-out to open for big name comic Sophie Lennon (Jane Lynch!!!), because she’s watched Midge develop to a place where she’s ready for the big time. It involves Susie calling in some favors with her old frenemy Harry, and it means taking some unenviable gigs to climb the ladder, but it’s a big step that involves Susie putting her neck out.

And yet, when Midge meets Sohpie, she learns that the on-stage persona is very different from the real person off-stage. Sophie’s hacky, “mouthy broad from Queens” routine doesn’t have the wit or insight of Midge’s routines, but it fills big venues. But when Midge meets Sophie at her home, she finds that Sophie is, in reality, a refined rich lady who wears a fatsuit and couldn't be further from her home-fried persona. Those scenes are blissfully funny, with the elegant dances Sophie’s wait staff must do, and the hints at their poor put upon nature while Sophie name-drops the fancy origins of her furniture is absurd in a riotous way.

But part of the experience stings. Sophie’s not just there to wow Midge with her gentility or her refinement -- she’s there to give advice to another aspiring female comic and that advice boils down to: be someone else. Put on a false image; develop a gimmick, and craft a particular form of shtick that plays to the purchasers of dish soap and kibble. It’s cynical, in a way that runs entirely contrary to how and why Midge got into this business.

I love how things crash and burn from there. Midge does what may as well be her audition for Susie’s fancy friend, having prepared her “tight ten” for the occasion. But when se’s up there, having been dressed down by both Sophie and her mother, she returns to the confessional, “tell it like its” style that got Midge this far. The way this whole thing began is Midge using the stand-up mic for therapy, and this is no exception.

What’s great about the scene is that everything Midge is saying is true. Her complaints about the boxes women are expected to fit into, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, are borne out of genuine beefs. It’s also true to her character, someone who exercises these thoughts and types of frustrations on stage.

At the same time, though, it completely blows up everything that Susie worked so hard for. It exposes Sophie’s act, something that Harry obviously won’t like, to the point that he threatens to blackball Susie and Midge. It’s a collision that totally disrupts everything these two partners have worked toward, but in a way that feels true to both of their characters and true to the broader conflicts and ideas that tThe Marvelous Mrs. Maisel has been toying with from the beginning. That’s a tricky thing to pull off, and makes the episode’s achievements all the more impressive.

It’s hard to have an episode that (a.) is hilarious, (b.) brings the conflicts among characters to a boil, and (c.) connects the domestic and comic professional sides of the show anywhere near as well as this one does. This is a high water mark for the series, and it makes me that much more excited to see how the series closes out its first season.