3x05 It's Comedy or Cabbage

[8.0/10] There’s a lot of shtick in this episode, to the point that I thought, at the halfway mar, that it might just be a silly diversion, full of odds and ends, rather than anything substantive. I take no issue with that. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is the type of show that can have fun just playing around and entertaining the audience, and I don’t necessarily need deep character revelations or plot advancement from every installment.

So we get Midge and Susie palling around at a Miami resort together. There’s a lot of fun to be had with Midge teaching Susie how to swim, or Susie complaining about sand getting everywhere (is Susie a Skywalker?), or the two wandering the beach with Susie suffering from a massive sunburn.. The running gag of her tipping anyone and everyone and saying “remember the face” is not only a good comic bit, but shows how the two have gotten a little more savvy about the tour. Their repartee hasn’t suffered for it.

The only wisp of something a little deeper comes when Midge tells Susie that she may need to be tougher with Sophie, that it’s who Susie is as a manager and, whether Sophie realizes or not, what she was bargaining for when she demanded that Susie manage her as well. It leads to another archly comic scene, one especially funny to theater folks, where Sophie is both oblivious to acting styles and production realities, while making it everyone else’s fault. Susie stepping in to get Sophie to practice on a real door turns out to be a hoot, and Gavin’s dry remark had me in stitches.

We also get a lot of shtick with Abe and Rose. I’ll admit, I have hated the bits with Abe’s activist friends from the beginning. It’s the kind of character and humor you would expect to see in a 90s TGIF sitcom in an episode about youth activism. It’s just the broadest jokes and hackiest observations about them. But at least it seems like the show’s (hopefully) moving on from them, and I’ll cop to getting a kick out of Abe’s breaking point being poor grammar, which seems on brand.

Rose’s mental breakdown wit Shirley is at least a little better. There’s something broad there too, but I at least get a kick out of the final straw for Rose being Shirley yelling food options to her grandson in the street. Rose’s “We’re that house” speech to Shirely and ensuing shouts at the grousing neighbors is a laugh, as is her reaction to Zelda’s newfound confidence to shed her uniform, watch TV, and push back on Rose.

The story we get is that there’s a breaking point here for the Weismans, who would rather tax their dwindling finances to go bunk with Midge in Miami rather than spend another minute under Shirley and Moishe’s roof. I’m interested to see where it goes, as much as this episode leans into the goofiness of it.

But for all that goofiness, this episode ultimately goes someplace real. My favorite scene in the episode is the one that Midge shares with Carole where they discuss what it’s like to be a woman on the road in the entertainment industry. There’s a lot of realness in t he scene, from Carole’s tips on how to make the most of life on the road, to her resolution about taking care of her kids financially this way and the double standard of how no one expected her traveling salesman father to feel guilty about making a living this way, to her “at least you won’t go to your grave saying ‘I never did anything interesting’” line. She feels like a genuine person, albeit one crafted for an outsized show, and touching on these real issues gives her a force on the show and an example for Midge.

But the other thing the two talk about is feeling lonely on the road and ways to be safe while fulfilling that need. We’ve already seen Midge run back into Joel’s arms, if only for one drunken night, when Susie wasn’t there to keep her company, and this episode puts another potential suitor, or at least port in a storm, forward in the Susie’s absence, in the form of none other than Lenny Bruce.

I’ll admit that I winced at that a little. There’s something uncomfortable for reasons I find hard to articulate about inserting a real person into these proceedings and then using him as a love interest. (Which is funny because I have little problem with historical films tweaking their fidelity to history a little bit for the good of a story, so maybe I’m just a hypocrite.) I never really wanted the show to go there.

And yet, arguably, at some point they would have to. There’s such a great chemistry between Midge and Lenny, in a way that livens up the show every time they’re on screen together. If the show didn’t touch on it, just a little, it would be ignoring the elephant in the room in a way that might have felt contrived or convenient.

And in hindsight, I love the way they do it here. Midge and Lenny’s evening together is perfect, romantic, and wondrous. They have their usual sparkling banter together, going back and forth about “Mr. Bruce is my mother” and how Lenny liked Midge’s act. Their interlude on a weird late night show (was that a real thing?) is funky and stylized in a neat way, and shows what a great rapport they have both on- and off-camera.

There’s a lot of music in this one, which helps set the room. We get snippets of a great performance from Shy. We get a musical performance on Miambi by Night, and we get a superlative mini-music video for “loco amor” in the club Lenny chose. I don’t know if Amy Sherman-Palladino is angling to be a music video director or maybe just a musical director, but she’s definitely showing off the chosp here.

Not only are these sequences cool, but the last one in particular ends up being sensual in a way that conveys the feelings between Midge and enny without the show having to announce them in dialogue. The lighting of the room, the swirl of the camera (tons of great camera work in this one), and just the imagery of Midge and Lenny staring at one another gives you everything you need to know here. The close, passionate dance hints at what could be to come if the night continues in this direction.

Then they walk home together, a beautiful ocean sunrise peeking behind them. They talk obliquely about whether the two of them would work together, saying it but not saying it. And Amy Sherman-Palladino teases us, maybe even teases them. They’re not ready for the night to end, but unsure about the next step. Lenny opens his door. They continue to have adorable banter. They gaze into the open room (one that’s disheveled, something Carole warned against), with all the lingering possibility it represents. And at the precipice, Midge decides to get a cab; Lenny understands and offers a smart remark about the possibility, and life goes back to how it was.

It’s a wonderful sequence, full of emotion and decisions and thoughts racing in each character’s head without the script needing to have them vocalize it. It’s a human moment, one that speaks to Midge’s life on the road and what it will be if this continues. And it also puts a stamp on Midge and Lenny’s relationship, acknowledging that attraction and chemistry in a way that avoids the show ignoring it, without having them give into it. For such a tease, it’s immensely satisfying.

I thought this one would be a lot of goofball shenanigans at first, but as it continued, it became something infinitely more complex, thoughtful, and beautiful.