The Reel Review
Season Two of the wildly-popular, award-winning Amazon comedy series has Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) and her scrappy manager Susie (Alex Borstein) juggling more comedy gigs and a road tour with an unexpected family trip to Paris and the family’s annual summer vacation in the Catskills, as Midge finds herself straddling her old life of privilege, with its comforts and inflexible expectations, and the growing prospects of an exciting, but terrifying career in stand-up comedy.
Brosnahan, with her clever, rapid-fire dialogue, is sublime as the winsome, whip-smart woman who can do anything and makes everyone (including viewers) fall in love with her. Show creator Amy Sherman-Palladio smartly incorporates interesting and relatable storylines for the strong supporting cast (Borstein, Marin Hinkle, Tony Shalhoub and Michael Zegen) and does a phenomenal job of transporting viewers into the summer of 1959. And while that finale is a shocker, it is a fantastic Season Three set-up in Midge’s ongoing journey to discover her self-confidence and her inner voice. Well done.
Here is our review of Season One.
REEL FACTS
• The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which creator Amy Sherman-Palladino says was inspired her own father’s career as a stand-up comic and her admiration for female comics like Joan Rivers, is the first streaming series to win the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series (in 2018). Sherman-Palladino also picked up two more Emmys for directing and writing, with Brosnahan and Borstein winning Emmys for Lead and Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, respectively.
• Sherman-Palladino and Borstein worked together previously on Gilmore Girls
• Rachel Brosnahan’s first film was the 2009 Michael Bay horror film The Unborn, but prior to The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, was best known for her recurring role as former prostitute Rachel Posner in Netflix’s House of Cards
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