The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Review: Midge Goes on the Road, and She Still Has a Lot to Learn (Season 3 Episodes 1-5)

Midge Maisel goes on the road on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 3 Episode 1-5, and despite a few missteps, the first half of this season is fun and satisfying.

(Spoilers ahead.)

This first half of Season 3 shines when Midge is the focus, especially when it’s about her act.

She’s still figuring all of this out, and even though she has a natural talent for comedy, she still fails sometimes. I appreciate seeing that. It would get boring pretty quickly if she always did well, and while she usually does, I enjoy seeing the missteps.

Something as simple as forgetting to introduce Shy Baldwin at the U.S.O show reminds us she’s still green, and the total flop at the first show in Vegas almost has to happen because she’s in such wildly new territory.

But it makes it all more satisfying to see her succeed. She’s quick to learn from her mistakes and pick herself back up again, thanks in large part to Susie, who’s figured out how to push her.

Let’s face it. Midge wouldn’t be where she is without her manager, who’s also figuring things out along the way.

This season is possibly the best we’ve seen of Susie so far because she knows what she wants but she’s finding her own challenges while she’s at it. Her journey really parallels Midge’s in a lot of ways.

Susie has quick conflict with Sterling K. Brown’s Reggie (who is not enchanted in the slightest by The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, or by Susie), and she has to make a decision for herself when it comes to representing Midge’s nemesis, Sophie Lennon. 

That decision, by the way, causes a rift between Midge and Susie that allows for a more important kind of growth on Midge’s part. Midge feels betrayed at first and can only see it from an emotional standpoint. Luckily the rift doesn’t last too long because Midge realizes just what she’s asking Susie to give up for her and how unfair that is.

The relationship between Midge and Susie is really the driving force behind the show. Forget Midge’s romances for a minute — though I have some thoughts on that too. The Midge and Susie friendship is at the core.

There is another friendship that’s budding, and I think it’s going to be important. Enter Liza Weil as Carole Keen, a musician in Shy’s band who’s thrilled to have another woman on the road. And as it turns out, she and Midge have quite a bit in common. I’m hoping we’ll see more of her in the coming episodes.

But, yes, romantic relationships are part of the story. Midge has chosen to go on the road with Shy Baldwin over marrying Zachary Levi’s Benjamin. It’s just too bad we don’t see more fallout from that decision on these episodes, particularly when it comes to Benjamin himself. He’s just gone. 

Joel, though, remains a significant part of Midge’s life. They sleep together before she goes out on the road, and she’s concerned that she doesn’t hear from him after. Their divorce is also taken care of before she leaves, and even the judge notes that maybe the two should stay together.

After all, they seem to be getting along just fine.

Later, he comes to see her and they wind up getting married all over again in Vegas, which is frustrating but also perfectly fitting. Midge and Joel have something in common most couples wouldn’t — comedy. They never really stopped loving each other.

The second marriage is of fairly little consequence, which feels like a misstep. It’s thrown in but then everyone moves on as though it didn’t happen, and not much else comes of it, at least from what we can see on these episodes.

Instead, Joel is just moving forward with his new girlfriend — who he’s met because of the underground gambling ring that happens to be taking place at the building he rented. And Midge is mostly focusing on comedy instead, but well, then Lenny Bruce pops back up again.

Since we were first introduced to Lenny Bruce in Season 1 (I still love that Lenny Bruce has been turned into a character here) both he and Midge have had to convince people on more than one occasion that they aren’t a couple. But Lenny brings the charm on these episodes and it has me dying to see the two of them wind up together somehow. 

Midge handles Lenny’s long joke on the television show well, even with the surprise of being televised, and the two clearly have chemistry that only becomes more obvious when they go out to dinner afterward. Lenny isn’t holding anything back with his smolder, either.

But heading back to Lenny’s hotel, where the tension between the two is palpable, Midge opts to get a cab instead of going inside. It’s a great moment because it’s setting up a slow burn that may or may not actually pay off and leaves us wanting more. I’m really intrigued to see where all of this goes next.

But let me back up a bit, because speaking of convincing others that Midge and Lenny aren’t a couple, when Midge gets flowers from Lenny on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 3 Episode 1, her parents are convinced he’s the real reason she didn’t marry Benjamin.

This is where the season falters. It begins by doing something wonderful with Abe by having him go see Lenny Bruce perform, only to stand up for him when Lenny is arrested. He doesn’t personally care for Lenny’s comedy, but he’s appalled that the man would be arrested for what should be free speech. That gets Abe arrested too, and it’s a bit of an awakening for Midge’s father.

That awakening, though, is squandered by what feels like a pretty pointless story of him making these younger friends and taking on a new cause. Don’t get me wrong, the idea behind that is a good one, but ultimately it just falls flat and doesn’t do much for Abe’s character. 

I can say the same about Abe and Rose’s move. Rose has her own big awakening when she opts not to take money from her family because they won’t give her a seat at the table — something she may not have done had she not been influenced by her daughter.

Midge is influencing everyone around her, really, and that’s what gives these stories potential. I love the idea that the way she’s changing her own life is affecting how her parents think about the world. Maybe that’s even the most meaningful part of all of this. But unfortunately, it winds up just feeling silly when we watch the two suffer Joel’s parents’ home.

All of that becomes too slapstick and fairly uninteresting, though it does lead to them heading on the road themselves to visit Midge, and that has potential.

The problem with this first half of the season lies in timing. While all of the story surrounding Midge works well, the stuff with her parents, and with Joel as well, all feels a bit disconnected. Even much of what we’re seeing with Sophie Lennon seems to drag on more than anything else. 

So many of the scenes on these episodes, and even some of the plotlines, feel gratuitous and unnecessary. It’s not the first time I’ve felt this way about the show, and I continue to wonder how it might be different if each episode were only 30 minutes.

What did you think of these episodes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and be on the lookout for my review of the second half of Season 3 soon.

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The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 3 is currently available to stream on Amazon.

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