'The Marvelous Mrs Maisel' Season 4: With Midge jobless and broke, she might not have the privileged ride she's had so far
For a series that has been going strong for three seasons, we have all reason to expect Amy Sherman-Palladino 'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' will see a Season 4. There are enough zingers in the season 3 finale, episode 8 'A Jewish Girl Walks Into the Apollo…', to keep us turning and tossing till the next installment is announced.
The biggest plot point, of course, was Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) being fired by Shy Baldwin (Leroy McClain) after her insensitive set at the Apollo Theater, playing to Shy's home crowd in Harlem. Just before she got on stage to open for Shy, Midge sees Moms Mabley (Wanda Sykes) perform.
Mabley, just like Lenny Bruce (Luke Kirby), is a character who actually existed in real life. When Midge goes up to talk to Mabley after her set, Mabley's manager gets angry that a "white girl" is opening for Shy, despite Mabley's stature.
Midge's reaction shows she just doesn't have an understanding of her privilege. This ignorance, combined with that motor mouth of hers with no filter, is a recipe for disaster.
It was only in episode 6 that Shy had come out to Midge and trusted her with his secret. For a black male entertainer like Shy whose career depended on making women swoon and the restrictive era, meant being outed as a gay man would effectively end his career.
But when Reggie (Sterling K. Brown) tells her to "talk about Shy", Midge cracks some jokes that all hint at Shy's closeted sexual identity. Later at the airport tarmac, Reggie said her jokes hit "too close to home" and looks at her with a "how could you?" stare, tears brimming in his eyes, when he brings up Midge's "Judy Garland heels" joke.
Midge, still not getting the seriousness of her offense, wisecracks, "I was at least two doors down from home" and whines that Reggie is the one who told her to talk about Shy. Season 4 will hopefully see our girl grow up a little and take responsibility for the people she hurts while she is doing her "set".
For three seasons, Midge has been living the dream, going from strength to strength, meeting the right people with her path being bulldozed clear by Susie's super-manager skills. But in season 3, we saw hints of darkness that was missing in the first two seasons.
Besides her father, Abe, losing his job, Midge's manager Susie realizes her gambling problem has become an addiction. Since Midge lets Susie handle the money, this is a source of potential friction since Susie has also gambled Midge's money away.
Though Susie has roped in Midge's on-again, off-again Husband Joel to handle Midge's money from now on, it might be a case of too little too late. After losing the contract with Shy, her bargaining chip with Moishe for buying the flat is also now gone.
She potentially has no source of income in season 4 and paying for a flat with no money can be difficult. We have already seen in episode 7 how difficult it is to earn money in New York with no steady gigs.
Thankfully Abe's NYT op-ed piece earns him a chance of becoming a theater critic for the 'Village Voice' and we also see the start of Rose's (Marin Hinkle) matchmaking business which could be lucrative with the number of Jewish moms aching to get their daughters married and settled.
In the finale, we also had that heart-stopping encounter with Benjamin (Zachary Levi), the smart doctor Rose had picked for Midge. After Rose drops in on him one too many times at the hospital, trying to find a "replacement" for Midge, he storms into the diner that Midge frequents and gives her a piece of his mind.
For the first time, he calls Midge out on her cowardly "Dear John" letter with which she broke off their engagement. When Midge lists all the reasons for it not working out -- like her being on tour all the time and her making jokes about him on stage -- Benjamin retorts, "did you ask me?"
He is furious Midge took the decision without even talking to him or giving him a choice about whether he would have a problem with her being an active stand up comedian. He accuses her of unleashing her mother's matchmaking skills on him to make herself feel better.
Though Midge has nothing to do with Rose's interventions, all his other accusations hit home. Midge has been a selfish girl for three seasons now, depending almost entirely on the goodwill of others and her charm to see her through. But the yet-to-be-announced season 4 might not be as easy as a walk in the park it has been till now.
'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' Season 3 is available for viewing on Amazon Prime Video.