On Frasier, the never-seen Maris was a human caveat

The Atlantic

With Frasier leaving Netflix at the end of the month, Megan Garber has been binging on the long-running Cheers spinoff. And one thing she's noticing, watching in 2019, is how Frasier treated Maris, Niles' wife, who never appeared on the show. "You could read her as a running joke—as a low-stakes gag in a show that was full of them," says Garber of Maris. "You could read her, too, as evidence that Frasier’s defining kindness had a mean streak. But you could also read her as an argument: that Frasier, a show that delights in the antics of rich people, also understood that wealth had its dark side. She is a human caveat. The show takes for granted that Frasier and Niles, who collect pomposities as readily as they collect French wines, deserve to be teased for their affectations. But Frasier mocks Maris. It treats her, as the show’s seasons go on, as something of a monstrosity. Watch enough episodes, and her absence begins to look less like a gag and more like a trick: a way for the show to make jokes that could not be directed at an embodied woman."