The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel proves it can still be great even with a "meh" Season 3

The Daily Beast

"It was bound to happen," says Kevin Fallon. "The tightest curls sometimes fall out, the most meticulous makeup smudges, the perfectly pressed skirt wrinkles, or, in the case of Midge Maisel, the punchline doesn’t land. With The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, a comedy series with two astonishingly strong, award-winning seasons under its belt, the quality was going to at some point falter. The marvelous was going to get a little bit meh. But the thing about a show that holds itself to as high a standard as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel does is that this isn’t even that harsh of a criticism. Even a season that is a little underwhelming when put up against those first two go-rounds is exceptional TV and superior to most of the glut of options being thrust at us today. By all means, continue to watch and delight in this show. It’s wonderful still. Sterling K. Brown comes on board. They go to Vegas!"

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• When Mrs. Maisel runs out of nostalgia, it doesn’t have a lot else to offer the audience: "Atmosphere, above all else, is the name of the game," says Sonia Soraiya, adding: "Set pieces alone do not make a show. Nostalgic wish fulfillment carries the show further than it has any right to—but it’s not enough to make eight episodes cohere into a season, or for three seasons to cohere into a story. When Maisel runs out of nostalgia, it doesn’t have a lot else to offer the audience. What it does offer comes straight from the (Amy) Sherman-Palladino bag of tricks (i.e., Gilmore Girls)—fast-talking banter, commotion as comedy, and intrusive, demanding parents. The show can be very funny, but its punch lines and gags are frequently belabored to death. Maisel seems to be happiest existing in a space of droll near-comedy, where nothing can be taken seriously but also nothing is exactly funny, either. That’s a convenient space for the writers, who can plunder history for content irrespective of tone or context. But it’s an unpleasant state for the viewer, who might be led to ask if there is a point to all this chaos. There’s so much activity onscreen in the first five episodes of season three—big performances at hotels, socialists sleeping on the Weissmans’ couch, and even a stand-up set Midge does for the USO—that it feels as if a great deal is happening. For Maisel, that feeling appears to be the desired effect."
• A Season 3 slump was all but inevitable: "As any stand-up knows, re-working proven material only works so many times," says Ben Travers. "Sure, it makes sense that after Midge (Rachel Brosnahan) enjoys a feminist awakening, her mother Rose (Marin Hinkle) would follow suit — but when you run out of main characters to empower, what’s next? Season 3 struggles to find an answer and, even more troubling, it doesn’t seem to look that hard. Some problems stem from repetition, as again Midge takes her act on the road (this time to Las Vegas), but more come from a general lack of conflict. There’s so little going on with the Maisels that every new character introduced feels like the most fascinating person in the world, until you realize there’s not much happening with them either — at least, thus far. Through five episodes, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 3 feels like it’s running out of steam, which is both predictable given Amazon’s comedy has never been driven by drama — and insane for the same reason."
• Season 3 s’wonderful, s’marvelous: "Three seasons is enough time for a series to familiarize the audience with its singular style and set a level of expectations," says Melanie McFarland. "True to form, Season 3 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel reconnects us with the stardust-spangled adventures of Midge and her manager Susie Myerson (Alex Borstein) as Mrs. Maisel gets her first big break. This in itself injects a strain of excitement into the story that eluded the second season. At last Midge gets to travel for her career instead to save her family her parents marriage or to take up time."
• When Season 3 is good, it's very good. When it's bad, it's probably focusing on Joel
• By sending Midge out on her first big stand-up comedy tour, the show regains the energy and verve it’s been missing
• Mrs. Maisel tries too hard to be an ensemble comedy in Season 3
• So far, Mrs. Maisel continues to be a pleasant escapist parade of sartorial and financial fantasy, even if the individual stories aren’t as interesting or as emotionally involving as in the past
• Tony Shalhoub: Big group scenes where we talk a mile a minute are the most difficult to films
• Rachel Brosnahan says Midge is taking the next big step in Season 3: "She’s learning what it’s like to perform in front of new audiences from all over the world, that’s a totally different thing from the small bubble that she’s been in in New York and in the surrounding states. We saw her go on the road a little bit last year but it was pretty local. Suddenly in Vegas there are people there from all over the world and it’s a little bit different from the crowd at the Gaslight, and she’s having to learn how to adjust her material to different crowds, her timing to bigger spaces. We’re watching Midge grow even more… as a person and as a professional."
• Brosnahan is tired of people mom-shaming Midge
• How Brosnahan has evolved playing a standup comedian
• Amy Sherman-Palladino on blowing up Mrs. Maisel's world for Season 3: “It was really emotional for all of us,” Brosnahan she says of shooting the final scenes on the set. “We’ve all gone through a lot in that apartment, and I was surprised by how powerful it felt to leave it behind.”
• Sherman-Palladino on why Season 3 is a show-stopping musical: "My heart is in musicals. I was a dancer growing up, and then I found out I could eat and that all went out the window"