The third season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is eight episodes long. The episodes range on the longer side as it is closer to being an hour long each. The show is about Miriam “Midge” Maisel as she embarks on her career as a comedian in 1960s America (although it’s primarily set in New York). The season starts pretty much straight after the last, although a lot of the lingering questions have now been answered. Midge is touring with Shy Baldwin, being the opening act and she is still getting used to it. While there was the guaranteed prospect of having a second marriage with Ben, we see that Midge has chosen her career over that, which feels like a shame. Despite that, there are still obvious lingering feelings for her ex-husband Joel, it’s just messy overall.
Joel on the other hand pushes forward in his plan to open up a club. He scouts for locations although since he is a novice in this area, he makes more than his fair share of mistakes. The relationship between Midge and Joel continues to get messier and messier. They hook up occasionally and yet will be flirting or dating others at the same time.
Midge’s father Abe is having an existential crisis, and it feels like a complete flip of the situation that occurred at the beginning of the second season. There’s a certain type of irony there but he opens his eyes outward rather than being cooped up in his own narrow world. Unfortunately this is tearing the family apart and it can be hard to watch. They do put the blame on Midge though, for influencing them on being independent, standing up for their rights and being free. And finally we get the answer that Midge’s manager Susie gave to Sophie Lennon on being her manager. This also resolves the arc where Sophie was doing a lot to block Midge’s efforts as a comedian. This understandably leads to quite a lot of tension between Midge and Susie.
Being the opening act for something as famous as Shy Baldwin is tough, and Midge finds out just how tough it is. When people who attend are only interested and keen for Shy’s singing, it is understandable that they don’t pay Midge much attention. Compounding that issue is Midge’s realization that she cannot rely on jokes that assume people is familiar with New York and its layout. All this is great experience for Midge and she quickly learns to adapt. It helps that she is just so charismatic, everyone she meets loves her and she gets along really well with the rest of the team.
It’s great to see Midge finally seeing some success with her career. No longer do you have to fear that personal issues will affect her performances and lead to awkward and cringeworthy situations. She manages to adapt these into new material and it is impressive how well she can improvise, her shows barely recycle content and yet still manage to pack in those laughs. Due to the focus on Midge being the opening act to the esteemed singer Shy Baldwin, this season has a lot of music and songs. Some are fictional, and some are real songs, all of them are great and really helps set the tone for the show.
By the time the season ends, it helps to take a step back and appreciate how the situation has changed so much compared to the first season. It is unbelievable at how far some of the characters have fallen. You would have never expected them to accept themselves having fallen so far from grace, and yet they have learnt to. Unfortunately, while everything seems to be so well by the time the last episode comes, you can’t help but watch in fear as Midge does her last act in the season. Naturally, there is a cliffhanger as a result of her actions.
Overall, the third season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is still quite enjoyable and manages to keep the momentum. While it does feel that the second season is the peak, the third season is still a solid show. All the characters are now very likable, such that you can overlook their past mistakes.
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