{"id":50509,"date":"2022-02-18T13:53:52","date_gmt":"2022-02-18T13:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?post_type=articles&p=50509"},"modified":"2022-02-18T13:53:52","modified_gmt":"2022-02-18T13:53:52","slug":"marvelous-mrs-maisel-season-4-premiere-review","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/marvelous-mrs-maisel-season-4-premiere-review\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel\u2019 Season 4 Premieres With A Lot of D\u00e9j\u00e0 Vu"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rachel
Rachel Brosnahan and Alex Borstein in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel<\/i> Season 4 (Photo: Christopher Saunders \/ Prime Video)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Recently, I re-watched the first season of Prime Video\u2019s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel<\/em><\/a>. I remember thoroughly enjoying this show when it premiered in 2017, and actually, I think I may have even seen and been mildly delighted by the pilot back when Amazon used to release the pilot episodes of shows they were\u2014wink-wink\u2014considering<\/em> picking up for full seasons. I came to the show with zero expectations vis-\u00e0-vis<\/em> creator Amy Sherman-Palladino (I still weirdly want to call her Cindy Sherman Palomino) or her Gilmore Girls<\/em> oeuvre. But I dug this Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan<\/a>, who I did<\/em> know from House of Cards<\/em> and have never<\/em> confused with Evan Rachel Wood<\/a>), a fast-talking, rich late-1950s Jewish divorcee who discovers she has a knack for stand-up comedy after her husband leaves her. What can I say, I\u2019m a sucker for a clever, glamorous, brassy dame! I mean, sure, show\u2019s pace felt like the entire cast was on amphetamines\u2014a Sherman-Palladino hallmark, I would later learn\u2014but I went to a lot of clubs in New York in the mid-aughts, so I\u2019m used to people talking at me at breakneck speed, usually in the bathroom. The point is, the first season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel<\/em><\/a> was something I genuinely enjoyed, and its charm remained essentially intact the second time around.<\/p>\n

Now here\u2019s where I admit a weird thing: despite all of the above, I have seen neither the second nor the third season. Couldn\u2019t tell you why. Just never got around to it. I mean, I had the vague sense that neither season was particularly well-received by critics. But I also felt pretty certain that that didn\u2019t matter, that fans of the show were still happy with it and that if I were to watch Seasons 2 or 3, I would enjoy them just as much as I enjoyed the first. Still, I never did.<\/p>\n

So, here we are, nearly five years later, and you can imagine my surprise when, having decided to dive recklessly into the two Season 4<\/a> episodes provided to critics ahead of this week\u2019s premiere, I found that not much has changed for ol\u2019 Midge since I last saw her in the Season 1 finale. Yes, I\u2019m given to understand that she\u2019s gained a bit more notoriety; she\u2019s been to Paris and the Catskills; she almost married a very tall doctor; she\u2019s toured with a superstar musician. At some point she and her parents had to give up their palatial Upper West Side apartment to go live, improbably, with her ex-husband\u2019s parents in Queens.<\/p>\n

\"Rachel
Rachel Brosnahan in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel<\/i> Season 4 (Photo: courtesy of Prime Video)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But Season 4 opens more or less where Season 1 did: with Midge back onstage at The Gaslight. Only now, instead of ranting about Joel (Michael Zegen) walking out on her, Shy Baldwin (Leroy McClain) is the target of her ire. \u201cOnce again, a man has stepped in and f*cked up my life!\u201d<\/p>\n

And yes, at this point, Midge\u2019s life seems kinda f*cked. She\u2019s unemployed and, judging from the press she\u2019s getting post-Shy-gate, increasingly unemployable. Or unbookable, rather. Also, she\u2019s in dept to her ex-father-in-law Moishe (Kevin Pollak), who loaned her money to buy the apartment she and Joel shared all the way back at the beginning of Season 1, and Susie, unbeknownst to Midge, has gambled away all their earnings.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t worry, though! After some impressive banter between the entire Weissman-Maisel clan<\/a> on Coney Island\u2019s Wonder Wheel, Midge and Moishe work something out, and by Episode 2, which drops alongside Episode 1 today, Midge and her parents (Tony Shalhoub and Marin Hinkle, in top form as always) and her kids are all living together in the same Upper West Side building they did when the show began. It is practically a full-circle moment.<\/p>\n

\"Rachel
Rachel Brosnahan and Alex Borstein in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel<\/i> Season 4 (Photo: Christopher Saunders \/ Prime Video)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But that\u2019s not all! Determined to get gigs\u2014Midge has decided she\u2019s only going to do spontaneous, unfiltered sets now, just like her mentor Lenny Bruce (Luke Kirby)\u2014Susie and Midge are back to pounding the pavement, showing up at clubs hoping to get a slot in the night\u2019s line-up. But after being kicked out of one venue, Midge is mistaken for a prostitute and\u2014get this\u2014she\u2019s arrested! <\/em>Just like in the pilot!<\/p>\n

You\u2019re not experiencing d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu<\/em>, that\u2019s really what happened in these first two episodes of Mrs. Maisel<\/em>\u2019s fourth season. So much banter\u2014three seasons\u2019 worth\u2014just to get the character more or less back to where she started. She\u2019s even still technically married to Joel! They haven\u2019t actually gotten divorced yet! With only one more season to go after this one, you kind of have to wonder where all this is going. And yet\u2026I\u2019m hard pressed to criticize this crackling, effervescent show too harshly\u2014as plenty of critics have. The cast is as winning as ever, and I\u2019m willing to overlook any number of contrivances that keep them in each other\u2019s familiar, antic orbit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29097,"featured_media":50510,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[38,16,3925],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel\u2019 Season 4 Premieres With A Lot of D\u00e9j\u00e0 Vu<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Season 4 opens more or less where Season 1 did: with Midge back onstage at The Gaslight. 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