How The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Demonstrates Mrs. Maisel is Truly Hilarious

This article was originally published in the summer of 2019 to the movie reviewing app Stardust. Now that the app is officially shutting down, I figured it was time to move the articles I wrote for them onto this page. Here is the third of the four articles I wrote for them.

I decided to finally catch up with The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel this past week for three reasons. For one, I’d heard great things from pretty much everyone. For two, Season 3 is coming out soon. For three, one of my friends recommended it to me and thought it was funny that I hadn’t seen it yet. I finished the first season and I gotta say, it might end up being one of my personal favorite shows of all time. All of the performances are incredible, Midge and Suzie are my favorite comedy duo in recent memory and have fantastic chemistry, the writing is funny and clever, the direction and camerawork is immaculate, the colors are bright yet subtle, and the show executes a great message of woman empowerment without making it feel condescending or out-of-touch. However, what really makes this show worth watching is seeing the development of Miriam Maisel’s character and her comedy routines.

What I loved so much about the writing of this show is that it takes the time to show how funny Maisel actually is. Okay, sure, the show acknowledges that her funniest moments on stage at the beginning of the show were either when she was drunk or high. However, it also shows how funny Mrs. Maisel is in her personal life without even thinking about it or realizing it. She uses humor in her everyday life to diffuse awkward and irritating situations. She quips back at Suzie’s no-filter way of speaking. She even comes up with her own jokes while trying to help her husband, Joel, become a comedian himself. The script works all of these little hints into the story in order to show how funny Maisel can truly be and how funny she could be if she worked towards being a stand-up comedian. Yes, she bombs, but as this show demonstrates, even the best of the best bomb at some point. We just don’t usually see their bombs because of how much they learn in the business before they become big. This show takes the time to delve into that, but it also takes the time to show that not every gig will get the laughs she truly wants.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel doesn’t choose to glamorize Mrs. Maisel’s career and pretend that every single gig would go swimmingly for her. However, it also takes the time to show she is not stupid for screwing up. She has a lot to learn, but she is willing to put in the work to improve her acts and she already has a knack for comedic delivery in her own personal life. The way that the writing details how Mrs. Maisel uses humor in her daily life is subtle, clever and incredibly executed. It’s the care that Amy Sherman-Palladino puts into the writing of this show that makes me excited to catch up on Season 2 and that makes Season 3 my most anticipated TV season right now.

Two years after originally writing that article, I still absolutely adore that show and completely agree with everything I've said here. The establishment of Maisel's genuinely great sense of humor is brilliant in this show, and I bet everyone who loves this show is just as excited as I am to see it return.

What do you think of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? Let me know down in the comments!