You Look Marvelous!

For years, I'd been hearing how wonderful -- well, marvelous -- a show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is. The critics had been saying it, the Emmys and other award shows had been saying it, and even a few friends had been saying it. I finally got a chance to catch up with the three seasons of the series so far and, well... I must now add my own voice to the chorus.

Available on Amazon Prime, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is set in late 1950s New York City and follows a housewife dealing with her divorce as she discovers a natural talent for stand-up comedy. I actually didn't know any of that when I began the first episode, which made for some fun viewing; I'd heard about the wonderfulness of the show while managing somehow to never actually hear what it was about. I did know, however, that it was created by Amy Sherman-Palladino. Her previous show Gilmore Girls repeatedly pops up as a recommendation from friends, and I have absolutely no doubt I'll enjoy it -- but the 26 episodes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel were much more approachable than the 150+ episodes of Gilmore Girls.

Maisel definitely showcases all the wonderful things I'd heard about Sherman-Palladino's writing over the years. It's full of dense, fast-paced, and clever dialogue. I'd heard that aspect compared to Aaron Sorkin's work in the past, but you could easily argue the Sherman-Palladino is better; where Sorkin's zingers sometimes seem like unfiltered words in his own voice, the writing of Maisel feels more tailored to its characters, who each have different rhythms and personalities.

That's not to say that the world of the show feels entirely realistic. It's very much a heightened reality, and can even been a bit formulaic. But if you buy into this reality as quickly as I did, you're going to appreciate the construct, and you wouldn't really want an episode that doesn't include, say, a stand-up routine from Miriam, a dose of overbearing parenting from Abe and Rose, a sight gag about young Ethan watching too much television, and so on. Each episode mixes the ingredients up enough that I still very much appreciate them.

The performances are stellar. And while I could spend time praising the supporting cast, or pointing out all the great guest stars that the show lands (and often winds up promoting to regulars in subsequent seasons), the reason you'll want to keep watching is the two women at the top of the call sheet. Alex Borstein, best-known before this as the voice of Lois on Family Guy, turns out to have been completely squandered on Family Guy; she's hilariously funny here, but also excellent in portraying more dramatic twists and turns for her character, Susie.

Then there's star Rachel Brosnahan. She's a force of nature in this performance. Even though she's appeared in many other things before this (including early seasons of House of Cards, back when people were watching that series), this feels like the kind of breakout performance that makes you feel like a new talent has been discovered. She's fast and nimble with the rapid-fire dialogue, laugh-out-loud funny with the comedy (particularly those ever-present stand-up sets), and moving in the serious scenes. Brosnahan and Borstein have won several awards for this show, and yet watching them can make you feel like they were robbed of the handful of awards they didn't win.

Three seasons in, there's room to debate whether this season or that season was perhaps not as good as the first (which is one of those rare shows that just arrives, fully "cooked," with no awkward early episodes trying to figure itself out). But even if, say, the Catskills subplot of season 2 or the Abe blows up his entire life subplot of season 3 aren't as riveting, both seasons as a whole contain more than enough wonderful material to entertain. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is essentially 26 episodes (so far) with basically no clunkers.

And so I can only give an enthusiastic A to the series as a whole. It seems like Amazon Prime shows don't necessarily get talked about (among my friends, anyway) as often as shows on Netflix or Hulu, but this show is very much the cream of the crop.