The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

I know it's been talked about elsewhere, but surely this deserves its own thread?

Was never been able to stomach Gilmore Girls but this instantly won me over. Most notably, it manages to portray scripted stand-up that doesn't make you want to die

Rachel Brosnahan deserves all the awards that are coming her way (and hopefully Tony Shalhoub gets his due too)

The set design and costumes... heart aflutter.

whoever described it as a musical without the songs was otm

love this show

one episode in, Brosnahan is a firecracker. can't wait to watch more.

Couldn't get past Episode 2 but I'll shut up cause I don't want to be a party pooper

Brosnahan is indeed great, but Alex Borstein is the mvp of this series.

otm

It really takes off once it focuses completely on her and not the husband and kids, so past episode 2.

Attempting a rewatch of this. Loved it the first time around. Excited about season 2 this winter.

finished s1 today. the acting is really great and dynamic all around. every interaction/scene between midge and abe was a joy to watch. the family scenes were often funnier than the comedy bits.

that's because her dad is one of the funniest people on the show (not trying to be sexist!! probably just being a fellow dad)

he def is

deservedly crushing other comedies at the Emmys

*looks over at Atlanta fanbase charging like Rohan's army* You might want to regroup.

yes!

also Darren Criss!

Oh man, I saw new posts andI got excited that there was a new season.

and Regina King! (I know this is all off topic)

sorry didn't mean to make this the emmys thread

is that 4 for 4 then?

No, 4 for 5. Tony Shalhoub got robbed!

don't really mind that Henry Winkler won though...

finished this last night. It was a nice combo of a certain type of (mostly) feel-good show like GLOW coupled with breezy comedy throwback, along with a little Mad Men NYC (but with a more convincing NYC than Mad Men, tbh...)

I liked how her new comedy career being a secret wasn’t turned into a major plot point full of near-misses, like it would obviously be nothing she’d have to work hard at hiding since it was another world entirely. A lesser show more into plot machinations over character would have made an entire thing about that the entire season and it would have been tedious. And Joel discovering her stand up at the end was pretty logical in terms of how and in terms of him being the one to do so.

Her bombing scenes were convincingly awkward and her stand up was convincingly good, both showing the fine and yet clearly delineated difference between a good set and a terrible one. I thought Jane Lynch as the extremely successful hack comedian was extremely good and she was actually unrecognizable to me when she was in character. I liked the Lenny Bruce stuff, too.

A musical without songs is otm.

I watched the first season in a few sittings. To go back to the first post, I loved Gilmore Girls. I think this is better (especially the performances of Rachel Brosnahan, Tony Shalhoub, and especially Alex Borstein, as well as the hilarious/painful stand-up sequences), and I really enjoyed it, but at this point it doesn't have as much of an accumulated weight of meaning to me. Going forward though I could change my opinion, am looking forward to the second season

Really dug season 2. I started to get a little disappointed that it didn't focus more on her comedy career, but ultimately it was more rewarding that other relationships were explored, and characters (especially her parents) fleshed out. It still bugs me that they -- the writers -- periodically forget about the kids, who are presumably being taken care of by someone, somewhere.

I had never heard the song that ends this season before, and I've listened to it now maybe 30 times in the last two days. Such a perfect choice.

I thought season 2, while still strong, wasn't quite as good as the first. It seemed to meander quite a bit plotwise, spent a bit too long on Abe's breakdown, made Midge just a bit too perfect too much of the time. There were several episodes that substituted an unusual location, and the wacky things that might happen there, for actual plot development.

Also, I think the writers are aware that they neglect the children, and have turned it into a bit of a running gag.

The Madame Alexander joke in Ep 3!

I'm with Moodles. I had a good time watching S2, but I just wasn't as invested in everything happening as much as in S1. I really enjoyed her parents in Paris, though... they will likely never revisit that, but imo they should've stayed. Once they came back to the states, the story got flattened out (Shaloub was fantastic all season, but I no longer cared why he was doing what he was doing after a while).

This show will never have a joke funner than Susie's tossed off Nichols & May line in S1 ("they even fuck funny"), but they keep trying.

I enjoyed S2 but it did feel a little more unfocused & meandering than S1. Loved all the Catskills stuff, and Zachari Levi slotted in so nicely, the first “date” on the non-rowing boat was so funny.

God I love Luke Kirby’s Lenny. Def romanticized to hell & gone but man. SO good.

I kind of don’t give a crap about Joel but I also kinda like him & i like that he looks out for Midge so idk.

Someone else mentioned it on twitter but I had a passing thought that John Mulaney would be a great casting choice as a standup or a love interest or a (?) - his whole style is like a screwball movie waiting to happen.

I watched the first two episodes of s2 last night. I am so happy with the Paris scenes and that they are keeping on the various shades of green.

there was a piece in the NYT about how they insisted on shooting in NYC... but the city has changed enormously in 60 years, which is why Mad Men didn't need to.

I mean the NYT had a pic of 8th Street in 1965, and by the time I got there in 1980, not much more than the movie theater was still there.

were Joel’s parents such horrible characters bordering on and often passing into stereotypes in the first season? i didn’t remember them like that. i’m usually down for a little kevin pollack but they are really getting on my nerves in season 2 (i’ve watched up to the yom kippur episode).

Also it was cool to read that some of the scenes at the Maisel and Roth factory were shot at Martian Greenfield’s. And some of the extras are real employees.

haha whoops Martin Greenfield

xxpost yeah Joe’s parents seemed to have the crazy turned way up this season. I love Pollack & even I was like dude give it a rest

I've spent too much time today looking at hats because of this show.

Did Lenny Bruce really sing a song with Steve Allen? Seemed a little out of character, but I don't know a ton about him.

yup

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3QgxmiBfNY&t=

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3QgxmiBfNY

Wow, they really recreated it!

binged all of season one and 6/8 of season two over the weekend - this show is real good

i could watch tony shalhoub wander around parisian beauty spots wearing a beret and a battered leather jacket forever tbh

totally agree!

did you think Lenny Bruce kept food on the table solely by saying "cocksucker" in clubs?

I'm really disgusted with Midge this season. The emphasis on her family's wealth and her privilege, her repeatedly telling Suzie how hard she has it when Suzie is risking her life and practically sleeping on the street and eating out of garbage cans. The Catskills thing made it so broad and obvious as to be purposeful, but there still don't seem to be any consequences or any realization dawning on Midge's tender brow. I have 2 or 3 eps to go yet so I guess vamos a ver.

I wish the mom had stayed in Paris tbh and dumped the whole lot of them.

I had no clue why the mother didn't stay in Paris either.

I kept wondering if Alex Borstein (Suzie) is part asian and then realized she was Ms Swan on Mad TV.

I'm really disgusted with Midge this season.

yeah, she's notably more... self-absorbed in s2 while joel is doing a lot of unexpectedly affecting growing-up

like you, still got a couple of episodes to go so maybe they'll address it directly but it'd be interesting if midge ends up turning into jane lynch's character over the course of a few seasons - the stuff about having to leave your family behind in order to be successful kinda hinted at that mebbes?

i did v much enjoy suzie winning over the rockaway hitmen and using the power of the plunger to get a roof over her head and make friends tho

I kept wondering if Alex Borstein (Suzie) is part asian and then realized she was Ms Swan on Mad TV.

also lois in family guy but let's not hold that against her - she is so good in this show

I can't lie, I'm exactly the audience for the quick, overly clever dialogue and the back-and-forth frenetic scenes. ("Which ones are your special socks?" " They're the ones with the little martini glasses." "NO

Sorry, typo. Anyway, you know the scene with the bathrooms and the socks. So I find it amazing that they can't make her actual stand-up routines funny AT ALL. They're terrible! Is this a nod to the humor of that time?

oh yeah, me too xp

the number of long-ass tracking shots with dozens of moving parts in each episode is like the visual counterpoint of the rat-a-tat dialogue - i've rewound some scenes a bunch of times just to marvel at the choreography of scenes like joel's first long walk into the maisel & roth factory, or the dance sequence at the end of one of the catskills episodes, or the long (albeit static) shot outside their catskills house as people open doors and windows and walk back in and out, all while delivering dialogue

it's a really phenomenally-produced show, just gorgeous to look at a lot of the time

i like her standup! if anything it seems a bit too 2018 to me

I just find them horribly unfunny. The situational humor that the writers apply to the show itself is 100x more appealing to me (the Yom Kippur dinner scenes are a highlight here). Maybe I'm not a good audience for stand-up.

xxp

That static shot brought to mind those long static shots that Cheech & Chong liked to do where they're sitting around the welfare office waiting room and weird shit is happening all around them and Michael Winslow is making a bunch of sound effects.

I don't find the stand-up funny at all either, but I can see how it's supposed to be funny in the context of show. So it doesn't really bother me

I thought her stand-up was better in the first season

I thought S1's standup was marginally better, but S2 was fine -- it's more focused (apart from her Catskills set), and she's more confident in her timing and delivery. It works for 1959/the show (as NumberNone noted). I never get the impression that it's fundamentally unfunny, or that the audiences would never in a million years laugh at her routines. Of course, it also helps that her sets are frequently set against far more dated and intentionally unfunny comedians.

They're terrible! Is this a nod to the humor of that time?

No idea, but as we know, comedy was infinitely better before the '70s.

(goes back to making a compilation of ethnic / mother-in-law jokes for in orbit)

The Catskills resort plot is FASCINATING to me because I worked in its Midwestern analog for years and years, as a maid, a kitchen serf, and finally as a line cook. It had happily shabby cabins, a main house with the dining room (where space was reserved, so your party had "your" regular table), pool, tennis, shuffleboard, beach access, cheesy family activities, rustic staff cottages, and a weekly "variety show" in which staff were required to sing and act out the same skits every week. (I played the piano accompaniment.) Wealthy guests from Midwestern cities returned every year for multiple generations and whole extended families took over "their" expected cabins and lodges.

I had NO idea that it was based on the Catskills region, and even less idea that it was a world formed by Jewishness. Even when I finally saw Dirty Dancing sometime in high school, I still didn't understand the religious and class contrasts onscreen. It would be another 20 years before I gathered bits and bobs of history & geography to put it all in context, and I feel like Season 2 of this show is finally showing it back to me all in one piece, in all its ridiculous glory.

When I was a child, I had the opportunity to spend a weekend at a giant Catskills hotel with my grandparents who went for a family reunion. It was well past its prime by that point, not unlike the "after" version of the Grand Budapest Hotel, huge and cavernous, and kind of scary. It didn't help that I was reading The Shining around that time. It's hard to imagine such a place being an exciting getaway in the 50s/60s.

it looks both v beautiful and utterly awful

xp Wow that sounds amazing actually. I envy your mental images!

Yeah, I'm talking about the late '80s and all of the '90s, so obv it was WAY past the expiration date for a style of recreation that went out with the advent of air travel. But it was a very nostalgic thing: people from St Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, and the wealthy suburbs of Detroit were paying a lot for genteelly shabby accommodations, stone fireplaces, and worse weather than they could have had on a southern beach somewhere. The place is gone now--it changed hands, business waned, and eventually there was a fire. 40 or so years later than its East Coast counterpart it finally gave up the ghost and was replaced by 100 beach-front Air BnB options, where each family can be alone in their rented house with no intention of interacting with their neighbors.

apparently the thing that killed the Catskills was home air conditioners.

So I find it amazing that they can't make her actual stand-up routines funny AT ALL. They're terrible! Is this a nod to the humor of that time?

― There's more Italy than necessary. (in orbit), Monday, December 17, 2018 10:12 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, it almost seems like clever dinner party banter than standup

Though I've watched Lenny Bruce clips on YouTube and I usually have no idea what's supposed to be funny about it

Overall, I like the show and s2, def agree w.upthread that Joel's arc was very good and also the posts that said the Paris stuff was great....

some of you guys liked The State and that bunch, right? so comedy has to be funny now?

Nothing ages a person faster than what they think is funny.

I can't remember much about her season 1 routines except I did LOL when someone heckled "you bitch!" and she said "ohhhh, who told you?!?" or something

I think possibly you meant "dates" there but it works either way xp

Well, I mean, people can choose to accept things being funny in the here and now too, but point taken.

(makes fart sound)

https://media.giphy.com/media/lGClylJINhkc0/giphy.gif

I'd prefer to see the live comedy of the 1920s (and teens) more than anything

started in on season 1 of this last night. some interesting things (the setting, some of the characterizations, the music choices) and some not so interesting things (everyone is written *very* broadly, almost like caricatures), but it's possible my interest in this era and milieu will win out

It's odd that Tracer hasn't commented here. I remember him being a big Bunheads and GG fan.

personally I enjoy Midge’s standup on the show. the tone & the look is inspired by early Joan Rivers routines, which I really love:

ie: https://youtu.be/EpPCFoXXhF0

i mean i know that doesnt nec. make it funnier in the show, comedy is v subjective, and I dont think those bits have to make you personally laugh for a viewer to know she’s getting over & gettong more laughs as she progesses

But just feeling the spirit of Joan in some of Midge’s character beats makes me respond much more favorably to the standup scenes knowing how much the show loves the comedic history it’s drawing from

the tone & the look is inspired by early Joan Rivers routines

yeah this was my reaction as well, she's the clearest real-life analogue

well no wonder she's not funny then

*rimshot*

as bad as things have gotten the last few years... no Joan Rivers! woo hoo

something something jerry lewis

haha, Jerry's primo late-life quote was "Joan Rivers set the Jews back a thousand years."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yzfd269QE0

(obviously on some level they deserved each other)

https://i.imgur.com/uccIJGz.jpg

abe otm

Morbz hating Joanie is a new to me

yerac i am "obtaining" S2 as i type! :D

i obtain much hand one

Rivers *could* be funny, but not in her dotage... Just that people are 10x more familiar with her than Elaine May is a fucking tragedy

I guess, they had very very different career paths

if ppl are more familiar w Joan Rivers its cuz she was on TV *all* the fucking time

It’s really a delight having you here to share this great show with us, Morbs.

Morbs hating whatever serves his misanthropy most effectively in every moment is hardly new.

oh i know

i just like drawing attention to it

no, i've hated Reagan-ass-kissing Joan Rivers pretty consistently for 35 years, bitches

i'll get back to you on this show, I am intrigued

you should give it a try!!

we're only a bit into season 2 but i think this is a really good show. i don't think the standup is "funny" in the sense that when watching the show i'm cracking up, but that's okay; so much standup is successful because of the manner in which the comic works the room and their rhythm with delivery, and if you're sitting there in person it's a different experience, and while watching it i can see why the people in the audience on the show think it's funny. if that makes sense.

i saw Lovitz and Attell do standup a few years back and i was dying, but looking back i can see how at home my reaction at home would be vv different.

Every time I saw Second City, it was exponentially funnier than the funniest conceivable SNL episode. But years later, watching youtube clips of some of the Second City sketches I saw, they struck me as just meh. So yeah, the live experience adds a lot.

(Though not always: the one time I saw George Carlin, he was awful. I would’ve rather sat home listening to one of his records.)

while watching it i can see why the people in the audience on the show think it's funny. if that makes sense.

The show also makes no secret of the fact that she is popular because she looks good, and just her presence on stage is a surprise to most people.

I love this show. I love the sumptuousness of it (although I do wish Rachel Brosnahan wasn't always so very tightly pinned into all her clothes. Doesn't her character ever wear anything she can comfortably sit down in?), particularly the fact that so many of the scenes are fully populated. It was someone here who said it first, but I can't remember who: even most prestige shows now, like GoT, have an establishing shot with some background actors, but most of the scenes are two people talking in a room. There are so many scenes in Mrs Maisel that are set in diners, clubs, factories, butcher shops, etc, with background actors everywhere. Amazon showing off that money.

also Mrs Maisel feels more alive as a show taking place in NYC than something like Mad Men, which was great but also its production being almost exclusively in L.A. meant it had to take steps to avoid scenes taking place on NYC streets (and the heavy number of L.A. and Palm Springs exteriors sometimes was a glaring reminder of that.)

but wd've been tough for MM to shoot in midtown, which has been largely made over since 1960.

my mum enthusiastically showed the first episode of this to me a few months ago. gotta say I wasn't feeling it

I dont think morbz will like this at all.

Also I think its depiction of NYC environs is v heavily stylized and artificial-looking, v much like a stage musical

(The latter point is not really a criticism, but this show isnt going for the versimilitude/attention to period detail that Mad Men was. This show is way more comically exaggerated than realistic).

the NYT review of season 2 said it was like a contemporary idea of how a '50s movie would show the '50s.

yeah it’s a very, very handsomely produced show but ‘stylized and artificial-looking’ is otm

It operates in the same realm of heightened/embellished reality style that something like Desperate Housewives did. Real-ish.

Or, tbh, Gilmore Girls and Bunheads.

I like the artificial lookingness of it. I literally got distracted by a green glass that Suzie pulled out of a kitchen cabinet one episode. Sooooo pretty.

I kind of think morbs will like it well enough.

the stage deli is a set, right? it looks amazing

they had a pop up Carnegie deli in NYC for the season 2 premiere http://gothamist.com/2018/12/03/photos_mrs_maisels_carnegie_deli_soho.php#photo-1

It says the Stage deli was Artie’s Delicatessen and is closed and now used as a set.

oh wow, cool

i was also very taken with the kitchen in midge and joel’s apartment

midge isn't hysterical but the person who really isn't funny, and whose bits I think are based on real bits, is Lenny Bruce. not funny. dn't get it. borders on terrible. I remember now that Patton Oswald got some stick for writing an essay about how Bruce was never funny.

yeah Patton Oswalt has heard every fucking Bruce monologue

you dont think anyone is gonna laugh at Wet Hot American Summer in 2050, do ya

maybe you could actually listen to Lenny Bruce, akm, to find out if he was funny

a radical idea i know

you dont think anyone is gonna laugh at Wet Hot American Summer in 2050, do ya

People are still laughing at Wheeler & Woolsey in 2018. Or, person is, at any rate.

no, their mediocrity is what's fascinating

kinda like KC and the Sunshine Band

anyway the mark of a great oldschool comic is the material only works when he/she does it (Groucho, Hope, Lewis, Gracie etc)

Looking forward to you watching Mrs. Maisel Morbs!!

FInally on the Catskills episodes. So much to look at.

I do generally like the use of music in this, the way the jazz-pop of the day is emphasized. but man they are really getting a lot of mileage out of Blossom Dearie's catalog lol.

The end-of-episode songs are usually well-chosen, but one was utterly baffling (unless someone can explain how "Cities In Dust" relates to Midge being irritated at Susie for threatening Sophie Lennon).

Feel like the big surprise for Midge in final episode is very implausible

The end-of-episode songs are usually well-chosen

that's true, although I found the XTC one a little surprising

Transvision Vamp!

I remember there was great use of XTC in Gilmore Girls.

anyway the mark of a great oldschool comic is the material only works when he/she does it (Groucho, Hope, Lewis, Gracie etc)

Oswalt spent the entire first half of that essay saying this, and exactly none of it saying that Bruce was never funny

Saved up the last 4 episodes to watch last night. I was wondering aloud if Shy Baldwin was supposed to be Johnny Mathis and won a huge bet with my spouse who didn't realize Johnny Mathis is black.

I love this show so much. Although I am so blech about why Joel gets so much screentime.

Also I had the Odyssey and Oracle cd stuck in my car's cd player for over a year once so was delighted with the end song for the season.

this show is bad i think. i may just struggle with every non-gg and bunheads sherman-palladino thing but the writing and characterization are wildly uneven, and the acting even lost me when alex borstein attempted a classic gg-esque yelling speech toward the end of the first season. the show is pretty and has good music however

Yeah, I’m tapping out

S2 jettisons all bearings to reality and becomes a weird fantasy melodramedy

I just had to look up the actor who plays Joel because I feel like he was miscast. He played Randall on Walking Dead lol!

You say that like it's a bad thing.

xp

really don't see the major distinction between season 1 and 2 you all are calling out.

John Pod (who loves the show) was spot on about this: "The most potent form of nostalgia is for a time you never knew in a place you do and imagine was at its peak before you came along".

Idk if there’s that clear a division as much as an accumulation of factors that become tiresome

Xp

I took this show to be, as someone described upthread, a musical without the music basically. Very choreographed and stage-set. shit, the moving into the catskills cottage scene was straight out of a Wes Anderson film.

I liked it a lot, but I also had some issues with the blatant weath and Midge's blatant ignorance of it in the face of her supposed friend's poverty that she *never fucking helped her out with*.

Honestly, when she said she was waiting for her bags to brought up to their room from the lobby, I was hoping they'd gotten stolen.

Yeah that bit made me raise 3 eyebrows. I think I even muttered "how sheltered is this woman!?". But overall I loved the dialogue and movement and liveliness of the show.

Found season 2 much funnier and more interesting than the first one, more than I expected, aforementioned flaws aside. Οὖτις OTM re 'weird fantasy melodramedy' tho that's not necessarily a flaw.

I liked it a lot, but I also had some issues with the blatant weath and Midge's blatant ignorance of it in the face of her supposed friend's poverty that she *never fucking helped her out with*.

It's kind of the same issues people had with Lorelai. For some weird reason I thought Midge was more 1950s middle class for NYC? Her parents don't even own that apartment.

I literally have no clue because of all the hats and coats.

it is hard for me to figure out how her parents afford any of htat stuff (apartment, housekeeper?) on a professor's salary but I assume things were absurdly different in the 50's than they are now.

Tv made it seem like there were a lot of housekeepers.

I haven't watched this show but I enjoyed reading Emily Nussbaum's minority report on it.

Her list of less pretentious shows is odd (i've watched half of them, Ex GF, Glow, Younger, Broad City). But I agree that Joel is totally given a baffling amount of time.

Nussbaum otm

it is hard for me to figure out how her parents afford any of htat stuff (apartment, housekeeper?) on a professor's salary but I assume things were absurdly different in the 50's than they are now.

― akm, Thursday, December 27, 2018 1:11 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Columbia (where Abe teaches) owns the apartment. But yeah, things like flying to Paris weren't cheap.

Also -- and this bugged me way more than it should have -- the long distance calls between Paris and NYC were undertaken so casually, but that shit was expensive then! Those were $75 phone calls!

I have watched two episodes. I was put off within minutes by her comment about her fat college roommate and was hoping, but not really expecting, that to be addressed somehow. Also getting a Gilmore Girls-eque feeling that this somewhat obnoxious and oblivious characters is meant to be winning and adorable.
Still, I don't actually dislike Gilmore Girls, I just find the main characters kind of annoying sometimes. And I like the look of this, the warm artifice of the visuals. It seems soothing, I guess.

I watched GG while it was on regular tv and really loved it. When I rewatched it all again recently I was put off a couple of times by cringey jokes, frustrating behaviours. But even Broad City has stuff like trans jokes that stick out terribly upon rewatching now. I winced at some of Maisel, but a lot of what it has going for it was, like, customized for me. I decided I am going to make this my holiday viewing every year because of that artifice and fantasy nostalgia.

I am surprised they didn't get Kelly Bishop for the Catskills episodes.

midge's perky dewy wide-eyed perma-consternation is driving me up the wall

and her standup is bad not good, while everyone respectfully listens and laughs uproariously even on the NON LAUGH LINES

that nussbaum piece linked a few posts ago is soooo otm

There was a ersatz (though Jewish-run) deli in Toronto that served bad pastrami and played Barbara Streisand on the stereo and the goys loved it, but I hated it and think I have the same problem with this show.

I think it got noticeably worse in season 2

Agreed

I like the show more than Emily Nussbaum but I think one problem the show has is its humor lands less frequently than it would like, and it tries to get by on rapid-fire dialogue exchanges and spot-on timing with line readings, and the actors are almost good enough sometimes to make you realize there aren’t any jokes in the banter. It’s just banter.

Maybe the reason Bunheads remains the best Sherman-Palladino show is because it only lived for one season.

Blossom Dearie has been a revelation to me because of this wonderful series and soundtrack.

Weird about such Bunheads love. It was fine but always seemed like it was only starting to get settled by the end. Although I super did appreciate the "never get too friendly with elderly neighbors" recognition in the Sasha lives on her own episodes.

Blossom Dearie is way better than this show, thats for sure

A while ago I looked up all those Catskills resorts and they're all still around, if a little old fashioned and dowdy looking, but I'd love to stay in one!

same!

not true - Kutsher's is gone, it's being turned into a yoga resort

Sorry yeah I dont know why I said all, I maybe just meant the main one featured in the show.

i mean jeez trayce keep up

lol

god forbid a generalization have any kind of shelf life on ilx

Mrs. Maisel weekend at a Catskills resort!

https://www.timesunion.com/entertainment/article/Catskills-resort-plans-Mrs-Maisel-weekend-14055397.php

So this happened today:

https://www.engadget.com/2019/08/15/police-halt-amazon-mrs-maisel-gas-promotion/

Santa Monica Police suspend an Amazon Prime promotion offering gas for 30 cents a gallon. Traffic issues are the big concern. Details coming up at 11am on ABC7. #maiselday pic.twitter.com/sJHQLcDUaK

— John Gregory (@abc7johngregory) August 15, 2019

A map and list of all the promos for the show: https://maiselday.com

I know advertisers go all out and it can get out of hand, but this I've probably never witnessed.

I don't really like sweets or desserts, but I have to admit I was nostalgic for SusieCakes today

Season 3 out. Watched first four or so. Some of it great, some starting to wear on me, Shy Baldwin is a really annoying character.

Most notably, it manages to portray scripted stand-up that doesn't make you want to die

Not really tbh, but otherwise this is great yes

Hmm, we watched the first two, and through of all Tony Shaloub's complaints about materialism, I just kept thinking, why didn't you stay in Paris, then? You could've just stayed in Paris, like your supposedly materialistic wife wanted to.

i just started ep 5 & i am enjoying the hell out of it so far. eps 1&2 felt a little off-kilter but otherwise it’s been good.

joe & the new girl may have such great chemistry.
and PARIS (i keep forgetting her real name, paris from gilmore girls), is in Shy’s band. Yay i was so excited to see her.

oh and I loved when Sterling K Brown sang is you is or is you aint my baby in ep 4 (or3?)

and Cary Elwes! :D :D

“i don’t hunt people down. the last time I hunted someone down was when Desi Arnaz gave me the clap.”

oh and Paris’s character is inspired by Carol Kaye bass player for the Wrecking Crew <3

LIZA WEIL

thats Paris’ name

sorry

Liza Weil has been on How To Get Away With Murder since Day 1 and it still freaks me out.

i tried watching that & couldnt hang
idk why

sorry back to Maisel

Kirby’s Lenny Bruce gets more achingly perfect, handsome & great every season

the fuck? Carol Keen was left-handed, but suddenly in the final episode she's [SPOILER ALERT] right-handed?

I really don't like Liza Weil in How to Get Away w/ Murd. We watched every season this year and it was nothing like I expected. It's completely ridiculous but I love watching Viola Davis.

i finished s3 of Mrs Maisel & loved it. that final scene on the runway, while not unexpected, was so so good.

i really loved the Sophie Lennon arc too

alexis borstein is just continually killing it on this show. Brosnahan is terrific too, but the way Borstein anchors so many of her scenes is just so fun to watch.

I found the Sophie Lennon side to be nails on chalkboard by the end. The mentor-mentee relationship between Susie & Sly’s manager was way more interesting and barely got any time, comparatively.

I also feel like the show started down a much darker trajectory this season - I mean at some points this was a fucking requiem with cheap jokes; gambling, blatant discrimination, drunken bad decisions, sober worse decisions, ending on a stillborn dream preceded by burning down your dead mom’s house for the insurance. The one upshot is dad’s new job at the Village Voice as the theater critic! 😜

on a separate note, I would totally buy the soundtracks for this show, if they made them. Don’t make me Shazam while I’m watching and then download stuff later, I’ll gladly pay for it all on a disc, yes I’m old.

yeah i would love to have the irl soundtrack

i find Abe’s trajectory very weird. he never really seemed like a mathematician in the first place

Maybe he wasn't.

the greatest trick the devil ever played was pretending he understood what "Gaussian elimination" meant

lol

Abe can be a brilliant mathematician by day, a huge theater fan at night, and a passionate socialist at heart, easily. He’s an exaggeration of a thoroughly real archetype, like most of the characters.

Elsewise how do we make sense of (more than) half the people who still stubbornly post to this goddamn messageboard? Half the people here talking shit about Star Wars are just real world Abes, maybe diminutive compared to him, but he’s made for TV.

fair enough

[imagines Tony Shalhoub as Morbius]

*cries*

I'm just a bunch of slugs wearing a trenchcoat

I don't know if I like the direction the hats have taken this season.

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2019 season is nominated in the 2019 ILX TV poll:

ILX's Best Television of 2019 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends January 31

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (4 minimum, 25 maximum, organized by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail by end of day today. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

I watched the pilot last night. Promising! I wish I didn't know the lead's last name is Brosnahan bcz now she seems too goyishe to me.

The guy who plays Lenny seems more like him than I was expecting. I thought the period was earlier, but Newhart on Ed Sullivan Show pegs it as 1960.

Morbius I hope you love this show

x-post Nah, they fudge the dates. It's still supposed to be set in the '50s, but somehow Newhart is already famous from his first album

Lenny’s irl daughter spent time on set & gave her seal of approval - it’s a great performance.

show’s technically set in 58 but like josefa says they fudge some dates here & there

i love all the gaslight stuff, could watch a series of that alone

i was randomly talking to my seatmate on a plane and we were talking about Maisel love and i realized I had mysteriously never watched the last episode of season 3. so we just watched it last week. so perk extra episode. she also told me that brosnahan is kate spade's niece which I hadn't known.

i hope morbs likes it too.

we’re all counting on you morbs 😂

that kind of historical cheating already pisses me off

i know, i get it ... but you gotta let it slide

wait... is every episode an hour? cuz that's too long

MORBS

i usually just watch one ep per day. i can't binge anything an hour or longer.

there's not that many eps so

I guess this is a dramedy, I wanted a sitcom.

Season 3 is a visual tour de force it must be restated.

I'm having a hard time getting through S3 because I don't like the characters anymore I think. I'm somewhere in the middle, but I'll power through.

i predict morbs eventually hates this show, but then i fuckin hate this show

I keep thinking about season three but after spending all day locked up with a manic extroverted 5 year old starring a 1 hour show at 9:30pm feels like a huge slog

I can't count how many films I've seen where the first 20 to 30 minutes are excellent and fun and then they peter out in weaknesses brought on by clumsy plot exposition, complications, and resolution, because their early strength had nothing to do with the strength of their storyline. Series are not immune to this, either. Beginnings are easy, developments and endings are hard.

I'm 3 episodes into this, and it's pretty entertaining, BUT... the thing that most annoys me is that Midge has gone on stage 3 times and KILLED entirely by IMPROVISING, apparently. A sheltered UWS princess with no stage experience? Even the greats have told stories about dying in their early sets. I know it's not a documentary, but the plausibility matches that Tom Hanks-Sally Field film Punchline. I'm looking forward to seeing if she ever bombs.

It also feels like this show started with the production design, costume design, music clearances, and enough budget to redress those Village streets, which is not cheap.

Almost everybody gets funny shit to say, esp the dykey manager. Tony Shalhoub is very convincing and funny, but the shocker is that Kevin Pollak (who I've never liked much at all) is even better! "The thirteen Jews..."

Another anachronism complaint: the Friars Club scene starts with the fanfare of "Comedy Tonight." That's 1962.

yeah there's a bit of suspension of disbelief in her early abilities, she comes across as a savant in her first few improv gigs, then her first few planned gigs are terrible even though it would seem she's sharp-witted enough to plan material if she can do it off the dome like that.

I just rode with it, it's not realistic obv

Pollack is so good; Shalhoub really comes into his own in the back half of Season 1, it takes a while for his character to really build up a head of steam

Pollak is hilarious in the bank loan scene in Season 2

"YOU...are *not* a Jew!"

I love all the parents so much. Her stand up skills go downhill pretty badly, it is a little strange.

I love this show. I kind of think Morbs will enjoy enough about it before bailing because of storyline or something. But I can't get enough of sets and costumes and colors and pitter/patter. My only real gripe is Joel. I really had hopes he would get run over by a horse and carriage or fall off a fire escape etc etc spoiler.

oh yeah he sucks bad

he should have been eaten by a feral mountain lion by Ep 2

he's a shitty ex/husband alright, tot foxy actor tho

morbs otm

alex borstein my favorite, then Lenny

Also Midge paraphrased Dr Spock's baby book as saying "You got this." Give me a break, I never heard that til five years ago.

Joel....foxy????!!!

he is a quintessential Cute Jewish Boy, even though the character is a monster

it's pretty clearly indicated that what brought the two of them together was laughs and sex, not necessarily in that order

The laughs come during the sex

Joel is v handsome imo

Yerac favors men of a certain stature iirc

he played randall on Walking Dead! I did see him Brooklyn (the movie) last year.

now I had to search for how tall he is.

i looked it up

he’s 5’8”

He wish he were a little bit taller

you wish he was a baller?

he has a girl who looks good
you should call her

be easier to pull a rabbit out of a hat
also they repoed my '64 Impala

"When I was three I could resole a shoe."

I know the actor who played Red Skelton (at the Copa) in episode 4.

(who is funny and talented, and knows his vintage comedy, but neither looks or sounds like Red)

I own the Mort Sahl LP she's listening to in ep 5

are you enjoying it?

mostly

i'm glad she bombed TWICE in the fifth episode; bout time

my favorite thing in S1 is episode 3 when she gets stoned for the first time with Lenny & the band

season 3 is dreadful

glee with namedropping of ppl that nobody cares about or arent real

lenny bruces top cat routine is getting worse

disagree on Lenny - one of Lenny’s best epidodes is in this season!

s3 is definitely a slog at first but it comes together really well in the last few episodes

hmmph ok we'll see

Midge is a self-saboteur, as the Jane Lynch episode proved. Infuriating.

i am glad you are sticking with it!

s1 finale a little heavy on the Midge-Joel content (also he's no Sal Mineo per the final insult), but loved Shalhoub's "I will have to kill you." The Lenny rescue seemed a little forced too.

Not read the full thread - is this worth sticking with? I liked S1 well enough but s2 is a bit boring (up to ep4 or 5 so far). Too much Midge's mother, not enough hustle, also don't massively care about Joel unless they actually go into why he cheated in the first place...?

Yeah I left it around the same episodes iirc. Not that I disliked it anymore. But I didn’t feel like knowing more about what happened to these characters (never like Joel so him being more present was a pain)... I may go back at some point though.

Love her parents though !

I'd encourage you to keep at it. All the characters bring their own rewards in the end.

Season 1 is probably the best but I enjoyed sticking with it

stay the course, chaps

I think the writers are aware that they neglect the children, and have turned it into a bit of a running gag.

my wife was the kids' age at the time and yes she thinks this is deliberate, the kids really are secondary and the maid takes care of them

100%

I hit a wall in S3 and haven't come back to it (after x and y get married). I guess I should, but I can't imagine S4 is coming anytime soon.

s3 is worth seeing to the end

S4 is going to be a cartoon

the back half of S3 is the chunk of the show with the lowest annoying-to-entertaining ratio, possibly

agreed

rewatching for the nth time (i lost count)
i still love this show so much

(also i love that morbs ended up watching the show. rereading this thread makes me miss that bitchy old grouch <3)

Cute John Waters cameo in s3 e4.
i dont care, i still love this show, will never stop loving this show

s4 e4 i meant

the strip club stuff is really charming imo

spoilers for end of season 03

End of last season she outed a famous black man and, much as I love her, got what she deserved. I'd thought the show understood that.

S04e01 this is now being cast as yet another unfair setback that Midge will raise up from, via one of her worst stand up performances yet.

Does she get called out on this as the season progresses?

no
but also it’s not that kind of show
there are consequences for midge to a point, but how much calling out can you really expect when the main character is inherently “marvellous” yknow

Yeah I'm all for the show being frothy and consequence free but then they didn't have to have her do that in s3 lol. Could've gotten some setback that actually wasn't her fault.

Maisel Goys podcast makes a valid point - the start of this season is basically a reset: Midge is back in NY, and back with her parents (well, they're back with her, but ya know). There's going to be one more season after this - feels like very little time to catapult her into superstardom, which you'd think the series was gearing towards?

The needledrops in this series are great, they always have been really. Bought Barbara Streisand's first album recently for "Come To The Supermarket (In Old Peking)".

Something struck me as anachronistic on one of this season's episodes: Abe was watching tv and said something like, "I wish there was a way to pause it, or rewind it." One problem I had with that is the hackiness of it ("Get it? They're in olden times technology!"), but would anyone in 1961 have used "pause" in reference to a tv show, film, or even a sound recording? Reel-to-reel tape machines were (I think?) the only consumer product at the time that had a pause (or, for that matter, rewind) function, and those were mostly only used by audiophiles.

that moment was purely eye-rolly wink wink to the camera, something they don't usually do, and it was a bit annoying

I listened to a little bit of the actual Lenny Bruce Carnegie Hall concert after watching the final episode, and it's remarkable how much they've had to change just to make him comprehensible to a modern audience. His references and language are so of their time, it's difficult to follow him. You sort of don't notice it as much in the interviews and the books, I guess.

yeah i got quite into him in high school & somehow got a tape & i was like HUH 🙃 lol

i do really love this fictionalized version of Bruce though, its the best part of the series for me. it retains the air of sadness without making too much of a meal out of it.

and all those shots they did in the irl carnegie hall, looks so incredible

I'm assuming that next season we will be able to tick off more people on our Sherman-Palladino associate bingo cards, too.

i think this is the final season.

oh I guess there is one more

The clothes, the buttons, the chairs, the lamps. I almost missed the point of the very important conversation between Mae and Joel because I was trying to work out how I could get their dining table light fitting. That aubergine colour that Abe and Rose both wear. Their kitchen phone. And then poor Lenny on his way to LA. It's all too much.

so excited to watch the new eps!

i rewatched s4 last week & cried in so many parts, i had forgotten so many key moments!

so many great Abe moments but my favorite was when the woman had her hand on Abe’s thigh
Waiter: How are you liking it?
Abe, stricken: Liking WHAT!?

Meet my new friends...
Whatshisface and... Whatsherface...
They come from... Somewhere
And they're out tonight to celebrate... Something

#Frostcrotch

i also enjoyed Moishe/Kevin Pollak heckling Midge’s set at the Button Club for the sheer meta delight of it

Just started episode 2 of the new season, and...I feel like it's getting away (or has already gotten away from) the writers. It's predictable in ways that previous seasons weren't, and leaning into this Forrest Gump shit about "I got muddy at Woodstock!" and being involved with Quincy Jones and Paul Simon, and performing with Bob Hope in Vietnam feels extremely hacky. Also, souvenir concert t-shirts were not a thing in 1969. No one would have made a "Midge Maisel College Tour 1969" shirt with the tour dates on the back.

But at least the drum hardware and other music gear is period-correct, so it's got that going for it. I'll keep watching till the end, in part because I enjoy the performances, and I wanna see how other plot lines shake out, but yeesh.

I'm behind on this show, mostly because shows in which the lead character constantly gets in their own way in colossally destructive ways (like the Shy Baldwin incident) actually causes me anxiety to watch, which is why I've delayed starting this season. but I'll get over it and eventually catch up - that's my thing, and not the show's fault.

my folks have it on constantly, so the scene I did see from this year was pretty hilarious (the airport scene - "the flight is not cancelled, they cancelled US!").

But at least the drum hardware and other music gear is period-correct, so it's got that going for it.

Scratch that. OK, yes, technically a Vox AC30 is period-correct...but it's monumentally unlikely that a bathhouse in New York would go through the trouble of having one imported from the UK in 1961. It would be prohibitively expensive to the point that the cost would be twice that of a comparable Fender amp that could be purchased within a few blocks of said bathhouse.

(I probably should have posted this in the IA thread instead of here. Season is actually decent so far.)

Only 2 eps in but this second flash forward is a lot much.

Oh, this episode annoyed me. I mean, it was fine and all, Suzy's stuff was good, but the whole jacket/piracy business was irritating even by the standards of this show.

Plus I've realized that I'm becoming obsessed with how time works on television programmes. The whole time I was watching Midge and Joel on the fire escape, and it was getting dark out, I was thinking "don't you have a gig on a boat at 7pm? What time is it now? Isn't this the summer? Are the buildings that tall that the sun is completely gone by 6pm?"

Very satisfying ending, well done everyone.

agree!! I got kind of emotional towards the end with the Gordon Ford stuff

that last scene was so weird and YET perfect? just a lovely way to go out.

sidebar: Amy Sherman-Palladino is on Maron this week & it’s a great conversation!
Even the stuff about her parents, i could listen to her talk about them for hours

Oh, good to know.

that last scene was so weird and YET perfect? just a lovely way to go out.

Yeah, husband pointed out that they did a lovely bait and switch -- they set you up to think she's isolated and all alone, but she isn't. And I liked that they didn't over do the Lenny scenes. No need to when people can just Google. Overall I liked that this whole season was a long wrap-up, with no one episode having to carry all the "here's where everybody ended up" stuff. And it's a good sign when I have that little tingle at the end of aw, don't go, you guys.

Selfishly I wanted more Lenny; but the way they handled it was respectful to his legacy & his family. To spend more time with him would have been to see how far adrift he really was then, which the SF standup gig did a good job of giving a snapshot of that; and truthfully to spend more time at that point in his life would inevitably = using & it’s not that kind of show

Please tell me where i can buy suzy’s gold clogs!

Oh … and Suzy’s scene in the automat where she talks more about Heddy? … give Borstein every award, she’s so goddamn good. The sheer pain in her eyes KILLED me. And her line to Midge, were you ever a blonde? Perfect without putting a bow on it.

It's very funny listening to Amy Sherman Palladino and Alex Borstein (separately) explaining to Marc Maron that women find Luke Kirby really attractive and charming. He is so unaware of it.

I've been convinced from early on that Lenny's death would be a pivotal moment on the show but I guess it's true that might've been too dark for them.

OTOH, I thought that Joel getting his ass absolutely wrecked by Chinese gamblers was weirdly off tone with the rest of the show in terms of it's sheer brutality. Mei's departure was also very abrupt to the point where I wondered if it was handled that way due to other obligations Stephanie Hsu had after her big role in a multi oscar winning film.

It was interesting to see how the characters' lives turned out, although the flash forwards sometimes felt like we were stepping into another universe.

The thing I liked most about the finale was how Midge's big breakthrough set was a summary and summing up of the entire series while still feeling funny and triumphant. I also found it funny that it was absolutely Joel's peak: he got to cheer on Midge and see her be a success while dispatching his parents to Florida at the same time.

the flash forwards & backwards this season, and this final episode especially started to give me vertigo! lol like i started to forget what timeperiod the bulk of the series was set

Also, that was the longest 4 minutes ever.

I thought/hoped more of the loose ends would be tied up. This season gave more time and attention to the kids, but they're forgotten by the end (and maybe that bit in Midge's set on Gordon's show was something of a meta joke). In a way, it makes sense: the kids had no character development and very little screen time, and shoehorning in decades of their backstory at the end would've been cumbersome at best. I thought the ending mostly worked; I'm not sure how else it could have ended. And while I was happy with her triumphant TV appearance, the reception to it by the audience, the band, and Ford was so over-the-top that I thought it might end up being a dream or a hallucination.

The neglect of the kids has been a running gag since the first season.

The neglect of the kids by their parents? Sure, that was a running gag. The neglect of the kids by the writers? Eh, I don't think that became a gag until this season. I always got the impression that the writers wished they'd never written kids into the story, but had no way of plausibly (or easily) writing them out of the show. And as soon as they started to flesh out who the kids were -- the flash-forwards at the beginning of this season -- they dropped it.

Kevin Pollak has a Maisel podcast w cast members etc, it’s v good!

It’s called My Mrs Maisel Pod

in other sort of related news

i was talking to my friend’s mother about Mrs Maisel because we both love the show. She is a wonderful 80-year woman who grew up in Brooklyn. I was laughing with her about Miriam’s bedtime routine in the first episode, going to bed & waking up in full makeup etc & no shit, she said that she did the EXACT same thing. Her husband never saw her without makeup! She even puts on mascara when she gets up in the morning because she hates looking at her face in the mirror without it. Incredible.

Way late on this, we just started watching this a few weeks ago and we're about 2/3rds through Season 2. Really enjoying this so far, much more than I expected to - the description way upthread (haven't read much further than the first handful of posts) of a musical without songs is pretty otm.

My wife and son are also in the midst of a Gilmore Girls binge, so the similarities between the shows feel a little more glaring in that context.

I watched Down With Love over the weekend and it gave a strong Maisel vibe.

Down with Love is a little gem.

sitting through the final episode

as always, the question i have is how can a show and a star be so, so funny and sharp and well written until the stand up scene each episode which is as flat and weighty and awkward as anything youll see

like how the worst part of every mad men was the fucking ad pitch

in fact i blame.sex and the city

There's a fundamental problem there, right, because in universe Midge is hilarious and as with a show where there's a song or a movie everyone finds amazing that already raises expectations in an unhelpful way. But also they seem to have no idea how stand-up actually works, she's constantly doing "off the cuff material I just came up with" and killing with it.

I don't know if I'd call the last season sharp and well written tho, I enjoyed it but mostly due to a combination of actor's charmingness + gorgeous setpieces + period popcult porn. Final scene worked tho.

The acting is bad in the stand up routines, not just the writing. She’s delivering it like a monologue, not standup. Her accent is dire, too.

maybe its an entire meta comment on the "my friend is incredibly funny go see their stand up"

I don't think it explains or forgives the stand up scenes for not being great, but fwiw Amy Sherman-Palladino was talking on Maron's podcast about how it was an intentional choice for Midge's act to not sound at all like a stand-up act from that era.