She’s back. Yes, Midge Maisel is back in New York. We left Midge and Susie, her manager, on the tarmac at the airport, where Shy Baldwin and company dumped her.
I’d have to go back for a review to put it all together again, but why bother? You all have the pieces in your pocket, because you, like the rest of us, turned “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” into a major hit, and now we’re wondering where Midge and Susie are.
For those of you who have all your shots and booster and have been distracted and need some evening boosters of entertainment, I’ll tell you this. Your girlfriend’s back, and she’s seriously pissed.
A flashback puts Midge in a cab after the debacle at the tarmac, where we watch her have a melt down. Our lovable comedian strips off all of her clothes down to her underwear, stops the cab, and jumps out to grab a tree branch and proceeds to beat the hell out of the cab with it while Susie retrieves her scattered clothes.
The cabbie watches helplessly. In the real New York, he would have kicked her into the bushes and left her there.
But this isn’t “Law and Order,” this is Maisel Land, and we’re so happy to be back with ex-husband Michael Zegen and his Chinatown night club, Daddy, the incredible Tony Shalhoub, Mama Marin Hinkle, Moishe and Shirley (Kevin Pollak and Caroline Aaron), and Midge’s kids, who are having birthday parties on the wrong dates, but we don’t care.
If you’re tuning in late, here’s what you’re going to see, the whole family boarding the Wonder Wheel at Cony Island, each in their own cages, with Midge appearing, not on FaceTime from Prague, but in her own cage in front of them.
Off they go into the blue sky, each caged and eager to know what just happened, while Midge tells her story. In true Maisel fashion, yelling at one another .
In the next 40 minutes, we follow Midge reclaiming her former apartment, Papa Abe starting his new career as a theater critic, Susie dealing with insurance gangsters, and a surprise visit with an old friend, on the lawn at an upscale mental hospital.
There’s not enough room here to jam everything looney and wonderful into the two opening episodes of joy. Just get a cage to sit in and watch it all unfold.
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” will stream two episodes weekly on Amazon Prime.
J.P. Devine of Waterville is a former stage and screen actor.
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