The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Returns for Season 2!

By Spencer Coile  

It feels like an eternity has passed since The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel premiered on Amazon Prime last year. Its first season was celebrated, dissected, and rewarded by most major awards bodies – sweeping up two Golden Globes and eight Emmys. In particular, the show’s leading lady, Rachel Brosnahan was lauded for her portrayal as Miriam “Midge” Maisel, a 1950’s housewife who pursues stand-up comedy when her husband unexpectedly leaves her.

Season two, which is available to stream on Prime, picks up shortly where the first season left off...

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Who will win the Emmy for Leading Actress in a Comedy?

By Spencer Coile 

After six consecutive years of Julia Louis-Dreyfus deservedly dominating this category for her performance on Veep, we finally have a race on our hands in the Lead Actress in a Comedy Series field! Or do we? As diverse as this lineup is – consisting of newcomers, veterans, and representation from six different networks – it feels as though Rachel Brosnahan’s name has been on that Emmy statue since the pilot for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel premiered last March. Is she going for the gold, or is the race more competitive than we think? 

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Blueprints: "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel"

As we approach the Emmys, Jorge is looking at the pilot episodes of Best Series contenders. 

Amy Sherman-Palladino made a name for herself with dialogue. Best known as the creator of Gilmore Girls, but also behind the one-season wonder Bunheads, her newest series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel follows a 1950s housewife who finds refuge in standup comedy after her husband leaves her. The delightfully twee vintage setting and the world of verbose comedy sets and big performer personalities is a perfect fit for her now immediately recognizable patter-chatter, all anchored by a revelatory performance from Rachel Brosnahan. 

Let’s take a look at the climax of the pilot episode: Midge’s drunken, cathartic stand-up set. How she slowly wins the audience. How it escalates on the page. How the endless sentences, tangents, and colorful adjectives create explosive tension...

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The (Truly) Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

By Spencer Coile 

The year is 1958, and Miriam "Midge" Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) lives on the Upper West Side with her wealthy husband (Michael Zegen) and two children. Her parents (Tony Shaloub and Marin Hinkle) live in the same apartment complex to watch the kids for her. She is dressed to the nines for all occasions, supports her husband's (flailing) career in stand-up comedy, and still has time to whip up a mean brisket. Why would she ever want her life to change? 

Which is to say, of course, that it will and does.

When her husband leaves her for his secretary, Midge angrily (and drunkenly) takes to the stage of the Gaslight, a downtown bar her husband frequently played at, to rant to her audience about this sudden shift. Her improvised venting, though, has the crowd in stitches. And it soon becomes clear that not only is she performing a stand-up routine, she is also quite good at it... 

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