Amazon surprised us all by dropping season 3 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel a few hours earlier but the third season is the best season yet.
The series takes us away from the Catskills and on the road with Miriam “Midge” Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan). This season, Midge is on tour for the first time and opening up for Shy Baldwin (Leroy McClain). That’s not to say that we don’t miss out on New York City because Joel Maisel (Michael Zegen) still lives there as does the rest of the Maisel and Weissman clan. Going out on the road allows us to take in some of the sites in Las Vegas and New York. A far cry from the Catskills if you will but hey, executive producers Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino find a way to keep the series fresh.
It’s no surprise that this series keeps getting awards love because the comedy remains top-notch. Rachel Brosnahan is at the top of her game. There’s no telling how many more seasons we’ll be getting but my hope is that we’ll get an episode that doubles as a comedy special. Again, she’s that good.
Perhaps, the best thing about season three is that there’s very little of Astrid (Justine Lupe). This is good because the way her character was written in the second season couldn’t have been more offensive in terms of converts to Judaism. What I can say about how she is written this season is that we have nothing to worry about.
There is certainly something to gripe out. Susie Myerson (Alex Bornstein) is constantly misgendered. It’s honestly gotten to a point in which it has become overkill. If you want to do this one or two times in a season, fine. But repeatedly over the course of several episodes? It’s all too much.
While the episodes very in length, the season finale is certainly feature-length with a running time close to 80 minutes. The calendar spans a few months over the eight episodes and the Palladinos find a way to liven things up for us. For a series such as this one, it’s a perfect choice to make it eight episodes long. If you know how Jewish families can be, it can be a bit much sometimes. The other thing about the season length is that it gives us just long enough to get to know more about the new characters.
Despite the aforementioned flaws about the season, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel offers up some much-needed laughs at the end of the year.
CREATOR: Amy Sherman-Palladino
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Amy Sherman-Palladino, Daniel Palladino
CAST: Rachel Brosnahan,Tony Shalhoub, Alex Borstein, Marin Hinkle, Michael Zegen, Kevin Pollak, Caroline Aaron, and Jane Lynch
