Take Three: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: Season 1, Episode 3 “Because You Left” (B+)

After a second installment that felt like a bit too much, this third hour worked well for me and helped to show how the series might move forward. Midge and Joel are living separate lives at the moment and there doesn’t seem to be much of a shot that they’ll truly reconcile. But by flashing back to the formative moments in which they first met and in which Midge demonstrated her early knack for comedy by interrupting his speech to his father with a dry request for him to take his clothes off, we see that all hope isn’t necessarily lost. Most importantly, the two fathers want to see them reunited, and Rose’s distressed state even inspired her husband Abe to go down to Moishe’s factory and do something that represented groveling to get the apartment back. Paying for half of it is a bold offer, and having to live with hearing the story of his heroic act of salvation might even be a greater price. Midge has a knack for getting herself arrested, and though she presents herself well in court, she isn’t concerned about filtering what she says to a federal judge. When she says things like, “because I am, after all, a woman,” it’s not meant to be a joke, but it’s fun to see that she has some sarcasm in her voice that only the audience and her lawyer get since the judge thinks it’s her admitting that she does in fact understand the times. My favorite part of this episode was her requesting that they do an activity once she was high, after which she went up and introduced the band with some comedy before forgetting to actually introduce the band.