What I’m Watching: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: Season 1, Episode 5 “Doink” (B+)

It would have been unrealistic for Midge to keep on going without a way to support herself, but in this era, spunk doesn’t go nearly as far as it should for a woman. Being the only woman to apply for an elevator operator job – something that she would have been perfect for – made her chances completely impossible, mainly because she wasn’t dressed up like Santa Claus. The job she found was fitting, even if she’s capable of much more, and it was nice to see that, after all the heartbreak of this episode and her failed act attempts, she did succeed tremendously at cracking up her coworkers. It is true that, every time we’ve seen her perform before, she’s been drunk, high, or hopped up on adrenaline, and things didn’t go well when she heard herself and turned out to be a bit too crude and uncomfortable for her audience. Wallace Shawn’s Herb Smith seemed like he knew what he was doing, ordering a generous helping of Jewish dishes at the deli and then giving her notecards that she unfortunately decided to read right off of and make corrections to with a pencil during her act. Taunting her heckler and inviting him to tell jokes didn’t prove all that effective either, and hopefully now she can focus on working with Susie to hone her own material and figure out how to be comfortable on stage. Joel introducing the new woman in his life to his parents didn’t go well at all, and Moishe delivered a particularly brutal takedown of the kind of woman she was before Shirley expressed the same sentiment with just one word.