What I’m Watching: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: Season 2, Episode 7 “Look, She Made a Hat” (B+)

I’m very impressed with the talent that this show has enlisted this season, and I’m hopeful that it’s going to earn plenty of Emmy love for all of its players, not that anyone feels that it’s underrewarded. I’ve been watching Rufus Sewell as a powerful Nazi commander on “The Man in the High Castle” for the past few months, and it was a nice treat to see him with a more natural accent and a bit less control over his faculties as the painter Declan Howell. He was immediately fascinated with Midge, who got to step out of both of her lives to spend some time with him in the secret room that contained his truly personal painting. Benjamin was entertaining getting excited about art and revenge, and he pegged Midge just right as a “great date to bring to something you know nothing about and have no interest in.” I enjoyed the focus on Joel and his building purchase announcement, with the best line during that celebration being “Is this an official meeting, the ten o’clock rendezvous with the woman without the pants?” Seeing Susie’s home life helps explain her attitude, and I was thrilled to see Emily Bergl from “Desperate Housewives” and “Shameless” as her sympathetic sister-in-law Tessie. I’m not always especially fond of the Judaism scenes this show depicts, but it was fun to see the family bickering at the end of Yom Kippur. Midge coming out as a comic at Abe’s insistence at the break-fast dinner went particularly poorly, with her mother stuck on Susie’s fake identity as a plumber and then making matters much worse by bringing up Benjamin, something that both Susie and Joel could agree was not good for business. Her jokes fell flat, but at least she used it all for material at the gig, and I’m eager to see each of her family members start showing up to see her in action.