A brand new binge-worthy show has hit Amazon Prime, and it is a work of art. Show creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband, Daniel Palladino, creators of Gilmore Girls, are brilliant writers with a remarkable gift for bringing together feminism, candid wit, pop culture references and elite socialites, and tying it up in a bold and colorful bow. And they just may have outdone themselves with the creation of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
Miriam "Midge" Maisel (played by Rachel Brosnahan) is a woman from a wealthy Jewish family, married to an equally-wealthy Protestant man and living in an impressive home in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
She is the epitome of a 1960's housewife; immaculately dressed and fully lipsticked, taking her body measurements daily, and daring not to let her husband see her without makeup. She is the perfectly gorgeous mirror image of Laura Petrie...until her husband has a meltdown after a failed night of performing his amateur stand-up comedy routine and decides to leave Midge for his secretary.
What you won't see in Palladino's writing is a woman crying in her pillow (well, except for that one time when Luke broke up with Lorelai, but even that only lasted for a day).
Instead, Midge downs a bottle of wine and takes to the microphone at Gaslight, the New York City bar that she frequents with her husband. She drunkenly bursts into a comedic tirade about the situation she's suddenly found herself in.
Standing in front of the microphone in her nightgown, she proclaims to the audience, "who wouldn't want to come home to this?!" And then she bares her breasts to the audience, gets arrested for indecent exposure and her crude language, and finds herself in jail.
After being bailed out by a well-known comedian, Midge is tracked down by the frumpy and manly-dressed Gaslight manager, Susie (played by Alex Borstein), who decides to become her personal manager and help her start her career as a stand-up comic.
The start of an unlikely friendship between Midge and Susie begins, and Midge steps out of her elitist Jewish upbringing and into working girl society behind the makeup counter at a major department store while busting tail on the side to break into the male-dominated world of comedy.
Midge's character is brash, outspoken, quippy and unapologetic during a time when women were expected to sit pretty and let the men rule the world.
She erupted into a world of feminism without even realizing it, simply by doing what she wanted. And when her husband came crawling back, mistakenly thinking he had the right to leave her at will and come back whenever he pleased, she said no. "You left," she told him, and that was all that needed to be said.
Watching Midge find her footing in a new and foreign world, crash and burn behind the mic and then get right back up on her feet, and steal the limelight in every new endeavor makes you instantly fall in love with her.
Unlike writing for a major television network, writing for a private streaming service gives the Palladino's the freedom to branch out and write uncensored material. This makes their already brilliant writing that much more saucy and authentic, which perhaps is the reason that this series might just top the writing for Gilmore Girls. Yes...you read that right!
This show is indisputably an ace-in-the-hole. It immediately draws you in and leaves you thirsty for more. This is one of those shows that you'll skip your bedtime for. That you'll ditch going out with your friends for. That you might even skip class or call in sick to work for...because once you start watching it you will not want to turn it off!
Amy Sherman-Palladino is a mastermind, and the proof, as they say, is in the pudding.