‘Mrs. Maisel’ broadens horizon in second season
Midge is trying to “clean up the giant mess she’s made” in Amazon Prime’s “Marvelous” comedy.
NEW YORK – On a recent morning at a temporary re-creation of the storied but nowshuttered Carnegie Deli, Alex Borstein is everywhere you turn.
“Look! There’s another one,” says the actress, whose face is plastered across the mock “Carnegie Wall of Fame” along with photos of her “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” co-stars. Borstein is seated in a ’50s-style booth of the iconic Jewish deli, reopened to promote Amazon Prime’s second season of the Emmy-winning comedy, streaming Wednesday. But unlike Susie, the gruff, cash-strapped comedy manager she plays on the show, Borstein’s not shoveling down the pile of hot pastrami and pickles set before her.
“There’s nothing to keep you from eating too much like looking at pictures of yourself,” Borstein jokes.
Literally and figuratively, Susie is hungrier than ever in Season 2, as she hustles to book gigs for sole client Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan), an outspoken ’50s housewife turned aspiring stand-up comic, who’s trying to get back on her feet after facing personal and professional setbacks.
Not only has she been blacklisted from major comedy clubs since bad-mouthing star female comedian Sophie Lennon (Jane Lynch) at the end of last season, but she’s also been demoted from makeup-counter girl to switchboard operator, following an altercation with her estranged husband’s new girl-
friend at the B. Altman’s department store where she works.
“She’s trying to clean up the giant mess she’s made and get back on top,” Brosnahan says. That includes reaching an understanding with husband Joel (Michael Zegen), who’s still hurt by her searing jokes about him on stage and gives her an ultimatum: choose comedy or their relationship.
Over the course of 10 new episodes, “they get to know each other better than perhaps they ever did during their marriage,” Brosnahan says. “They love each other very deeply and want to try to make it work for their kids, but obviously can’t be together right now.”
Even as she gets a potential new love interest, Midge’s friendship with Susie is still at the core of “Marvelous.”
“They’re kind of learning how different they really are,” Borstein says. “Midge has been coddled her whole life and Susie’s scrapping to survive, so it’s like this very tame house cat and feral cat trying to make it together in the world.”
The “Marvelous” universe also gets bigger, as Midge travels to the Catskills on an extended summer holiday and, in the season premiere, jets off to Paris to try and save her parents’ (Tony Shalhoub and Marin Hinkle) marriage. The cast and crew flew to France to film the episode, in which Midge performs an impromptu comedy set at a Paris bar while a French woman translates in real time, which Brosnahan describes as “one of the most challenging things I’ve ever shot.”
For the married producing team of Amy ShermanPalladino and Daniel Palladino (”Gilmore Girls”), it was important to get Midge out of New York.
Midge “is soon going to become a road comic. and the life of a comedian is mostly lived outside of the home,” DanielPalladino says. “New York is always going to be her base, but to keep it real, she is going to be out in the world more.”
The Palladinos aren’t concerned about viewers’ higher expectations following the show’s eight Emmy wins in September, including best comedy series, actress (Brosnahan), supporting actress (Borstein), writing and directing (Sherman-Palladino). And while the show’s dauntless female protagonist and empowering message have resonated even more strongly in the era of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, they say that the current climate didn’t directly influence any Season 2 story lines.
“You could tell the story of a woman trying to break the glass ceiling 20 years ago or 20 years from now and it’d still be relevant,” Danielsays.
“It just shows how far we haven’t come,” ShermanPalladino adds. “It’s kind of a bummer, actually, to think, ‘Really? Are we still fighting that damn battle?’ But we are, in skirts and corsets.”