There is something to be said for the fact that when Miriam Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) finally manages to take her act outside of New York, not a lot of people find much of what she has to say to be particularly relevant. Dealt the same blow as most other New Yorkers that either leave it for the first time, or leave it for the first time in many months/years, she finds herself actually having to tailor her content to an average person. That is to say 1) not someone with an inflated opinion of themselves solely for living in New York and 2) not a Jew. The latter is an especially hard ask for Mrs. Maisel, who bases so much of her jocular rantings on being one of God’s chosen ones and all the neurotic burdens that come with it. To find that essentially no one in the audience knows what she’s talking about is a severe blow when Shy Baldwin’s (Leroy McClain) tour kicks off with a residency in Las Vegas (at the fictional Phoenician–maybe because it rhymes with Venetian?).
It is there, still riding high from the reverberating laughter that came so easily from New York crowds, she starts to realize maybe she doesn’t know shit about life outside of New York, ergo she doesn’t know shit about life itself. With this in mind, it seems fitting that show creator and frequent episode writer Amy Sherman-Palladino should take Mrs. Maisel out of New York without being able to take New York out of her. To highlight this phenomenon so many New York natives and long-time residents alike are afflicted with, Miriam a.k.a. Midge is subjected to Miami in addition to Vegas for her starter kit forays outside of the only city that really “gets” her, least of all her “quippy” comedy. Which falls uncomfortably flat out west with jokes like, Las Vegas “is so new it’s bris is tomorrow.” When the goyim clearly have no idea what she’s talking about, she takes the self-involved New York route once again by adding, “I’m from New York so for me a desert is Bergdorf’s when they’re low on Handmacher suits or Barney Greengrass when they’re out of lox.” No one is moved by her bourgeois, NYC-specific references. Still, she keeps pressing the issue, realizing she has no material if it doesn’t pertain to the only place she knows anything about.
“So, my home, New York, is a very old city. It told Philadelphia to–” Midge can’t get through the joke as a woman keeps yelling out the name “Berta” to get her friend’s attention. After directing the two to one another from the stage, she hopelessly continues, “I’m from New York”–as though, somehow, this time, people will understand how significant that is. Except that it’s not. A bubble often burst for egoists like Miriam. A dissolve to the latter half of her set informs us that Miriam has refused to give up the ghost as she delivers a punchline, “And I was like, ‘Take the A train, it’s faster.” Bitch, no one gives a shit outside your cult city and they have no idea what you’re talking about, nor do they really care to. They’re not a “subway material crowd,” Miriam tells them. Why would they want to be when driving cars the size of boats was all the rage out west in that period?
At the very least, Miami has its own highly concentrated population of “expatriate” New Yorkers (yes, this meaning Jews). Including one of Abe Weissman’s (Peter Shaloub)–Miriam’s dad–old friends from his more arts-oriented days in the 50s, Asher Friedman (Jason Alexander). Loosely based on Arthur Miller (who likely wouldn’t take kindly to a schlub like George Costanza playing him), Abe finds Asher has settled into Miami living with grudging ease, assuring him that after everything that happened in terms of giving his blood, sweat and tears to the theater and then being blacklisted from it because of the accusation of being a communist, he is forever “done with New York.”
Midge can’t say the same despite craving international fame. She even can’t help wanting to return to the same classic six apartment she shared with Joel (Michael Zegen) for the sake of ensuring that her son, Ethan (Nunzio and Matteo Pascale), gets into the prestigious Collegiate School instead of being marooned in Queens with Joel’s parents, Moishe (Kevin Pollak) and Shirley Maisel (Caroline Aaron). Indeed, the venomous, JAP-py contempt Midge has for Queens is something that many viewers, in the present epoch of the borough being well-gentrified territory, can’t seem to stomach, billing her as an overly spoiled snob with a false sense of supremacy. But that doesn’t stop her from hanging out with known degenerate Lenny Bruce (Luke Kirby) upon running into him in Miami. Or rather, him deliberately seeking her out at the bar she’s writing jokes in to invite her on what amounts to a date (even though the Lenny Bruce of real life would be way too fucked up to give much effort to courting Miriam). The flirtatious game of cat and mouse the two have been playing with one another for the past couple of seasons is very clearly trying to lead somewhere, though Sherman-Palladino doesn’t quite yet seem sure where, as though reserving it for a back pocket plot point that might come into play when she feels things aren’t getting dramatic enough in season four. Which they certainly didn’t in this season in comparison to the show’s previous two outings. Although she does save one majorly life-altering turn of events for the final episode.
As Midge gradually grows accustomed to an existence outside of New York that also depends on her telling jokes that are not entirely New York-centric, Miami seems to get more play than Vegas at least in part because of all the plugs the show does for Fontainebleau (a hotel that lives on the legacy of its more glamorous years in the 50s and 60s). Sure, there are a few momentous events in Vegas (including Midge getting married again to Joel, in the exact style of Ross and Rachel on Friends), but it is Miami where Midge starts to hit her stride in terms of getting accustomed to being out of New York. She even goes so far as to defend the “little people” who don’t know any better about the “real world” as a result of living outside of the Big Crapple upon arriving at the hotel with her manager, Susie (Alex Borstein). At the front desk, the two proceed to explain their highly specific hotel room needs, sending the concierge to “see what she can do” as Susie asks Midge, “How many words in that request you think she understood?” She replies, “Not everyone outside Manhattan’s an idiot.” But most of them, right? Because you’d have to be to want to experience anything that wasn’t the daily dry anal rape of NYC living. Yet that assault is one that at least allows you to be on the “inside” of Midge’s “highly sophisticated” jokes. Incidentally, the concierge does return with the information they need, prompting Susie to spout, “Wait a second, you’re competent? You gotta get outta Florida. Seriously, get on a bus and get to New York. You do not belong here. Save yourself!” Ah, the staunch superiority complex of New Yorkers. Even the ones of an especially trashy background rooted in Rockaway.
When the show isn’t reaching outside of New York to keep us entertained (because, yes, season three does prove that New York has a limit on being “captivating,” particularly with a profession like Midge’s that requires travel), we’re often in Chinatown, where Joel seems to be one of the pioneers of gentrification with his plans to open The Button Club (named, naturally, in honor of it formerly being a button factory) despite finding out there’s an illegal gambling operation going on in his basement. Of course, like most New Yorkers that have gotten in too deep with regard to their “never quite panning out the way they thought” dreams, he’s going to ignore all signs of what hell this little fact might wreak–even if he can rely on the help of his new love interest, Mei (Stephanie Hsu), who has an in with pretty much every person in Chinatown. Including the police.
Alas, Sherman-Palladino, like all New Yorkers both literal and at heart, must take the narrative back to the city when it feels like Midge is having too much fun. She must be punished, suffer again–as all Jews feel they should. So it is that the final episode of the season takes place at The Apollo (hence its title, “A Jewish Girl Walks Into The Apollo…”).
With a bit of self-deprecation about being white, mixed with some too close to home jibes about Shy, Miriam makes it through the show as a hit in spite of following the well-respected–and, most importantly, black–Moms Mabley (Wanda Sykes). But it’s a success that doesn’t come without a price. One that plays out with dripping-in-Casablanca allusiveness in the final scene. One that makes it seem like the Steiner Resort, which Midge was lamenting not being able to go to for the first summer in her life because of the tour, beckons in season four. And with it, more love games with Joel, who she’s once again still technically married to. As well as being closer to the only city that can take someone of her “eminence.” One just wishes that city had a bit more, let’s call it, intrigue going on as it purportedly did in the 60s (or at least that’s how Mad Men made it look).
In any case, perhaps Miriam and those many New Yorkers like her ought to heed Angie Calibresi’s (Lenny Venito)–the requisite mobster who runs the Vegas hotel–advice when he tells her, “Just keep in mind, the crowd is from all over. So they don’t know what a Bergdorf’s is.” In short, there is life outside of New York, if one just opens their (since living there) shriveled heart to it.
