As we find Miriam Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) navigating her way through the sharky waters of escalating success and recognition at the tail end of the oppressive 1950s, it would seem that for season two of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Amy Sherman-Palladino has a very distinct thesis statement to get across to us. That being, of course, that no artist–at least not one who can be viably deemed among “the greats”–can “have it all”: brilliant artistic output and a successful personal life.
Considering that Miriam got into comedy in the first place as a result of her personal life falling apart, it would seem as though she might have reconciled the idea of being forever “All Alone”–a little ditty Lenny Bruce (Luke Kirby) performs in the final episode of the same name that smacks Miriam over the head with the revelation that her life can never go back down the path of making Jell-O molds or the idea of having three kids before age thirty again. It is a notion that bubbles just to the surface after “The Paris episodes” that comprise “Simone” and “Mid-way to Mid-town.” But as the narrative shifts toward Miriam’s obligation to accompany her family to the Catskills to one of those Kellerman’s in Dirty Dancing type resorts (except this time it’s called Steiner’s, for appropriate Jewish effect), it quickly becomes apparent that she is constantly having to disappoint the loved ones in her life in some way to accommodate her stand-up needs.
Starting with her sudden gig at The Concord that Susie (Alex Borstein) finagles for her after weeks spent hiding in plain sight as a plumber at Steiner’s (the trick is to carry a plunger with her everywhere so that no one is the wiser), Miriam establishes a consistent path of upsetting those close to her as her stern father, Abe (Tony Shaloub), dressed in Polynesian garb for added irony when contrasted against his stoic personality, shows up in the audience and sends his daughter down the rabbit hole of even more brazen comedy as a result of how awkward she feels doing it in front of him. In the aftermath of that show, Miriam begins to swallow the crumbs of realization that her profession–her art–will likely always alienate those in her inner circle. And that, to boot, she will still reflexively value it more than the things that a “stable life” could grant her. To that point, her encounter with Benjamin Ettenberg (Zachary Levi), an antisocial and standoffish doctor she gets set up with by her mother against her will in the Catskills, initially proves to be anything but love at first sight. At least not on Miriam’s part, though it’s clear that Benjamin, with his flavor for the “peculiar,” is intrigued by Miriam’s “odd duck” tendencies, which culminate in her delivering a little taste of her natural stream of consciousness sense of humor as she hitches a ride back to the city with him to finally reclaim her place at B. Altman’s Revlon counter (this after her long exile in front of the switchboard).
All the while, Joel (Michael Zegen), lingers in the background, still suffering for his sins, but not necessarily atoning for them as he gravitates toward the playboy lifestyle, especially as he takes on the responsibility of managing affairs at his father, Moishe’s (Kevin Pollak), garment factory. Sorting through the indecipherable quagmire of his mother, Shirley’s (Caroline Aaron), accounting, Joel loses himself in the project of getting things back on track for his parents’ financial well-being. And it’s all very beneficial to helping forget what he’s lost in the form of Miriam as she continues to ascend the ranks of notoriety (even though she still can’t get a gig past Midtown thanks to the Harry Drake’s [David Paymer] blacklisting at the behest of an insulted Sophie Lennon [Jane Lynch], fellow female comic and all-around hack/big shot in the comedy world).
Among the feats included in that ascension is landing a slot on a telethon benefitting arthritis and rheumatism–one that, as Miriam points out to her mother, Rose (Marin Hinkle)–would make it easy for her to take in the sight of her daughter in her element without having to schlep to a likely scandalizing club. But, as usual, neither mother nor father seems pleased with Miriam’s latest antics and foiling of her pre-established life path. Until they both bear witness to the sight of a neighbor watching their daughter on TV–even if it is an inordinately late time slot thanks to Sophie Lennon’s interference in bumping her to the last act with her omnipresent clout. And as she performs her same old tired lines–including the endlessly vexatious “Put that on your plate!”–it becomes evident that the other element of artistic sacrifice comes when selling your soul for the right price tag. This aspect of Sophie’s personality–the part that mourns for the kind of actress she might have been after going to the Yale School of Drama–comes into play in a very unexpected manner as the season closes.
But for Miriam, soul-selling isn’t an option, which is, in part, why it’s much harder for her to succeed. She is a kindred of the underdog, which is why in episode seven, “Look, She Made A Hat,” she buys a painting from an unknown artist named Agnes Reynolds in “the sad little room” in the back of the art show she attends with Benjamin, explaining to a fellow iconoclast, Declan Howell (Rufus Sewell), her motive in doing so: “I thought, ‘I know her. She has a secret. She knows a joke that I don’t. Maybe if I take her home, she’ll tell me the joke.'”
It is after this that Declan, who has only invited Miriam and Benjamin (though not so much the latter) to his studio to look at the paintings he refuses to sell because he was blind drunk at the time, decides Miriam is worthy of seeing his most talked about painting that no one has ever borne witness to. No one except Jackson Pollock, as the rumor goes (who subsequently declared he wanted to give up painting because he would never be able to create something as good). It is here, before this breathtaking work of art that the audience is not privy to, that Declan explains of how he had wanted to hang it in his own family home as opposed to giving it to a museum or selling it to a rich doctor, but that, “The chance for that [conventional family] life is gone. It’ll never happen because everything I have, I put into that. Nothing left.” Miriam laments, “I think that’s very sad.” Declan matter-of-factly returns, “Well that’s the way it is. If you want to do something great, take it as far as it will go, you can’t have everything. You lose…family. Sense of home. But then, look what exists.”
For someone like Miriam, who has been indoctrinated her entire life by the Jewish tradition of being obligated and beholden to family–both of origin and the one she herself made–this speech of Declan’s is a severe blow. For she had genuinely believed that perhaps there was a chance for her to start over on the familial front, even if things had failed with Joel. But no, she must at last reconcile that Declan’s truth is her reality as she reflexively responds in the affirmative to accompany a soul singer named Shy Baldwin (Leroy McClain) on his forthcoming six-month tour, which will include three months in Europe (one can only imagine how Susie will function in such an environment).
And as the epiphany of her lifelong loneliness in sacrificing family for art hits her with its full weight, she decides to turn to the only person who can talk her through it, in a conclusion to the season that proves even more bittersweet than the last cliffhanger we were left with when we first embarked upon Miriam’s madcap journey. Then again, if anyone has proven her own thesis about the seamless commingling of art and relationships, it’s Sherman-Palladino herself, who has worked with her husband, Daniel, on every show she’s ever birthed. So yes, maybe it could mean there’s still a chance yet for Mrs. Maisel to not be damned to a life of forever all aloneness as a comeuppance for her artistic talent.
