#like they really did that. midge and susie soulmates real.

[charcubed]

someday, ages after the show’s been finished, I’m going to roll up with a post compiling a bunch of screenshots of moments where Midge Maisel was subtextually queer. and I’ve just accepted that by the time I ever get around to it no one is going to care (especially since very few people would’ve cared in the first place) but that’s okay. I think the world needs it anyway. eventually. just so it’ll exist somewhere.

[safflowerseason]

How are you liking maisel s5 so far?? I love reading your takes on everything :)

Hey! thank so much for the ask! I miss getting asks!!

I enjoyed the first three eps, although admittedly Maisel isn't a show I'm deeply emotionally invested in. With ASP shows I feel like you have to make up your mind to take the good with the bad/wonky/weird/uneven/random, because for every gutting Midge/Lenny scene that feels so real and raw or gorgeously whimsical entertaining set-piece, you have to put with whatever Abe's doing at the Village Voice or Moishe and Shirley yelling at each other at Joel's nightclub for ten minutes. I liked the flash forward conceit, except for the laughable age makeup they put on Rachel B (I'm sorry, no amount of hat-wearing/face-cream could protect a woman in show business from the excesses and physical ravages of the sixties and seventies). I liked ASP finally interrogating--in a very mild way--Midge's approach (or lack thereof) to parenting and its costs. I think there's probably something to be read in Mei telling Joel she can't have it all alongside Midge's clearly tense relationship with her adult children. I'm sad to see Stephanie Hsu go, although I'm happy it's because her star is ascending, and tbh ASP is *not* the writer to address the complexities of Joel and Mei raising a bi-racial child in the sixties.

With ASP I'm always girding myself to be disappointed romance-wise, but if we don't see Susie and Midge reunite in the future I *will* be gutted, as that's the only relationship that truly matters on this show. Of course I am enjoying Reid Scott striding around as a smarmy, cocky, soulless talk-show host (instead of a smarmy, cocky, soulless political strategist) exchanging banter with Rachel Brosnahan (I loved the bit where he ripped up the pages and tossed it over the balcony like confetti). The space the two characters were given in Ep 3 to just shamelessly flirt makes me yearn for an alternate universe where Reid Scott and Anna Chlumsky got to do the same thing for more than thirty seconds at a time. I feel like probably something will happen between them but it will be more "eh we're both hot and bored/lonely and this would be fun so why not" variety (that certainly seems to be Gordon's vibe) as opposed to the star-crossed earth-shattering comedy soulmates connection that links Midge and Lenny. (this sets aside the gross power imbalance between Gordon and Midge, which ASP seems to think is fine because we know Midge eventually succeeds.) Based on how Midge mentioned the Gordon Ford show, it doesn't seem like the man himself will be a big and/or complicated *relationship* in her future life/career, so I guess we'll see what happens there!!

As for Midge and Lenny...as I said, making Til There Was You their song is just, like, such a tell on the significance of their connection from the POV of the writers. I know there's apparently some angst out there re: the show's portrayal of Lenny Bruce and whether the show has made him into too much of a romantic hero or whatever when in reality he was a very complicated man who had a complicated and violent relationship with the women in his life. It seems like he really won't be in this final season much, which I guess is one of the show's (inconsistent) nods to reality. I'm sad to see less of Luke Kirby if that's the case, and there's nothing wrong with historical fiction, but I think the show is on safer narrative ground keeping Midge primarily surrounded by other exclusively fictional characters.

As for Joel and Midge's family...they are by far the dimension of this show I have cared least about since its inception, in spite of consistently fantastic performances from Tony Shalhoub, Marin Hinkle, Kevin Pollak, and Caroline Aaron, which makes me a little sad, but that's ASP for you. I did love seeing Kelly Bishop for a bit...an ASP icon. She should be in everything.

Those are my immediate thoughts...what did you think about the first three eps??