The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 4 finally shows Midge as not another Mary Sue, but a self-preserving artist

With other Mary Sues, it is usually obvious that they are too perfect. Heads will roll when Alice from Resident Evil survives multiple zombie apocalypses unbitten. Rey is a master mind-controller, more powerful than even Kylo, who has spent years training to use the Force. However, in romantic comedies, it is more of a tell-don’t-show narrative, as sci-fi and action genre romping is swapped with banter and supporting character reactions. So you do not have a motorcyclist doffing their helmet and revealing a woman, but you have everyone around Bella obsessed with her for no reason except that she is the main character of _Twilight_ . While Midge [Rachel Brosnahan] from _The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel_ does not fit the trope perfectly, she really is annoyingly perfect. “A Johnny Mathis-esque crooner at a telethon; Lenny Bruce; Jane Jacobs; Midge’s estranged husband, Joel, who is still stuck on her; her boyfriend, a choosy doctor who prefers Midge to the vapid gold-diggers in the Catskills; her devoted agent, Susie; or even some Parisian drag queens, who dub her Miss America. Is there anyone who doesn’t love Midge?,” wrote Pulitzer prize winning critic Emily Nussbaum, reviewing the third season of the show. But the fourth season shows us Midge, the sore loser, the mistress, the fink. And this is simply why I think the recent season does not enter the show into an ouroboros phase.         This season, her total likability, an eternal impediment to her complexity, feels a little bit earned. She is not an instant hit with the strippers; she is in the way for not only her mother but also the manager of the strip club. She makes Jackie Kennedy cry. And now, she is the target of a critic. Oh, a woman critic too – one L Roy Dunham, albeit whose gonzo hostility towards Mrs Maisel is a means to forward her own career. Midge is also at least off-center of the universe of the people around her. They get a chance to move along in their own arcs. Susie has another client [and a secretary], Sophie gets a comeback, even Joel is making strides in his love life that has nothing to do with Midge. Good for Susie telling Midge, “This is the Village. I live here. You think I don’t know how to find a lesbian bar?” We see Midge’s mean streak in full bloom as she destroys flower arrangements and steals gift bags from a wedding, mocks male comics, and even tries to steal a spot before getting banned from a club; her ugly competitive side with Sophie Lennon. I love how outraged she feels that her parents like Sophie’s TV show. She’s a raw ball of anger and frustration who wants to do it her way because look where the alternative got her, abandoned on the tarmac and losing gigs. This is important. Midge is trying to take control of her career, while suffering a setback. The show stops looking like a girl-boss fanfiction, an exercise in wish fulfillment. It is easy to see why the show might feel a bit same-old same-old – it is another one of those ancient regime stuff we like to watch nowadays for the lewks and the high of hindsight. And we have had time to get used to the premise of a Jewish housewife doing stand up comic in the ’50s, which seemed so impressive in the first season that one could not see past it. So yes, the schtick of the Sorkinian dialogue is starting to feel a bit grating with its moral superiority. And the inevitable diminishing marginal utility of the sitcom is finally allowing us to see how sickly sweet this world is, and its message conveniently woke.    We can also now see how truly awful Midge is with her non-apology to Shy Baldwin after she all but outed him. Not only does she lack any remorse, but she is absurdly indignant about being let down by him as a friend. She sees that Shy is without the band and Reggie, and still rebuffs his olive branch, then makes a big deal about not being paid for her silence by Shy’s new manager. Audaciously, the same show treats Sophie’s transgressions with the weight it deserves. After the two years since Season 3 and a receding memory of events, I confess at first I was surprised by Susie’s continuous snubbing of Sophie. And it is perhaps why the import of Midge’s anti-apology did not strike us all immediately.        

But even as the show is ignorant of the damage Midge does to Shy, it acknowledges an artist’s need for self-preservation.

When things are not going your way, it is all too human to feel scared and defensive. Lenny screams at Midge in Carnegie Hall that her plan to refuse opening gigs is not a plan so much as it is hiding. She has honed her skill night after night as an emcee in the jiggle joint, and wants to take it where it is appreciated. “So I’m just supposed to get fired from one job after another?” Midge repudiates. “Yes, if that’s what it takes,” interjects Lenny.    At long last, the ‘will they won’t they’ is over. Lenny has emerged like Cary Grant in His Girl Friday, seducing Midge not with romance but with the job. When Lenny asks Midge, “Don’t you want all this”, pointing to the audience seats in the historic venue, even haters who want complex female characters want that for her. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 4 is streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Eisha Nair is an independent writer-illustrator based in Mumbai. She has written on history, art, culture, education, and film for various publications. When not pursuing call to cultural critique, she is busy drawing comics. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.