Mrs. Maisel Season 2 Shines a New Light on Joel. What Does That Mean for Divorced Women?
Spoilers ahead, of course.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is not only a perfectly timed show onscreen (creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and an incredible cast are masters of comedic timing), but it’s also perfectly timed to my life. I sat down to watch Season 1 just as my marriage of 4 years fell apart, and I ended up binge-watching it three times in a roll in the span of a month.
To say that Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) helped me keep my sanity through my divorce is not an understatement.
There were enough coincidences between Midge and I to satisfy my ego and to allow me to project myself on the character: we were both divorced before age 30, after a 4 year marriage to a man who was as clueless on how to be a decent husband as he’d be on a stage with a microphone and a crowd to entertain.
I, of course, don’t have half as much money as Midge, or nearly as many fabulous outfits, or her innate talent for stand-up. And I don’t live in New York in the fifties.
But none of it mattered: I was her and she was me. She was both my spirit animal and soulmate, calling her husband out on all of his shortcomings with a quick wit I could only dream I had, and without blinking or stopping for air.
There was only one problem with Midge: she was too perfect.
It was hard to believe that someone so amazing could have married a schmuck like Joel (Michael Zegen).
Trying to make it in stand-up by mimicking the acts of already famous comedians is the least of Joel’s shortcomings. He also has an affair with his secretary (while working at a job he’s only mildly competent at), and hides from his wife the fact that they’re broke. If you couldn’t figure out what the always amazing Midge saw in him in the first place, you’re not the only one.
And as a recently divorced woman who had found in Mrs. Maisel a kindred spirit, I couldn’t help but to ask: was she stupid to have married Joel? Was I equally as stupid to have married my husband?
A bad marriage decision doesn’t make a smart woman dumb. It just means she made a bad marriage decision.
Divorce is a major event in anyone’s life for many reasons, but one of its most significant consequences is to bring to the foreground all of the red flags and previously brushed off issues of the relationship. Things you thought of as “just stuff we have to work through” because “relationships take work” and “every couple has issues,” suddenly become obvious signs that you were never meant to be, and “how could I have been so blind?”
How could I — and Mrs. Maisel — have been so blind?
Enters season 2
First season ended with the possibility of Midge and Joel getting back together, which wasn’t an entirely satisfying resolution after everything we’d come to know about the two of them so far.
One of my favorite scenes in the season came at the end of episode 3, when Joel asked Midge to get back together and her reply was “no.”
“Why?” he asks.
“Because you left,” she answers.
It’s perfect in every level, and after that, having her go back to him just feels as wrong as her having married him in the first place.
The first episode of season 2 reveals they won’t, after all, get back together. But this time it’s because Joel can’t cope with being the husband of a talented comedian.
“I can’t be a joke,” he tells her, after having heard what she says about him on her set.
I have to admit, I’m with Joel on this one.
As season 2 progresses, however, we get to see more of Joel. If at first it seems odd that he’s getting so much screen time, as the story moves forward, it all begins to make sense: it’s the season of the redeeming of Joel.
He proves himself a competent businessman, a good father (even though parenthood isn’t exactly top priority for any character on Mrs. Maisel), and even a good friend to Midge.
During their Catskills summer vacation, Joel proves he has a spine by going on stage and taking the microphone to say that yes, Midge and him are separated, and it’s time everyone stop staring and get back to their lives. When Midge and Susie (Alex Borstein) have to face a club manager who refuses to pay for Midge’s set, Joel is the one who comes in and gets them their dues.
This new light on Joel might be nothing more than a clever artifice by the show’s creator to warm the audience towards a reconciliation between Midge and Joel. She is Mrs. Maisel because of of him, after all. To me, that matters very little at this point. To me, any proof that Joel is more than an uncreative, self-obsessed fool is also proof that marrying him is a mistake any woman — even Marvelous Midge — could have made.
People are complex and complicated. They have many sides, good, bad and in between. That’s not an argument for divorced women to get back together with their ex-husbands, but it’s an argument for not feeling like the world’s #1 idiot for having married them in the first place.
Mrs. Maisel season 1 showed Midge facing divorce with her head held high. She was smart and fearless, proving she could be just fine on her own, while her husband was little more than an uncreative, self-obsessed fool.
It was everything that I, going through a divorce myself, needed at the time.
Now that the dust is setting and the wounds are healing, season 2 with its new Joel is perfectly timed once again. Now, I can not only forgive myself for having married my idiot husband, but I can proudly say he’s not an idiot at all. Sure, I suffered a lot in our marriage, but I still believe that he, like Joel, is a good man who’s been terribly misguided in his actions.
I don’t plan to get back together with my ex, but now I can appreciate that acknowledging his qualities isn’t painful anymore. I can let go of our relationship knowing that we were both imperfect people trying our best, although we had no chance to ever making it work.
To me, and I suspect to many other divorcées out there, watching Mrs. Maisel is like therapy. I trust season 2 has proved to be yet another efficient session.
