TV is showing no mercy this year. "Succession" bites the dust in May. So does "Barry." The fate of "Yellowstone" hangs in the balance. And starting April 14, the Emmy-winning "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" begins its fifth and final season on Prime Video. You can watch the first three of nine episodes right away with the rest airing each week until the finale on Friday, May 26.
I've seen all nine fab episodes and it hurts to say so long, especially to Rachel Brosnahan, who's won nearly every award for playing Midge Maisel, the 1950's Jewish housewife and mom from Manhattan who's trying to break into the man's world of stand-up comedy. Forget the naysaying about non-Jews playing Jews. It's acting. Get used to it.
The final season is mostly set in the 1960s but with jump cuts into the future that give us a glimpse into what Midge's life is like in the 21st century. I'll never tell. But it's no secret that the fast-talking, quick thinking Midge is carved out of the DNA of brilliant series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, whose admiration for the gutsy comedy of Joan Rivers shines through.
It's a tribute to the humor and heartbreak that Sherman-Palladino ("Gilmore Girls") and her co-showrunner husband Daniel Palladino -- both write and direct -- pack into every frame. They're definitely going out on top with a last hurrah that is powerfully funny, touching and vital.
Not only is "Maisel" the best-looking series you'll find anywhere, from costumes to production design, the ensemble cast ranks with TV's finest. The great Tony Shalhoub as Midge's father has a scene of realization about the women in his life that belongs in the acting time capsule.
At its core, "Maisel" is a "womance" between Midge and her unorthodox manager Susie Myerson, played by the ever-sensational Alex Borstein. How fitting that the final season pivots on their relationship. No sex, just female friendship that trumps whatever's going on with Midge and comic legend Lenny Bruce (a superb Luke Kirby) and her ex Joel (Michael Zegen).
It's Susie who convinces Midge to take a job that would make her the first woman writer ever on the Gordon Ford Show, a ratings juggernaut whose arrogant host (a sexy, sleazy Reid Scott) has a rule that none of his comedy scribes will ever be permitted to perform on the show.
Can Midge get around that rule without giving into the predatory advances of the married Ford? And can she get around the sexism in the writers room, a still-topical issue that allows Brosnahan to show the sharp elbows a woman needs to be heard in a world of men?
Even Midge's bond with Susie is tested when betrayals are revealed that maybe can't be forgiven. "Maisel" has always had a dark side that comes to the fore in its final season, including Midge's leaving her two children, now seen as challenged adults, in the care of their grandparents and the emotional toll that success takes on both Midge and Susie.
In the closing episode, entitled "Four Minutes" in reference to the brief, make-or-break time Midge gets to strut her stuff on national television, Brosnahan seizes the role of her career with a breathtaking wit and assurance that thrillingly encapsulate how Midge lets the highs and traumatic lows of her life bleed into her comedy.
And we laugh and bleed with her. How could we not, having spent five seasons watching this flawed, fascinating woman in the enthralling, exasperating act of inventing herself? In a recent tweet, Alex Borstein expressed her feelings about the ache of letting go.
"Maisel is no more. I told myself that I wouldn't get too close, that I wouldn't fall in love. Yet here I am, heart fractured, with tiny chips now missing here and there."
I couldn't agree more.