I’m of the belief that no episode of television should be longer than 52 minutes. You go over that limit, and immediately we’re heading into bloated, overstuffed territory. Unfortunately, that’s what we have with “Everything Is Bellmore.†While it does have two very, very juicy moments, we, the audience, must hack through a lot of unappetizing gristle to get there — as in way too many overlong scenes involving anyone with the last name Maisel and the first name Joel, Moishe, or Shirley.
Here are the two reasons why I didn’t give two stars to “Everything Is Bellmoreâ€: (1) Luke Kirby’s captivating Lenny Bruce shows up at long last (the episode’s title is a reference to his hometown of Bellmore, Long Island). I freely admit I screamed “Oh, thank G-d!†at my laptop when this happened in the episode’s third act. (2) This episode is a fantastic dramatic showcase for Alex Borstein as Susie comes to terms with the sudden death of her longtime foil, Jackie. Brian Tarantina, who played the surly Gaslight host (and Bootsy on Gilmore Girls), died in November 2019, shortly before the third season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel premiered. Due to COVID-related delays, the series couldn’t properly pay tribute to the actor until now.
As I predicted last week, Midge now has a new gig: She’s the emcee at the Wolford, the strip club she and Susie visited briefly at the end of episode two. Everything about this place is a disaster from the disorganized set list to the poor stripper who gets hit in the face with a hook. Other than Midge making a joke about how she sucked on a rabbi in the Catskills (it was his ankle, and it was a mosquito bite), I was like the Wolford’s manager — falling asleep and ready to move on.
Back at her apartment, Susie gets a surprise visit from Jackie’s sister, Nancy, who announces Jackie’s off-screen death from a stroke. Susie is genuinely devastated and immediately reaches out to Midge, who cuts short her day job as a Tupperware consultant to go console her manager. For all my complaints about the tedium of this episode, it is refreshing to see Midge support an ashen-faced Susie in her time of sorrow, offering to make funeral arrangements, letting Susie stay with her on the Upper West Side, making sure Susie is eating, offering her some of Rose’s pills (sweet, but Susie’s already been through them), etc. We also get a cute scene in which Rose is forced to babysit a grieving Susie while she meets with clients at the Plaza Hotel tearoom. And when I say “babysit,†I mean “babysitâ€: Susie has regressed into a childlike state and is unable to do more than draw with crayons and eat a giant bowl of whipped cream.
There’s another subplot I really wish I could ignore, but it’s the catalyst for the episode’s climax, so let’s just do this. (Hey, at least we get Tony Shalhoub swishing around in a cape, right? That counts for something.) In its blatant attempt to recapture the gloriousness of season two’s Catskills episodes, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel brings back Steiner tummler extraordinaire, Buzz Goldberg, who is now a Broadway bona fide. Buzz’s long-workshopped musical, They Came, They Danced, is opening on the Great White Way, and everyone from the Catskills is there to show support, even doing the old Steiner cheer! Yay, I guess?
Buzz’s show sucks, and now Abe must review it for The Village Voice. He hates the idea of destroying this poor theater kid he’s known for a decade, but just as the show must go on, so must the critique. Gabe, the dream editor of every journalist, encourages Abe to follow his own advice: Use his voice to talk about what’s wrong with theater today.
The day of Jackie’s funeral arrives. Having moved past the “tinkle-time†stage of grief, Susie tries to deliver a poignant eulogy. But that’s a challenge when the bereaved consists of herself, Midge, Nancy, Chester, and the officiating priest. So she grabs Jackie’s portrait and hijacks the well-populated service next door. Through angry tears, Susie berates herself for never truly noticing Jackie. In the days following his death, she learned he was in the Army, earned medals for bravery, and had a wartime sweetheart. He was a regular churchgoer, a dance champion, and a quietly good guy who fixed things and made stew. Now she’s shattered to learn not only that Jackie considered her a close friend but that nobody bothered showing up to honor him. Realizing she too could end up with five people at her funeral, she rails against a society that kicks people like Jackie, who could “never get ahead†to the curb.
Here’s the thing about this scene: I think it’s great Susie is acknowledging the importance of having people because she’s been antisocial for so long. But wouldn’t it have been a lot more satisfying if, after Susie mentioned the people who “just get shit handed to them,†Midge had an epiphany about her privilege, too? Or is that just wishful thinking at this point?
The only thing that can possibly cheer me up after Susie’s crushing eulogy is the return of Mrs. Maisel’s comedic guardian angel, Lenny Bruce. The pride of Bellmore is swaggering around backstage at the Wolford; not because he’s performing but because he’s Lenny Bruce. Midge impatiently says she doesn’t want her idol distracting her while she’s still honing her act. But her eyes tell a very different story — as in, “Fuck me now, Lenny†— while the erstwhile Mr. Schneider somehow manages to make a high-school speech class anecdote sound sexy.
True to his word, Lenny stays for Midge’s show, offering her a master class in onstage focus. Sitting right up front, he throws crumpled paper and other forms of trash at his protégée, encouraging his fellow patrons to join in. Midge is not only unfazed, she also kills it. There’s some trashy flirtation (as in Midge throws a crumpled paper ball at an impressed Lenny), and then our daydream is over as quickly as it began. Lenny disappears into the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel ether, and we go back to anxiously awaiting his next cameo.
The Village Voice publishes its scathing review of Buzz’s show, and since social media hasn’t been invented yet, Abe Weissman learns he’s been canceled at some poor kid’s bar mitzvah. This synagogue scene, like most of this episode, goes on for far too long. It’s infuriating because Abe being ostracized from the entire Upper West Side Jewish community isn’t even the worst thing to come out of the article.
That evening, Abe gets a call from his pal (and electric-bass enthusiast) Asher Friedman. Asher saw the review and is pretty darn livid that, in between his criticism of a five-time song reprise, Abe casually dropped in a mention of their decades-old anarchist activities — activities that raised the FBI’s interest, like setting a federal building on fire. Or, rather, according to Zelda’s message, the interest of “Mr. Fibbi.â€
I don’t want to come off as callous here, as I don’t want Abe to go to prison, but does this development suggest The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel already lost sight of its season-four goal? We’re three episodes in, and there’s still no sign of Midge and Susie taking steps toward changing the business.
More Maisel Musings
• Imogene is the ideal MLM hunbot. She should be selling Tupperware instead of Midge.
• Gabe and Abe. Just had to write it once.
• Susie’s eulogy was up there with her dynamic Sophie Lennon takedown from last season.
• It’s cool, Midge. I’m reading Aristotle for graduate school this semester, and I, too, have no idea what any of it means.