Where is Mrs. Maisel Going?

I have now watched both seasons of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I like the show a lot. But where’s it going? I ask that question, not because I found the second season incoherent, but because I think the show has put itself in an interesting place.

For those who don’t know the show, it’s set in upper middle-class Jewish New York City in the late 1950s. I know the 1950s – I was born in 47 and the show in fact seems a little old to me, but set that aside – but not Jewish New York City. Miriam “Midge” Maisel is a young married woman with two young children. Her husband fancies himself a comedian and goes to open mikes regularly, with her encouragement.

He’s not very good. It turns out, however, that she is. This turnabout happens by accident, but the upshot is that he leaves her and she decides that she really likes this. She wants to become a comedian. So she acquires a manager moves back in with her parents.

Things happen, get more interesting, more complex, but the upshot is that at the end of the second season she gets her Big Break. Shy Baldwin, a popular singer whom she loves [FWIW, he appears to be modeled on Johnny Mathis], asks her to open for him on a six month tour, three months in the United States, three months in Europe. She accepts.

What will happen?

So far she’s been able to juggle her day job (at B. Altman’s), her comedy, and her family. She’s been able to do this because she’s been living with her parents, who seem to have a bit of money and so can afford a housekeeper/maid/cook – Columbia University supplies their apartment because her father teaches there. When the kids aren’t with her parents, they’re with her husband. They’re just separated, not (yet) divorced. So her kids are looked after. What happens when she goes on tour, which will force her to be away from her children?

Her children haven’t been a big part of the show. We know she has them, and there’s an issue every now and then. But her relationship with them hasn’t been a focal point.

Going on tour, though, it seems to me that that will force the issue, no? Will she choose her comedy career over her children? What does that mean, anyhow? Will she (try to) take them on tour? If not, who will care for them?

In the very last scene she visits her husband and asks to spend then night. Is this just a one-night stand, a bit of emotional recharging before heading out, or are they going to get together?

Career or family? That’s the choice. It’s a choice that’s traditionally been presented to men, and many movies are built around men who cannot have families, lone cowboys, spies, and so forth. What will Midge do?

Oh, and then there’s her manager, Susie. Is she or isn’t she? She looks and acts very butch, but we’ve seen nothing about her sex life. So far, she doesn’t have one. Will that change?