The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: Prime Video’s Period Drama with Near-Perfect Rotten Tomatoes Score

Since Amazon has money to burn, Prime Video has always been able to attract the best talent in Hollywood. They teamed Supernatural creator Eric Kripke with Superbad duo Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg to turn The Boys into a global sensation. They cast John Krasinski as Jack Ryan, they cast Josh Brolin in Outer Range, and they cast Jean-Claude Van Damme as himself in Jean-Claude Van Johnson.

After creating Gilmore Girls, one of the most rewatchable shows of all time, Amy Sherman-Palladino brought her follow-up project to Prime in its early days. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is a period dramedy set in New York City in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, where a frustrated housewife decides to take up comedy, and quickly becomes a legend on the standup circuit. Early in her career, she meets a young, up-and-coming Lenny Bruce on the night he got arrested for using profanity in his act.

Sherman-Palladino is the TV producer extraordinaire who paired up Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel as Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, so she clearly has a good eye for casting. It should come as no surprise, then, that The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel has one of the best casts on Prime Video.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Was Rachel Brosnahan’s Breakout Role

Last summer, David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan became global icons overnight with their spot-on portrayals of Clark Kent and Lois Lane in James Gunn’s Superman. They gave the best performances as Supes and Lois since Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder in 1978; it’s as if they leapt straight off the pages of a Superman comic. But Brosnahan might not have been in the running to play Lois if she hadn’t scored her breakout role: Midge Maisel.

Brosnahan got her big break with the title role in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and she effortlessly anchors the series. She nails the dramatic aspects of the character — the strained marriage, the repressed ambition, the liberation from her domestic prison — but she also nails the comic instincts of this rising comedy star. It almost always feels fake when an actor plays a standup comic. They don’t have the right body language on stage, or the right looseness with the joke deliveries, or the right symbiosis with the live audience. But Brosnahan nailed it, just like Jean Smart in Hacks.

But Brosnahan is just the tip of the iceberg. She’s backed up by a lovable ensemble of supporting players, from Tony Shalhoub (Adrian Monk) as Midge’s eccentric father to Alex Borstein (the voice of Lois Griffin) as her eccentric manager. Two and a Half Men’s Marin Hinkle plays Midge’s mother; Boardwalk Empire’s Michael Zegen plays her estranged husband; and Luke Kirby won an Emmy for playing Lenny.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Is A Rare TV Show With A Perfect Ending

It’s rare that a TV show can stick the landing with a perfect ending. In fact, it’s more common that one of the greatest TV shows ever made will destroy its own legacy with a terrible ending: Lost, Dexter, Game of Thrones, How I Met Your Mother. TV shows almost never have a good ending, let alone a perfect ending. But, after five seasons, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel delivered the perfect ending.

Much like the final season of Breaking Bad, the final season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel got a headstart on the conclusion of the story with a series of flash-forwards. Throughout that last season, we see Midge’s life and career blossom over the following decades. It takes us from the ‘60s all the way up to the 2000s. It’s like the ending of Six Feet Under; it sets the character up for the next chapter of her life, and also shows us where it’s all heading.