If you haven't seen season 3 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel yet, go binge watch it on Amazon
Prime before watching this video, because there are major spoilers ahead.
The season 3 finale of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel was rough.
While the first two seasons of the show end on a high note, the third season ends with
Midge being booted off the second leg of singer Shy Baldwin's tour after pretty much outing
him as gay in her act.
"He has a guy for everything else.
Well, just about everything else.
No, he pretty much has a guy for everything else."
The take-charge comedian is reduced to tears and it's clear that she has a rough road ahead
of her.
Not only is Midge relying on the career boost that comes from opening for a major act, she's
also counting on the money.
She used her contract as collateral to buy back her old apartment from her father-in-law,
Moishe.
Her manager, Susie Meyerson, is also depending on the money from the gig after gambling away
both her earnings and Midge's.
The first two seasons of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel focus heavily on Midge's romantic relationships.
In the first season, Midge is processing the end of her marriage to Joel, and the season
one finale ends with Midge thinking of getting back together with him.
In the second, she falls in love with Benjamin and thinks about what it would be like to
return to domestic life.
The second season finale sees her again turning to her Joel for comfort.
At the end of season 3, though, Midge has finished turning to the men in her life for
support or validation.
She's just doing Midge.
Rachel Brosnahan, who plays Midge, told Bustle:
"I think for the first time, Midge is forging a path that is entirely her own without worrying
what anyone is doing or why they're doing it,"
Brosnahan revealed that show creator Amy Sherman-Palladino has her own idea about where Midge's path
will lead.
She told Bustle that Sherman-Palladino imagines Midge will be:
"[...] extremely successful and living in her Park Avenue penthouse with 15 poodles."
Brosnahan added:
"[Midge] will have achieved this enormously successful career and she will look back wistfully
at how simple things were."
So what does the season 3 finale really mean for season 4?
The next season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is set up to open as grimly as the season
1 opener, in which Midge's husband leaves her and reveals he's been having an affair
with his secretary.
This time, though, her safety net is gone.
Her parents, with whom she had been living, are nearly broke and are moving into her apartment,
which she can no longer afford.
Midge also faces the possibility of being blacklisted again as her nemesis, Sophie Lennon,
is on the outs with Susie.
We wouldn't put it past her to retaliate by messing with Midge's career like she did in
the second season.
Midge's personal life is also in crisis.
After calling it off with her fiance, Benjamin, she drunkenly remarried her ex-husband, Joel,
in Las Vegas part-way through the season.
We know that Midge will pull things together because the premise of The Marvelous Mrs.
Maisel is centered on Midge's eventual fame, but there's no doubt that the show's writers
are setting her up for some tough times.
In fact, season three of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel was all about Midge coming into her
own and becoming truly independent.
Considering that the show moved into the 1960s in season three, a time period in which more
and more women were asserting their independence, it seems likely that Midge's feminism will
become an even stronger storyline moving forward.
Just how far along in the decade the show will go, however, remains to be seen.
Sherman-Palladino recently told TV Line that, while the ending of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
is mapped out, it may be years before we know how her story ends.
According to the creator:
"We know where we want [Midge]'s story to end…
We don't know how many more seasons it will take to get there, but we know when the journey
is over."
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more List videos about your favorite shows are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.