Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino (‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’) on ‘pressure-filled’ series finale and Scorsese inspiration [Exclusive Video Interview]
“It was actually part of the pitch. The pitch was a journey from an Upper West Side ‘queen of six blocks’ house wife to Johnny Carson’s couch,” shares Amy Sherman-Palladino about how she originally envisioned the arc of her series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” The creator, writer, director, and executive producer stayed true to that vision in the series finale, which streamed on Amazon on May 26, and signed off with standup comic Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) making her big break on the Gordon Ford (Reid Scott) late night talk show. She thought ending at the moment when Midge “shot off like a rocket” made sense because “the fun is the struggle.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
Even though the series ends with Midge on the cusp of stardom, the entire season incorporated many flash-forwards to give the audience an idea of where each character winds up. A standout installment, “The Testi-Roastial,” takes place entirely in the future, as Midge’s manager Susie Myerson (Alex Borstein) is fêted at the Friar’s Club. Daniel Palladino wrote and directed the episode, the idea for which he and Sherman-Palladino had “very, very early” into the planning of the final season. “I never went into directing an episode with more trepidation than that one,” reveals the director, because “if that one wasn’t going to work, it was going to be a grand failure.” He found inspiration from a surprising source – Martin Scorsese’s “Casino” – because “there’s a lot of voiceover” in the film and he wanted to emulate its “naturalistic” style.
WATCH our exclusive video interview with Alex Borstein, ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ Season 5
If “The Testi-Roastial” is a masterclass from cast member Borstein, then a later episode gives Tony Shalhoub a chance to shine as Midge’s father Abe, who in the penultimate episode realizes that he never paid enough attention to his daughter, favoring and nurturing his son instead. Sherman-Palladino says, “Our whole concept from the very beginning was that this thing with Midge blew up everybody’s life,” and in that sense, Abe and Midge have a lot in common because “they’re both incredibly impulsive. She blew up her life, and Abe blew up their life” as he went from Columbia professor to theatre critic for the Village Voice. She adds, “The way Tony did it was everything we could have hoped for.”
One of the standout directorial moments in the series finale is Midge’s set on the Gordon Ford Show, especially a 360° Steadicam shot of Midge performing where the lighting and sound design transport the audience back to the Gaslight, the club where Midge started performing and met Susie. Sherman-Palladino shares that it was a “tricky monologue” to write because Midge had to “sum up her entire world philosophy” and home in on “her ambition.” She continues, “You wanted it to feel like it was the journey of her career and the journey of her five years.” Of the beautiful shot that transports us back to the Gaslight, she says, “I almost don’t want people to know it’s happening until they’re in it, and maybe not until they’re almost out of it… It was quite pressure-filled.”
WATCH our exclusive video interview with Tony Shalhoub, ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ Season 5
While the show could have ended with that triumphant moment, the duo chose to send off the series with a more low-key scene of Midge and Susie, some four decades later, chatting on the phone and watching “Jeopardy!” together. Palladino explains, “We always knew from the beginning, if there’s one true love story in the series, it was the love between Susie and Midge… We showed the ups and downs of a friendship of two very flawed women.” He shares that he hopes the audience took away from the scene that “the one thing they could each count on is the friendship and love of the other.”
Reflecting on the series as a whole, both Amy and Dan recall some of their favorite shots and sequences as directors. Sherman-Palladino immediately thinks of the season three premiere, “Strike Up the Band,” which features Midge performing at a USO show, which she says was “a very hard shot and I kept making it harder.” She also cites the Cuba Club scene in “It’s Comedy or Cabbage.” Palladino mentions the season two episode “Vote for Kennedy, Vote for Kennedy,” which starts “in the stage deli, and they found out that a telethon was happening and you saw Susie bouncing around.” He also calls out “The Testi-Roastial” from this final season, before Amy reminds him of the “house scene” in season two when Weissman family is moving into their home in the Catskills for their summer getaway.
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