The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

You might as well pencil in stars Rachel Brosnahan and Alex Borstein for return visits to the Emmy podium next year. They’re still that good in a comedy/drama series that remains peppy, snappy, musically magnificent and bursting with living colors. ... Mrs. Maisel remains loaded with special moments and deft asides.

Things go round and round a tad too often in the first five episodes, and a viewer may occasionally sense that Sherman-Palladino is favoring freneticism over story structure. It’s such fun to watch, however, that one may not even notice instances of disorganization.

It is a truly delightful, exceptionally spirited romp that explores Midge’s world of appearing classically conventional but actually being extraordinary--often by sheer force of will. She’s not for everyone, but to like Midge is to love her. The same is true of the show.

All the wonders of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s first season remain intact: the dazzling production and costume design, art direction, and music supervision; the dialogue that fizzes like Prosecco and performances that linger in the air like cigarette smoke in a windowless club. And the jokes, my god, the jokes. ... The jokes all come from somewhere, and that’s what makes it sing.

Midge’s journey is so lovely to witness, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel doesn’t have to offer us any more depth than a Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedy (which it often resembles). But offer it does: Midge’s most effective standup involves her making fun of her upbringing, her family, her marriage (signaling an apparent end to her and Joel), but most importantly, her pain.

One benefit of this season’s leisurely pace is it allows us more time with the stellar ensemble. ... The look of Maisel is just so very that the beauty almost obscures the story; it was only after watching the episodes a second time that I was able to feel the characters’ emotions seeping through the visuals.

Each episode evokes that rare, warm glow brought about by entertainment that’s as finely tuned as it is thematically empowering. Sherman-Palladino didn’t just solve the Season 2 slump; she reversed it. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is even better than it was, even when you stop to consider its flaws.

Sparkling. Romantic. Awe-inspiring. Nostalgic. And occasionally, exhausting and a little saddening. That’s the holidays for you. That’s also The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, returning for its second season in fine form.

There’s such a strong rhythm to the comedy it’s impossible not to fall in step, even in less successful story arcs. The scenes in Paris and, later, the Catskills, carefully tread a line between dazzling and swooning, and twee and overly cutesy. Your mood will likely determine which direction it wobbles. But when it executes, it’s phenomenal.

What Maisel repeats best is its sense of joy and optimism. Its candy-colored version of 1959 may be incredibly myopic, but it celebrates the good in people, the good in comedy and show business and the good in family and marriage over wallowing in the bad. Even when it makes you cringe, you know it soon will make you smile.

Maisel doubles down on what it did best in the first season, and feels richer (and funnier) for the effort.

It’s a warm but smart confection in a TV universe overpopulated with series vying to be the darkest, most brooding show possible.

Emmy winner Amy Sherman-Palladino, the series creator, writer and director, has imbued Maisel with more genuine humor and warmth than any of her other previous work. This cast is ready to impress.

The second season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is awash in stumbles and questionable choices of focus, yet when Amy Sherman-Palladino's dialogue is humming and the remarkable cast is in rhythm, there are few shows on TV whose faults are easier to excuse.

As was the case in season one, the biggest assets in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel arsenal are Mrs. Maisel herself and Susie. Every time the show pivots away from them to focus on Abe and Rose or Joel, who’s now living with his overbearing parents, it loses some of its fizz. Fortunately, those detours never last for too long.

All in all, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is even better in Season 2, rising above a few flat spots to offer bubbly, exuberant entertainment.

Having firmly established Midge’s personality and story arc, Maisel now has room to give Hinkle, Shalhoub and Borstein more standout moments and specific personal choices to untangle so that their characters are no longer solely working] in service of her.

Like her, it is funny, vivacious, hugely likable, and not infrequently error-prone; like her, it shrugs off any missteps and swings right back into the business of being delightful.

Whenever Midge gets up on the standup comedy stage, her scenes are electrifying. ... It’s also a show that can never quite see past its own blinders on anything that doesn’t relate to a 1950s battle of the sexes. It knows issues around race and class exist. It even knows that issues around religion exist. But it never knows what to do with them, because it needs them to remain off camera, so that it might construct a more perfect, candy-coated world.

There’s still a bounce to the scenes set outside comedy world, particularly in the visual flourishes deployed by both Palladinos when they direct. ... But just as Midge Maisel isn’t being her best self when she’s away from the stage, so is the show that’s named after her. She needs to get back behind the mic more regularly, and soon.

The Amazon dramedy already feels as if its act is growing a tad stale, with the various subplots inspiring the sort of indifference that merely heightens pressure on the headliner.

Scene by scene, the new season is a stunner. If you can enjoy it in the moment--and roll with the occasional linguistic anachronism--this season is a welcome mid-Hanukkah present. But Midge’s larger arc often seems stalled. The season repeats many of the conflicts of the first. ... There is a lot of movement here, but not necessarily a lot of progress.