While we eagerly await the return of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, we decided to compile everything we know about its second season. These are all educated guesses, so no real spoilers here, we promise.
Since the series premiered November 29, 2017, it’s been nominated for 14 (!!) Emmy Awards. It has also already been renewed for a third season.
At the end of the first season, we left Midge Maisel triumphantly returning to the Gaslight Café to do a stand-up set. Her estranged husband Joel arrives, watches, punches someone who was heckling Midge, and yells at him, “She’s good! She’s fucking good!” He then walks off, drunk, crying in the New York City snow.
The scene then flashes back to Midge’s set, where we hear her say, “My name is Mrs. Maisel, thank you and goodnight!”
Season 1, Episode 8
What an ending! So what’s next? We break down what we know about The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel second season.
1. Premiere in Paris
The show started filming season two on location in Paris. Yes, PARIS.
TVLine reported that the premiere was shot in the French capital, and that the episode was both written and directed by the series’ creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino.
Star Rachel Brosnahan — clearly a lover of carbs — instagrammed from Paris:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BhET8DnAJC7/
Brosnahan also told Glamour one “spoiler”: There is a dog involved. Huh!?
2. Joel remains a main character
Midge’s maybe ex-husband Joel, played by Michael Zegen, will still play a main role in season two. Zegen says, “He’s stuck between a rock and a hard place because, on the one hand, he saw that Midge was really talented, and on the other, it’s a blow to his ego that she is this talented.”
Brosnahan, who plays the titular Mrs. Maisel, says season two will navigate their “attempts to co-parent” their two young children. (BTW, is she even a good mom? Does it matter?)
3. There will be a time jump
Sherman-Palladino revealed, “We do kind of jump ahead.” No word on how much time ahead. If it’s a big time jump, we’ll be sure to see more parenting challenges: in season one, Midge’s kids Ethan and Esther were still very little. If the time jumps, maybe we’ll see them as fully fledged characters?
However, we will see Midge find out that Joel watched her stand-up act. Sherman-Palladino explains, “we’re going to deal with those ramifications.”
4. Her family will find out
Midge’s family will discover her secret career as a stand-up comedian. Daniel Palladino told Glamour, “Eventually everybody is going to find out… The trickiness of hiding that lifestyle is very, very hard to hide.”
5. Zachary Levi as a Doctor!
Zachary Levi, who you may have fallen in love with during Chuck (just me? OK), is slated to join the cast for season two. As reported by the Hollywood Reporter, “Levi will recur in season two of the Rachel Brosnahan series as an eclectic Manhattan doctor who suddenly starts orbiting the Weissman/Maisel world. Additional details about his character are being kept under wraps.”
What does “eclectic doctor” mean? Will he date Midge? Will he be Jewish? So many questions!
Levi has said he’s lost roles in the past for looking “too Jewish” — which is sorta funny, since he is not actually Jewish. He told NY Daily News, “I heard multiples times that I was too Jewish, which is surprising to people because I go by Zachary Levi. Levi is my middle name. Pugh is my real last name. I’m Welsh.”
6. Midge gets a new job
Glamour writes, “In an exclusive clip shown to journalists at the Television Critics Association summer press tour, Midge has been demoted to the basement switchboard at B. Altman & Co. after her encounter with Penny on the main floor (you remember—when Penny called Midge a tramp for sleeping with her estranged husband).”
So, we know she doesn’t make the transition to full-time comic (at least not yet).
7. Midge’s father-in-law is now a series regular
Kevin Pollak, who plays Moishe (arguably one of the funniest characters in a very funny show), has been upped to series regular. Pollak, who is actually a stand-up comedian IRL, told journalists, “For the first time in a very long time, I get to shut up, because the material really is so ridiculous each and every time.”
Thanks to some sleuthing, we discovered they filmed at Dime Savings Bank of New York. Built in 1908, the historic bank would have been in use in the time period Maisel takes place.
Could this scene indicate greater family drama? Why do they all have to go to the bank together? What’s Joel up to?
8. Mrs. Maisel goes to camp!
There are lots of behind-the-scenes Instagrams from upstate New York, presumably filming at a resort or at a camp. We’re hoping for summer camp.
Brosnahan Instagrammed “Last day at camp!”
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bkp_35JAG6Z/
Pollak posted this:
And Zegen Instagrammed from the same place, captioning it, “Camp is fun.”
Maybe the Maisels go away? Maybe it’s a flashback? Maybe the kids go to summer camp!? (We have some ideas for how summer camps looked in the 1950s and 1960s.) SO MANY POSSIBILITIES!
9. They return to synagogue
An insider tells us season two is filming at the East Midwood Jewish Center in Brooklyn, where there were scenes in season one. (The iconic line, “really, we are ruining ‘Lecha Dodi’ was one of the best Jewish jokes of the season.)
You can watch a tour of the historic synagogue here:
Dan Palladino says he’s been “really excited” about feedback from the Jewish community. Palladino explains, “There are some inaccuracies, but when [viewers] call us out on them, they kind of do it out of love… They’re trying to help us, as opposed to trying to catch us doing something wrong.”
He also told Glamour, “a big part of the series is following the lifestyles of a Jewish family in the late ’50s,” which “includes things like the Upper West Side, temple, and vacations and stuff. Over the seasons we’re going to see the family’s whole world, and we film all over the place.”
10. “Good things can’t last long”
According to creator Sherman-Palladino, for Midge, “good things can’t last long.” Even though season one ended with a triumphant return, stand-up is a hard career. And it won’t get easier for Midge.
The show is expected to premiere with 10 episodes before the end of 2018.
Header Image: Screen-cap of Season 1, Episode 3 of ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’
