How to Chew Quietly and Influence People
Episode 5 of Marvelous Mrs Maisel Season 4 starts with Susie interviewing various different clients, trying to work out some decent questions to ask, courtesy of numerous little breaks and checking her notes. With the potential employees well-drilled, Susie turns to Fred for advice, who suggests she should look at things like eating and general etiquette to narrow down the list. Meanwhile, Miriam is going through issues of her own as she tries in vain to balance her checkbook. So naturally, she wakes up Abe and asks him for help instead. In the middle of the night, he helps her out. However, amongst the rabble of papers, Midge receives an invitation to Shy Baldwin’s wedding – which is 3 days away. Susie is also invited too, although Midge wants to RSVP and then not show up, just to mess with the numbers. Susie however, thinks they should show up and make the most of the bar. At the same time, Mei and Joel aren’t getting any sleep either. Part of that comes from Joel’s mother constantly harassing and ringing them, asking to meet Mei. Eventually Mei caves and agrees to meet them. While all this is going on, Rose is offered a lucrative position working with Solomon Melamid’s daughters as a matchmaker. It’s pretty amusing, given she’s always been interfering in Joel and Miriam’s marriage, and now she has the opportunity to follow through and show what she’s worth. When Rose heads home though, she notices Miriam has numerous papers stashed in her drawers about the nightclub. So naturally, she shows up to see what the big fuss is about. Midge’s jokes are raunchy and riff on Abe and Father’s day in general… which causes Rose to down her drink. That night, she confronts her daughter about her new gig. Given she promised him not to embarrass Solomon, the fact that Miriam is working in a strip club means Rose’s job prospects are under scrutiny. Miriam confronts her mum about snooping in her room. The pair butt heads over the whole incident, with Rose believing she’s onto something big. But yet, Miriam too believes she’s onto something big, leaving the pair at an uneasy stalemate. Between booking herself a new secretary, Susie meets Sophie who has been through an awful ordeal. She had to hail her own taxi – oh, the horror! Anyway, Susie books a meeting for her with Mike Carr, who happens to be the guy responsible for booking on the The Gordon Ford Show. Susie encourages Sophie to play it straight and not mess this up, although Mike is impatient. It seems like the meeting goes well though. Midge and Susie soon show up at Baldwin’s wedding, determined to try and spend as much of his money as possible, destroying canopies, making expensive drinks at the bar and riffing on Baldwin. Shy Baldwin eventually appears with his wife, riffing with the crowd on stage, much to Midge’s disdain. Eventually though, Harry Belafonte takes over and begins singing. Midge eventually catches up with Shy in the bathroom, who’s certainly surprised to see her. Miriam is actually pretty polite, pointing out his wife looks beautiful and that he’s got a brand new band. Eventually the subject turns to Miriam being kicked off the tour. She apologizes for what she’s done and claims she’s truly sorry. Miriam also points out that she was desperate for a laugh and ended up riffing on Baldwin in order to achieve that, which was obviously the wrong thing to do. Although he invites her along to see him again, Miriam rejects the offer. On the way out, she’s confronted by Lou and his associate, Ken. They offer $2000 in exchange for her not disparaging Shy Baldwin regarding something that may have happened on a boat. When that number is increased to $12k, Susie wavers but Miriam remains steadfast, claiming that there’s no way she’d sell out Shy Baldwin. She does, however, pick up a whole stack of goodie bags on the way out. Meanwhile, Mei gets dressed up but she’s worried about meeting Joel’s parents. She’s frazzled, struggling to relax and overthinks everything she does. Although Joel promises everything will be good, he too is having doubts over how his parents will react. Gordon agrees to have Sophie appear on his show. Despite starting off well, she soon slips, with Abe and Rose watching on. She mentions how she got scared and worried, hence why her Apollo gig messed up. However, she does keep it together long enough to make a great impression with the audience. Susie shows up back to the office and meets a woman named Dinah, who’s been waiting 7 hours for an interview. Given her dedication, Susie hastily accepts and advises her to show up at noon.
The Episode Review
Marvelous Mrs Maisel returns with another good episode, one that finally sees Miriam mending the bridges she burned with Shy Baldwin. Midge’s bitter, angry attitude has been completely her fault but yet it’s only now that she actually takes responsibility for her actions and stands up, pointing out that she was wrong. That’s a nice step forward for her character, although it’s Susie who gets the best jokes and arc here. Susie helps bag Sophie a TV spot, which she absolutely nails in the wake of some particularly tough questions. Susie also manages to hire herself a new secretary as her job starts to take off. I’d imagine if Sophie has anything to say about it, Susie taking a chance with her could come back to actually ignite her business. The other characters continue to whimsically run their subplots, with Rose now professionally getting involved in matchmaking rather than just doing it with Joel and Miriam. With another episode released today, everything is left wide open as the series finally seems to be moving in the right direction.
