Today, we look at how The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 5 gets its own dates wrong somehow.
This is “How Can I Explain?”, which is a feature spotlighting inexplicable plots.
The season finale of Season 4 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel concluded with Lenny Bruce’s iconic February 1961 Carnegie Hall concert, as fans trudged out in a snowstorm to see the comedian’s performance. The show worked the snowstorm into its closing moments of Midge Maisel walking in the snow, determining that she WOULD make it as a comedian…
And thus, when Season 5 picks up, we are reminded that it is 1961…
However, it’s also plainly NOT 1961!!!! It’s the damndest thing, as the show is clearly still in 1960 when the season begins. John F. Kennedy is elected, but not yet President. Thanksgiving is celebrated in the first episode. Christmas is celebrated in the second episode. It is not 1961 until the THIRD episode of the season, as a month passes between episode 2 and 3.
But the first two episodes are plainly set in 1960, and yet the show SAYS it is 1961, because Lenny Bruce’s concert was in February 1961, and that happened at the end of Season 4. It’s the oddest little intentional mistake.
If anyone else can think of a good inexplicable plot, write me at brian@popculturereferences.com!
Hi,
I did think the date seemed off but what I totally hated was that the gave away the rest of the story of Mrs. Mazel and Suzi at the openig of Season 5 eposide 2. Why are we watching now? If you read a twenty chapters of a who-done it, you don’t really want to know who did it in the early chapters.
I don’t understand why they did that and went a bit overboard in doing so – Suzi’s managing Strisand . What the audience loved about the show was watching her emerge – or not. That ending should hgave been – yes, the ending, or in the final couple episodes. Ironically episode three was very good after two episodes where the writers tried to pack in everything we need to remember from previous seasons – a bit of a whirlwind. After this long wait, I was dissappointed. They jumped. or almosthjumped the shark. I’m dussppointed. I