selenak

Like last year: just what the Doctor orderd to escape, for a brief while, the Darkest and Most Stupid Timeline.

Mind you, the show while by and large frizzy fun does take the occasional nod to the serious side of living in the early 60s. Midge touring with Shy Baldwin means we have two important black characters,Shy and his manager Reggie, just as Joel getting the club ready to open in Chinatown and starting to flirt with Mae means we have a new important Asian character, as well as many more black and Asian background characters. (This season's early 60s look a lot more diverse than the past ones.) And that, in turn, means in the episode when Midge wants to patch up a bleeding Shy in her hotel room, he reminds her (and the audience) that yeah, no, that's actually illegal in 1960 Florida. And the show draws a difference between making fun of the poser wannabe activists Abe hangs out with at the start of the season and his late season decision to strike out for his blacklisted dramatist friend. Sometimes gags and serious takes mix, as when Midge during her radio commercials gigs is excited to be hired for a female politician running for congress, the name of the poltician in question is carefully withheld from the audience... and later she, Abe and we find out it's Phyllis Schlafly.

(Am proud to be up on my US political history trivia, so I actually knew who Schlafly was. Two years ago, I wouldn't have. Anyway, the pay off for this rl cameo was an excellent mixture of comedy gag and serious stand.)

By and large, of course, the show is stll a great wish fulfillment fantasy. Abe and Rose lose not just their apartment and their financial security this season... but before the season is over, they have each found a way of earning money by doing something they truly enjoy, and in between, living with the in-laws might be annoying, but it's hardly poverty. We might get a minor heart attack when realising the running thread of Suzy gambling is going to end in one gamble too far, but it's still not the kind of show where this would result in Suzy ruining hers and Midge's life that way; it's the kind of show where Suzy finds a way to salvage the situation by having two major character moments, one of Joel and one with her sister Tess, and the later also serves as a satisfying way to deal at the hinted at spectacularly traumatic childhood and youth they both had.

It's the kind of show which owns its love for gorgeous wardrobe, songs and banter. In season 2 when Midge and Suzy had their arguments about Suzy taking on Sophie Lemon as a second client I was afraid this would mean we're in for an entire season of a rift, but no, clearly Amy Palladino is aware that we don't want to see Midge and Suzy at odds for a season, we want them as a team; by the time the episode ends, they've made up, and support each other through thick and thin for the remaining season. Midge ending last season by having sex with Joel again made people fear we'd been for a rerun after they'd spent the second season learning to be amiable exes, but no, turns out they're actually aware they don't want to become a romantic couple again. Midge in general does not have a romantic arc in season 3; though she continues to have fantastic chemistry with Lenny Bruce on the rare occasions when he guest stars. Very likely if Lenny Bruce were a fictional character instead of a rl-based one, they'd have had sex by now, but it actually works in-universe that they don't, despite coming very close this time; there's this sense of being each other's good luck charm and alter ego which an actual fling might destroy.

Speaking of "they have great chemistry and could go there but for now have decided they won't": when mid season we got the reveal that Shy was gay I didn't think there'd be much more of a follow up than the song performance which strongly hinted that he and Reggie could be more than bffs and artist/manager, but for that. (Plus of course it signalled to the audience Shy would not become a new love interest to Midge.) But in the end, the series also delivered another kind of dramatic pay off, and a fair one, too; you can both seee why Midge, in the security of her privilege and with only good intentions, would never have considered any of her gags as hurtful and why for Shy, they must have felt like horrible taunts instead. It's another thing the series occasionally does; show the audience the other side of the comedy routines that are its bread and butter.

All in all: another very enjoyable, hilarious, only occasionally painful ride. I continue to love this show.