The Secret
Episode 6 of Marvelous Mrs Maisel begins with Midge sitting and eating breakfast with her parents, reminding them about her upcoming show. While she does, Sophie sits silently before the run-through of the play as everyone around her begins to get jittery thanks to the investors arriving to see the show. Susie poker-faces her way through conversations with cast and crew before speaking to Sophie directly. However, despite everyone’s initial concerns Sophie knocks it out the park. A stressed Joel refuses to let the kids visit Midge in Florida before taking another call regarding the liquor licence for his club. It turns out his licence has been fast-tracked and granted despite the initial rejection. Finally a piece of good news! After relaying the message on to the others, he speaks to Mei in private and finds out she was the one who helped him. He’s not too happy though and expresses his annoyance, given he wanted to try and make the club a success on his own, prompting Mei to storm out on him. After Shy throws a fit on his boat, the band leave, having had enough of his mood swings. Midge however, is undeterred and comes aboard alone. Out at sea, they drink wine and share food together before he asks if she still loves Joel. She deflects the question though of course, and they turn the attention to Shy’s past instead. It’s here she learns he’s actually gay and uses the girls around him as a shield. The big night arrives and Midge’s parents arrive with Susie. While Susie struggles in vein to keep Rose sober, Midge puts on a great show. In the morning though she marches into her parents’ room and throws open the curtains, waking up her mother and berating her for not really seeing the show given how intoxicated she was. Meanwhile, Archie’s wife marches into the club and immediately berates her husband for not being there for their kids. However as day turns to night, Joel warns him against drinking too much and implores him to head home in time for Imogen. After buying drinks for a couple of girls, Joel tells him he’s making a mistake until the two wind up fighting. However, this ironically has the result of them both being kicked out the club. With Shy missing from practice, Midge hurries back to the boat to try and find him. Descending into the dark depths of the cabin, he finds a blind drunk Shy sitting over a glass of scotch. It turns out he’s been attacked but despite Midge telling him to go and see a doctor, he adamantly refuses and instead is determined to get to his next show. Clutching a stool, he heads to the stage and sings a heartfelt rendition of “No One Has To Know”; a song that holds significant meaning to him given what’s happened. Reggie as it seems, appears to understand what this is. The big reveal surrounding Shy Baldwin is likely to be the big talking point here but the actual episode itself lacks much in the way of plot development. However, in doing so characterisation comes to the foreground and seeing Susie try to manage Sophie’s career is interesting and certainly shows a lot of contrasts to Midge’s behavior too. As we gear up for the final few episodes, there’s plenty of questions left hanging over this one but whether we receive all the answers or not remains to be seen.
