In The Marvelous Mrs.Maisel, episode 2, “It’s a Man, Man, Man, Man World” we hear the sound of ticking. An image of a stopwatch appears with the title, “60 minutes”. The host of the show begins to unravel the success story of Mrs.Maisel. As the show dives deeper, we get a clear overview of her career, and the ups and downs of Mrs.Maisel. The audience gets a small appearance of her daughter, Dr.Esther, as she’s asked what it was like to be the daughter of the great Mrs.Maisel. Gritting her teeth, she recites her rehearsed answers to the host. The attention is redirected towards Midge. The hosts casually grill Midge’s life choices. Gracefully, Midge chuckles as she reflects on being lucky in life and not so much in love. Seeing the perfect opportunity, the hosts ask for answers about Susie Myers, her once long-time friend. Miriam is not surprised about the question, but her smile slowly disappears. She chooses to be strategic about how she answers and delivers a brief answer. And of course, she includes her humor.
Moving away from the sitting-down type of interview, we get to see a large aisleway filled with racks and racks of clothing. Miriam selects a particular outfit to show off, the first outfit she wore as a writer on the Gordon Ford Show, or as she calls it, her “Sitting down outfit”. The audience learns that Miriam will be having an auction for her fan-adoring clothes and that the proceeds will be going to the Weissman/Maisel Children’s Foundation, which supports education, health, and well-being for children. She states, “Children are my best teachers. Through them I’ve learned to love, to laugh, to listen. So everything I do, I do for the children”.
A quick parallel back to the 1960s, we see Midge frustrated at Ethan, her son, for not eating his breakfast. She critiques her parents for their obsession with making her a mother even as a child. Now she will have to figure out what to do with them while she is at work. To her luck, the housekeeper and her boyfriend guarantee that they will watch the children during the week.
After their Sunday breakfast, Miriam takes the children to spend the day with their other grandparents. Grandpa and Grandma Maisel. The two grandparents yap back and forth to one another, as Joel limps down the stairs. Miriam’s jaw drops as she sees the numerous bruises on Joel’s face. She instructs the kids to play with their grandparents as she tries to find out what happened. To his dismay, he relays all the information to Miriam about how he got hurt and the whereabouts of Mei (his ex-girlfriend/ex-recent fiance). The conversation turns sour as Joel blames Miriam for what Mei chose. Without hesitation she reminds Joel that Mei was not convinced by anyone to do what she did; it was by her own account. Not wanting to be reminded of the pain, Joel walks away.
In the next scene, Miriam wakes up terrified not knowing what to wear for her first day as a writer, and decides that the best option is to call Susie. Susie is horrified too, not really about the outfit but because Miriam called at 4 am. The two bustle as Susie quickly shuffles an outfit together. And voilà, the perfect sitting-down outfit was born.
On Midge’s first day of work, there are a lot of unexpected turns. Quite literally. She is confronted by another known stranger, but this time on the subway. And after a couple of questions and an explanation, the two make amends. Midge feels relieved and walks away smiling only to find out that the whirlpool of a day had just begun.
Midge quickly makes her way into the writer’s room. Each writer is throwing witty comments at one another. Midge tries to slide into the conversation, to introduce herself as the new writer on the show. But the writers are less than pleased with this announcement. They throw in jargon that makes sense only to them, like, “20 in 1” and leave right after Midge finally finds a seat. After trying to find out what exactly their task is, she calls Susie to let her know that the job is not what she imagined it to be. She tells her that she is not able to make jokes that quickly, and that it takes time to formulate her material. When the hour is up she has to read her jokes out loud to the writers to get it ready for the final review by Gordon. At least, she tries to read them out loud. Every time she tries to get a word in she is unexpectedly interrupted by their work quirks and faces numerous awkward moments that leaves her feeling run down. After finally being able to pitch, Midge’s jokes are automatically turned down. Midge is determined to stand her own even when faced with a misogynistic attitude. After the whole charade, Midge sees how everything operates behind the scenes and is finally able to take a breath and enjoy the show.
Midge’s mother, Rose. And her father, Abe. Both experience an eventful day too. Rose finds out that her favorite place, the tearoom, was burned to the ground. She begins to get jumpy and even more suspicious of these unfortunate events. Meanwhile, Abe goes on a business lunch with a work partner who got the wrong impression and made a move. This interaction leaves him out of sorts. Each one decides what to do. Rose figures that something must be done and tries to call for backup. And Abe, well Abe tries to ignore what happened at work.
Overall, no matter what Midge does, she can’t find herself being able to assimilate with her coworkers, and the show greatly depicts the twists and turns of working in a new environment.