Warning: SPOILERS for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 4, Episode 3 – “Everything Is Bellmore” and Episode 4 – “Interesting People On Christopher Street”
Why is Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) working in a strip club in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel season 4? Miriam’s drastic career change has surprised and confused the few people who know about it, like Susie Myerson (Alex Borstein) and Lenny Bruce (Luke Kirby), but it also makes sense in terms of how Midge is licking her wounds after she was fired from being Shy Baldwin’s (LeRoy McClain) opening act. There’s a method to Mrs. Maisel’s madness in season 4, although it’s also a sign that she’s in hiding after her public humiliation after Shy dropped her from his world tour.
Midge discovered The Wolford, a Manhattan burlesque club, after she ended up in jail for the fourth time in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel season 4, episode 2, “Billy Jones and the Orgy Lamps.” Midge got thrown out of one of her old comedy club haunts and she was arrested for prostitution in a misunderstanding. But when Midge and Susie shared a cab with a stripper Susie also bailed out, they entered her place of work and Miriam realized that there was an opportunity for the club to have a new emcee and comic to introduce the female acts on stage. By Mrs. Maisel season 4, episode 3, “Everything Is Bellmore,” Midge is now The Wolford’s in-house comic and she’s held the job for a few months as the series time jumps from summer into the fall of 1960.
There are two main reasons why Midge is working at the strip club. The first is she needs a steady income. Midge bought back her Upper West Side apartment from her father-in-law, Moishe (Kevin Pollack). The money Midge earned from her Shy Baldwin tour went to paying for the apartment, which left her funds depleted. Now that she is assuming all of her family’s financial burdens, Midge has to pay for numerous expenses, especially after her parents, Abe (Tony Shalhoub) and Rose (Marin Hinkle), moved in with her. Midge has also been demoralized after Shy fired her and she is wary about the demeaning way she’s been treated in the New York comedy club circuit. Since doing stand-up at the Gaslight doesn’t pay, Midge found herself a place where she can perform for a captive (if hostile) audience and earn a reliable paycheck.
The other reason is that Midge is regrouping for the next phase of her career… whenever she figures out what that will consist of. Miriam has done this before; after she lost her confidence in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel season 1, Midge performed comedy at house parties until Susie made her realize she was hiding from her career. Midge is similarly hiding out at The Wolford, but at least she can tell jokes on stage somewhere that Mrs. Maisel’s haters, like Daily News gossip columnist L. Roy Dunham, don’t know about. The Wolford’s audience may be rude but Midge can mock the men in the crowd who will go home afterward and lie to their wives about where they were all night.
Meanwhile, Midge is also trying to “change the business,” as she told Susie she wanted to do, by implementing necessary fixes to The Wolford. Midge has been crusading for better treatment and the workplace safety of the performers. Mrs. Maisel also laid down the law about the club’s male manager entering the women’s dressing room unannounced. Of course, Susie isn’t thrilled about where Miriam now works, and Midge’s husband Joel (Michael Zegan) was right when he told her that working in a strip club is a step backward when Mrs. Maisel was opening for Shy Baldwin just a few months ago. But The Wolford is a safe place for Midge – or it was before Midge accidentally fell off the stage at the end of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel season 4, episode 4.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 4 streams Fridays on Amazon Prime Video.
