The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 5 takes fans on a ride even wilder than Milo Ventimiglia’s subway chase.
If you haven’t seen the premiere of Amy Sherman-Palladino’s Prime Video series and want to avoid spoilers, consider returning to this article once you’ve had a chance to catch up. But if you’ve watched the first episode of Maisel‘s fifth and final season, you know the show is embracing an ambitious storytelling technique in its final hours: time jumps.
Though the majority of the farewell season is set in the early 1960s, in a massive twist, the Season 5 premiere opens in 1981 Cambridge, Massachusetts. From there, we catch glimpses of Midge’s (Rachel Brosnhan) future, sneak a peek at Israel in 1984, and travel through time to gain a richer understanding of where these beloved characters end up down the line.
“I know that they rarely put something on the screen that hasn’t been in Amy’s tinker, you know, for a decade,” star Alex Borstein told Decider when asked if Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband/longtime creative partner Daniel Palladino always wanted to utilize the element of time travel in Maisel‘s final season. “I think they felt pretty strongly about wanting to show the future [of] so many of these women. Midge and Susie’s relationship is about the future — betting on the future, working towards the future. And so the future in itself was a character that I think they felt they had to write to.”
Season 5’s continually shifting timeline will expand this story in ways fans never anticipated, but it’s bound to cause some confusion along the way. To help you keep all the flash forwards straight, we’ll be tracking them in chronological order after new episode drops to gain a better understanding of what happens when. Behold: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel‘s ambitious timeline, explained.
As noted above, most of Maisel Season 5 follows the same timeline we’ve been watching for the past four seasons, which means we pick up with Midge in 1961. Her first scene of Season 5 immediately follows the Season 4 finale, during which she saw Lenny Bruce (Luke Kirby) perform at Carnegie Hall during a blizzard. After recovering from blizzard-induced hypothermia, Midge turns to a new chapter and becomes a writer on The Gordon Ford Show.
In Season 5, Episode 2, a 60 Minutes segment on Midge lets us know that finally made it as a Carnegie Hall headliner with an “infamous” show in 1971. “What could have been a career-ending night of infamy turned out to be, as so many things do in Midge Maisel’s life, the beginning of a brand new chapter with a brand new audience of young fans through her audacious college campus tours,” the 60 Minutes host explained. That means Midge was back up on the Carnegie Hall stage around a decade after Lenny’s sold-out show.
Ah, yes. Cambridge in 1981, where an older Esther is wearing a Ramones shirt in therapy, working on finishing her thoughts, talking about DNA mutation, and venting about her mother. This first flash forward of Season 5 will always have a special place in our hearts. But sadly, Esther admits the only person she could ever talk to was her grandpa, which leads us to believe Abe (Tony Shalhoub) has passed.
In Season 5, Episode 3, we check in with Esther’s brother and Midge and Joel’s firstborn, Ethan. When Midge emerges from a helicopter in 1984 Israel, we learn that Ethan works on a lettuce farm and is studying to become a rabbi. Oh, he’s also engaged to an intimidating gal called Chava. Anyway, Midge just dropped by to say hi, make a scene, and remind Ethan that the UJA-Federation is honoring her and she’s sending a car to bring him to the ceremony.
As noted, Season 5, Episode 2 opens with a 60 Minutes special that takes a look back at Midge’s marvelous career. We learn she finally went from The Gaslight to worldwide fame and notoriety. She’s won Grammy and Emmy awards, she sold out 18 consecutive nights at the Copacabana when she was 30, she’s friends with celebrities, has done a show with Bob Hope, tours college campuses, has been married four times, and is planning to auction some of her most memorable outfits to benefit her charity, the Weissman-Maisel Children’s Foundation. As Midge reflects on her career, it seems she has it all. But we learn she and Susie had a major falling out, and now — despite Susie managing everyone from Liza Minnelli to Barbara Streisand — their friendship is a bust. Though we’re not quite sure when the 60 Minutes segment was filmed or fits into the overall Season 5 timeline, Esther is interviewed and introduced as “Dr. Esther Maisel,” which leads us to believe the show occurred post-1981.
When did Midge and Susie fall apart? And what, exactly, drove a wedge between them? Here’s hoping we find out more details in addition to the time jumps soon. And be sure to check back after each new episode to see how Maisel‘s timeline has changed.
The first three episodes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 5 are now streaming on Prime Video. New episodes premiere weekly on Fridays.