It is the season of goodbyes. Tomorrow we bid farewell to the ghastly Roy family and next week will see Ted Lasso's last match on the sidelines at AFC Richmond (why you should watch Ted Lasso). I'll miss both of these outstanding series, but not nearly as much as I will miss The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, who completed a five season run on Amazon Prime on Friday.
The final episode was a perfect microcosm of those series, filled with the sharpest writing, superb performances and an exuberant production design that has brought rampant colour and irresistible style to our television sets since its 2017 premiere.
It was entirely fitting that the final scenes saw aging versions of Jewish housewife-turned-stand up-comic Midge and agent Susie zinging one liners at one another down a phone line and laughing as the screen went black. It is Midge and Susie, brought to life magnificently by Rachel Brosnahan and Alex Borstein, who have given the show heart and soul as they fought together to build names and careers for themselves in a late 1950s world built and managed by and for men.
As soon as the final episode ended I flicked straight back to the first, in which we are introduced to Midge on her wedding day, when she shows her fearless talent for both comedy and controversy making an impromptu champagne-fuelled speech that closes with a declaration to her predomininantly Jewish audience that, "yes, there is shrimp in the egg rolls". The first episode closes with Midge being arrested after flashing her breasts at the audience in the Gaslight club where she is making her first unplanned stand-up appearance. Susie watches from the audience her expression awe-struck as she spots the natural talent.
I was hooked all over again by what I think might best be described as the creative and charming chaos of Mrs Maisel. And it made me realise that for all the brilliance of the performances of an exceptional cast and the luminous design it is the writing of creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband Daniel that is the real star of the show. This is the writer's craft at its finest. The scripts are dynamic, moving the story along at pace, but also sensitive and true to character. It has a structure and shape that is complex and expressive but always feels natural. And it's funny and fearless, poking a sharp and pointed stick at everyone and everything from Jewish mothers to misogynistic producers.
With so much of the streaming world occupied with swords and sandals or spies and cops, Mrs Maisel was a breath of fresh air when she burst on the scene exploring an entirely different world than that which television audiences have been trained to appreciate. Like all long running shows, it has had its peaks and troughs, but in season five Mrs Maisel recaptured the freshness and purpose of the first season and finished, as all the very best shows do, on the highest of highs.