“The Marvelous Mrs.Maisel” Pilot Episode Explores the Difference Between 4 Glasses of Champagne and a Bottle of Wine

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The Marvelous Mrs.Maisel introduces our titular heroine by showcasing her in what is immediately apparent as her natural setting, on stage with a microphone in front of a crowd of people giving a comedic lesson of her life. The newly surnamed Miriam Maisel is giving a toast at her own wedding. “Who does that?” she implores before giving the firm answer to her own question. “I do,” she says, in a tone that is both self-satisfied and dares her friends and family to deny her this right.

Mrs.Maisel Has 4 Glasses of Champagne

This introductory speech, soaked in a stand-up’s wit and performative nature, is partially fueled by “4 glasses of champagne on an empty stomach”. The performance is a loosely structured, honest, slightly drunk, outpouring of emotion. The episode is bookended with two such performances, with some minor differences. In the first performance she’s drunk on champagne and in the second she’s drunk on wine. Also, perhaps as significantly, in the first she’s celebrating with poise another successful milestone in her carefully plotted life and in the second she’s draped over the crumpled remains of her life as she completely loses her shit. But, as I often do in Cinemixiology, I’m going to focus on that first difference, the booze, adds depth to the emotions at the forefront.

Champagne is often used in pop culture as shorthand for elegance, celebration, and wealth. One is never drunk and crass on champagne, one is happy and witty. You’re allowed to operate an entire fountain of it and people are like “this sure is a fancy party.” Try doing that with anything else and you’ll be the subject of side-eyes and whispers followed closely by an intervention. Miriam Maisel isn’t breaking any social taboos by being a bit tipsy of champagne at her wedding, she can be publicly intoxicated and still be ‘keeping up appearances’.

Of course Miriam has a subversive streak in her that, even when she’s outwardly operating within the confines of what’s socially acceptable, is impossible to squash and she ends her speech with a minor uproar by announcing she has served shrimp to her predominantly Jewish guests, including the rabbi. This performance will be outdone in every manner by the episode’s second such performance (the shrimp will have nothing on her other hysteria inducing finale). The second performance marks the end of “Mrs.” Maisel, so we before we get there we need to look at what life as Mrs.Maisel was like. And, as luck would have it, we have a cocktail to guide the way: The Daiquiri.

Life As Mrs.Maisel

Mrs.Maisel’s home life is one of performance. She waits for her husband to fall asleep before removing her makeup and performing all the beauty rituals that keep her looking perfect. She wakes up before her husband to put it all back together again. She uses a freaking gentle sunbeam as an alarm clock so as not to wake her husband. Her day is spent fostering an air of perfect housewife with everyone she encounters and cooking bribery briskets to get her husband a better time slot for his (unbeknownst to her, cribbed) standup routine. Her nightlife encouraging and taking notes to better her husband’s act. She manages to squeeze some social time with a girlfriend in there somehow, and spends it taking her measurements herself with her friend to ensure perfect maintenance of her body size. And also drinking daiquiris.

In the 1950s, daiquiris were on trend in America. A notable favorite of rising political star John F Kennedy (profiled by Time in the year Maisel takes place) and his wife Jackie. Jackie even had hers made with a sugar substitute so as not to ruin her figure. Considering Miriam is literally watching her figure as she sips her daiquiri, I like to imagine she is taking a perhaps slightly anachronistic cue from Jackie and is drinking a similarly weight conscious version. This is life as Mrs.Maisel, in service to her man, using her outsized personality and quick wit in a performance as the perfect wife.

Miriam has an unquenchable confidence to her performance. This is unfortunate, as her husband Joel is also giving the performance of a perfect husband but with an ego as fragile as Miriam’s is strong. His confidence is one bad 2 minute comedy set away from vanishing wholesale. The seemingly perfect marriage is completely destroyed when it’s foundation of eggshells and gum wrappers is finally blown away by the slight breeze wafting from the uncomfortable whispers inspired by Joel’s lousy act. We discover these people didn’t really know each other at all and this realization causes Miriam to finally grab that bottle of wine and be brutally honest with complete strangers.

After Joel runs away from his wife and family like the frightened child he always was, Miriam runs to confide in her parents. Her parents blame her for alternately picking a weak man and not doing enough to keep him happy, as was the style of the time. Miriam, still in shock and throwing off a thousand yard stare, is presented with the choice of either doubling down on her efforts to live what is essentially a sham life or…not. A scary, amorphous, unplanned ‘not’.

Then she sees the bottle of wine.

“Has Been Drinking” Vs “Is Shit-Faced”

She’s FINE!

This bottle of wine is no regular bottle of wine and represents the full depth of the decision Miriam makes by episode’s end. As mentioned earlier Miriam is Jewish. After the debacle of serving shrimp to a rabbi at the very start of the episode, she’s spent 4 years trying to win back the rabbi’s favor. Does she really care about the rabbi? Probably not, but it’s vital to her performance of a perfect daughter and wife. In short, she may not care, but her parents very much do.

To finally make amends with the rabbi, they convince him to break the fast of Yom Kippur at her home. This is scheduled to take place less than 24 hours from Joel leaving her and her house is prepped for the celebration. This also means that Yom Kippur is already in full swing and Miriam is ostensibly supposed to be fasting and atoning for her sins.

That bottle of wine, carefully placed on a feasting table, meant to be drank after a day of fasting, with a rabbi she deeply insulted, represents her full acceptance back into her faith and by extension her family’s good graces and her society’s norms.

Perhaps that’s why after she rips that sucker open she starts with a dainty gulp out of a glass. And then another one. She soon abandons that method and just slugging it out of the bottle. At this point she realizes she’s missing her dish used for making her bribery briskets and refusing to be denied anything else on this, a Jewish day of denial, takes the subway to the comedy club that she thought was bringing her and her husband closer together to reclaim her “Pyrex”.

We started the show with Miriam in a tight white gown, her hair and makeup characteristically perfect, sipping champagne, and bursting with love. Now she’s on a subway in her pajamas, a dirty overcoat, wet hair limply sagging over her face, straight chugging wine out the damn bottle, barreling unknowingly towards giving her second on-stage performance of the episode.

Miriam is so far from her carefully planned life, she doesn’t even realize she’s giving a performance until the audience complains that they can’t hear her. Instead of answers, she’s full of questions. Her stage is located next to a shitter. Instead of politely tiptoeing around the less than proper aspects of her life, she’s completely and brutally honest. “I’m the same size I was at my wedding,” she cries, meaning it as an accomplishment about her body size but it’s clear she has stumbled upon a deeper realization that she hasn’t grown since becoming “Mrs.Maisel.” Miriam still throws the audience in hysterics, but instead of mere religiously banned shellfish, she goes ahead and exposes her tits on stage and is arrested for public indecency.

Miriam is lost at this point, still teetering between the choice of doubling down to regain her status quo or figuring out what that mysterious “or not” could mean. The club’s manager bails Miriam out and helps put some focus on that “or not”, asking Miriam “I don’t mind being alone, I just do not want to be insignificant, do you?”

Miriam flees this meeting after she realizes the bar nuts she absent mindedly snacked upon has broken her Yom Kippur fast and now she hasn’t atoned for her sins. She almost gets into a cab headed home before a sly smile crosses her face. She immediately winds up at a Communist Party, uh, party and happily snacks away on chips and drinking beer (as one does).

She’s decided to give up on Yom Kippur, give up on what her family wants, give up on her coward husband, and give up on her lifelong performance as “perfect”. She’s focusing on what she wants now. Though a deep breath betrays a nervousness, she’s diving head first into that “or not.” She’s no longer perfect, she’s Marvelous. She’s no longer Mrs.Maisel but someone else entirely she gets to define. She’s no longer been sipping on 4 glasses of champagne, she’s been chugging a whole damn bottle of wine.

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