When the Emmy award-winning series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” came to a conclusion in May, the series finale, titled “Four Minutes,” included Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) performing one last set (for the TV audience), and finally crowned her “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
“Four Minutes” features Midge appearing on the late-night talk show, “The Gordon Ford Show,” to discuss with Ford (Reid Scott), her job as the series’ “resident lady writer,” but in a swift pivot, Midge takes the remaining four minutes of the segment to make her first late-night TV performance.
The cast and crew, from the director of photography M. David Mullen to costume designer Donna Zakowska, all wanted to pay homage to all of Midge’s most memorable moments in that last set — including her triumphant season one ending set at The Gaslight that landed her in comedy.
“Amy [Sherman-Palladino] likes to heighten the moment by not cutting essentially that the tension builds because the shot is building,” Mullen explained detailing how they set the lens on the solo mic, circling the silver object before Midge leapt into action. Mullen continued revealing that this circling moment is all one shot, “[Sherman-Palladino] likes that kind of dancing camera field,” he said.
The moment also included a callback to season one. “Amy proposed to me that there’s a light cue where suddenly the room feels like The Gaslight,” said Mullen. “The way the Gaslight was laid was tungsten lights were all dim to 50%, so they had kind of a golden color to them.” This required hazing the Gordon Ford set to give off a blurred look, imitating the smoke-filled club from Greenwich Village.
As Mullen paid homage to The Gaslight, Zakowska nodded to Midge’s Season 1 finale performance dress, and the evolution of the character’s career. “I knew that this dress had to encapsulate a lot of different elements, the feeling of black dress, the feeling of the performance, the element of the bow — which in so many ways was sort of lighter and more fun spirit of Mrs. Maisel.”
Donna Zakowska’s concept art for Midge Maisel’s final dress from “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”
“That costume that came out of Donna’s brain was the perfect thing to end on,” added Brosnahan. “Donna has taught me so much about Midge and about Midge’s journey through her clothes… and I was happy to trust fall into Donna’s capable hands for five seasons.”
While Brosnahan was confident to lean into Zakowska’s vision, when approaching that final monologue the actress admitted she was nervous. “I sat there with the script, feeling very intimidated about learning this volume of material with 48 hours to go.”
Although Brosnahan was apprehensive, Sherman-Palladino, who had been tweaking the final set until two days before filming, knew the star would be able to tackle Midge’s final moments. “There was something kind of magic about the fact that we have Rachel Brosnahan in our life because the way she attacked that monologue from the first time she did it. It was there. The confidence the focus, the clarity, it was pretty great.”
As the final scene shot, Brosnahan and the “Maisel” cast and crew were overwhelmed by emotion, with Alex Bornstein, Michael Zegen and Brosnahan admitting they shed a few tears. Brosnahan revealed that even Sherman-Palladino had a hard time calling a wrap on the series, and requested Brosnahan and Scott do four takes when he calls her “the magnificent, the magical, the marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
Watch the full episode above, Variety’s “Making A Scene” is presented by HBO.
