The second season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, out December 5, treats Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) to a swath of glimmering new life prospects. A trip to Paris! A skyrocketing career! And, according to the trailer, a new man!
Yep, it appears as if the upcoming season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel will position Midge at the center of a love triangle. At one prong, there's Joel (Michael Zegan), Midge's cheating husband who is finally recognizing his wife's comedic talent. At the other, the dapper doctor Benjamin (Zachary Levi), whom Midge meets while on vacation in the Catskills.
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The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel leaving the city for the Catskills, a mountain range in southeastern New York, is a near inevitable move. The Catskills are home to the so-called "Borsht Belt," a series of summer resorts that catered to Jewish families and were especially popular from the '20s through the '80s. Benjamin's family and Midge's family have escaped the hot city to the same resort for years. This summer, their mothers are finally successful in getting them to meet.
Benjamin and Midge's meet-cute is bristling and full of banter delivered at an Amy Sherman-Palladino pace. The two are quite different, after all. Benjamin is a misanthropic Manhattan doctor; Midge is a charming, convention-defying comic. That said, Benjamin has one major advantage over Joel: He has yet to abandon Midge and their two children in a premature mid-life crisis.
In the Love Triangle Olympics, Benjamin also has the material advantage of being played by Zachary Levi. We know from the Disney animated movie Tangled that Levi is more than capable of playing a love interest who transitions from arrogant to lovable (and still a bit arrogant). His Tangled character, Eugene "Flynn" Rider, is inarguably one of Disney's sexiest princes.
Weirdly attractive animated Disney princes aside, Levi is most famous for playing the everyman-turned-spy Chuck Bartowski on the hit NBC show Chuck, which ran from 2007 to 2012. More recently, Levi appeared on the Netflix show Alias Grace. He'll also appear in the upcoming adaptation of Shazam!.
Now, Levi will play a contender for Midge Maisel's heart. According to interviews with The Hollywood Reporter, Levi landed an especially plum gig with season 2 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. The show's Catskills segments were filmed in Binghamton, NY. Kevin Pollak, who plays Moishe Maisel, called that period "summer camp;" co-creator Daniel Palladino said it was a "really tough, long hours vacation," but a vacation nonetheless. Brosnahan brought her two dogs to set. Levi rowed boats on a lake and became a part of an Emmy-sweeping show. What's there not to like?
“I was a huge fan of the first season. It’s excellent on every level. Getting to do a period piece show was always on my bucket list. I still want to do more of that,” Levi told The Hollywood Reporter. “That talent like Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino saw fit to offer me the job was so flattering. How can you say no to that?”
Catch season 2 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon Prime on December 5.