While the show has always been this way, previous seasons have always had something specific to elevate them: Midge’s talent. Over the first eight episodes, Midge evolved from serene housewife to jilted single parent to accidental comedian to blacklisted talent with breathtaking velocity. Her discovery—after her weaselly husband’s departure prompts her to take a drunken subway ride to a downtown comedy club—that she could make rooms of people laugh was the kind of fairytale moment that was easy to believe in, because Brosnahan’s performance was so entrancing. Onstage, Midge dazzles, even when she bombs. And in the first two seasons, the show seemed to suggest that Midge wasn’t satisfied being merely funny; she had the kind of ambition that can change the world she inhabits, redefining the way people think about women, comedy, and especially the two together.

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But great comedy has to acknowledge darkness, which Mrs. Maisel has always resisted. The presence of Bruce as a character (played in magnetic, Emmy-winning style by Luke Kirby) seemed to suggest that Midge’s comedy might skirt the edges of propriety. But apart from a wine-soaked interlude in Episode 1 where she bared her breasts onstage and was arrested, her routine has played it safe, rarely advancing beyond the subjects of sex, failure, and men having the privilege of comfortable shoes. In Season 3, as Midge goes on tour with the singer Shy Baldwin (Leroy McClain), the show builds itself into a kind of visual bacchanal, recreating ’60s Las Vegas and Miami with the detail and oversaturated color of a theme-park ride. Midge’s act, which is a hit in her new surroundings, touches on nothing more risqué than Bergdorf Goodman and a gentile’s guide to Jews.

Delightful escapism still has its place, but it usually comes within a tighter frame. More than ever in Season 3, Mrs. Maisel drags, or offers gags that are as uncomfortable and prolonged as a teeth cleaning. (Five out of eight episodes were made available for review.) The first episode, which runs almost an hour, takes place mostly at a USO Show, as Midge and Shy perform for the troops, while Midge’s manager, Susie (Alex Borstein) tries to nail down the specifics of Midge’s new contract. Abe (Tony Shalhoub) and Rose (Marin Hinkle), Midge’s parents, still get up to zany hijinks that make no sense, with Abe filling their Upper West Side apartment with communist squatters and Rose arbitrarily rejecting her substantial and necessary trust funds. Joel (Michael Zegen), Midge’s ex-husband, rents a space above what turns out to be an illegal gambling den in Chinatown, a story line that still can’t make him interesting. Joel’s parents continue to test the limits of what’s endurable on-screen, spending their substantial screen time yelling and torturing houseguests.