But Midge’s larger arc often seems stalled. The season repeats many of the conflicts of the first — just how over Midge’s marriage really is, just how willing she is to change her comfortable life. There is a lot of movement here, but not necessarily a lot of progress.

There is still comedy; as in Season 1, most episodes manage to get Midge on stage for a standup set. (In Paris, that takes place in a drag club, with a French patron providing machine-gun translation.) But even as she fights to get placed in the prestigious, male-dominated Midtown comedy clubs, you get the sense that this is still half a hobby for her; she seems more concerned about getting back on the makeup counter at her department-store day job.

It’s not clear how much of this is Midge not being committed to a future as a comedian — which would mean coming clean to her family and maybe losing that art-directed good life — and how much is the series itself not knowing how to move on with her story, because it enjoys the status quo (a common second-season issue). This in turn makes it hard to know just what the stakes are: How badly does Midge need to be a comic?

Some of the season’s best early scenes come when Susie presses this point with her whirligig client. When Midge announces that she’s vacationing in the Catskills for two months, missing a summer’s worth of gigs, Susie is aghast.

For Susie, the comedy biz isn’t a lark; it’s the difference between paying the bills and being on the street, and the contrast between her and her privileged client is the splash of cold water this show sometimes needs. When Midge describes a day at her summer resort, Susie asks, “What are you, the lost Gabor sister?”

Amazon showed critics five episodes out of 10, and by the season’s midpoint, it seems as if Midge may be at a juncture where she has to decide how serious she is. In the fifth episode, she sits down with her friend and consigliere, Lenny Bruce (Luke Kirby), who asks her, “Do you really think you can go back to making Jell-O molds again?”

God, let’s hope not. Though I’m sure the Jell-O molds would look fantastic.