Two weeks ago, I fell with open arms into the sanitized world of Upper West Side Manhattan. There, Rachel Brosnahan plays rich, mouthy housewife turned comedienne Miriam Midge Maisel in Amazon Prime’s The Marvelous Ms. Maisel.

This show is the love child of former Gilmore Girls director Amy-Sherman Palladino. It adopts the same quick-witted one liners and fast-paced sequences that initially shot Palladino into fame.

In it, 1950s comedienne Miriam “Midge” Maisel is snooty, wisecracking, and, unfortunately, exactly the sort of character I’ve decided to emotionally invest myself into.

Midge balances her up-and-coming comic lifestyle, featuring surly manager and Emmy winner Alex Borstein, with the expectations of her status as an upper-class woman. 

Brosnahan’s struggle to jump between her upper-class, proper parents Abe and Rose Weissman (played by Emmy nominee Tony Shalhoub and Emmy winner Marin Hinkle) as she tries to stay the perfect divorcee daughter and mother is the subject of multiple gaffes, laughs and plot-lines.

The comical cast of characters, composed almost entirely of well deserving Emmy-winners and nominees, only grow more charming with each season.

In many respects, Season 3 was not so different. As Midge’s career grows and the secrecy around her new-found hobby choice unwraps itself, I end up further entrenched in the take no prisoners, unapologetic drama-dy of the plot. 

The season featured the same quick one-liners. The same fun, vibrant characters. The same fantastic costumes.

Unfortunately, it seemed like those those costumes left a few too many threads behind. Where the show had previously introduced new characters with care, and engrossed audiences through conversational glimpses into their psyches, this season felt rushed and uncertain. While MMM isn’t a slow show, this particular season passed me by in a blink. 

Side characters appeared and disappeared, directors introduced new plot threads that never re-appeared again and every episode seemed to arrive with an array of new problems. The characters became a little less charming and a little more grating as the stakes got higher.

But none of these are deal breakers. A few knots and loose threads among the patchwork of a great show don’t mean much.

Still, for a not-very-good season of a very-good show, it remains a cut above the rest. I guess that this proves that Amazon really can deliver.