Ranking the 5 seasons of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel from worst to best

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel has a great run. As much as we would have loved for more, the five seasons we got told a complete story and took us on a marvelous journey.

The series came to an end in 2023, and it remains a popular one for the streamer. This wasn’t just a story about a woman trying to pick her life up after a sudden divorce in the 1950s. It was a series that focused on friendship. We got Midge and Susie, who proved to be women supporting women in a time when many would have been up against each other.

Now that the seasons are done and we’ve had time to rewatch everything in one sitting, it’s time to do a ranking. Just where do the five seasons rank against each other? Here’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel ranked from worst season to best.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 4

I think a lot of people will agree that the fourth season was the weakest. That’s not to say it was terrible; it just wasn’t as good as the first three seasons of the series. Nor was it as good as the way the show ended.

This season saw Midge attempt to pick herself up from the shame and disappointment of Shy Baldwin leaving her behind. And all because Susie didn’t get that contract signed! She needed to figure out what to do next, but that led to her making some bad decisions.

All she wanted was headline gigs, and she ended up trapped in an illegal establishment as the only place she could do her act. It took Lenny Bruce calling her out on her fear of not pushing for greatness, but that took a whole season.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 3

I love Shy Baldwin. That whole storyline was brilliant, and we did get to see Midge hit a high point in her career. The problem with this season for me, though, is that it’s on the less memorable side.

One thing I love about this season is the way Midge and Susie’s relationship continues to develop. We get to see the two go from good to great as they find a rhythm to their business and personal relationships.

The Joel storyline takes me out of this season, though. I love Mei and I adore the underground Chinese gambling ring in the club, but I just don’t like Joel enough to even care about his life. He’s selfish and egotistical. It’s actually only in the final season that I come to like him because he finally realizes that he’s just an absolute AH to everyone around him.

Everything with the Maisels and Weissmans also grates on me. I just feel like they get stuck too much, and it’s only as Abe finally leaves his job and goes on his own journey that things change for me to care about them.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 5

The final season is a great sendoff to the series. I adore the flashforwards, figuring out what they are taking us to when the series comes to an end. The whole time we’re trying to figure out if Susie and Midge will be able to repair their relationship, and it’s only at the very end that we find out they do.

I appreciate the way the show handles the Lenny Bruce storyline. I worried that we would see an embarrassing end for him considering what happened to the real man, but the series handled that with dignity.

Then there’s the way Midge figures her way to get onto the Gordon Ford show. She continually plots to figure out what she can do, while trying to find her place in the writer’s room.

As I mentioned, this was the season I liked Joel. He gained some humility within this season, and he ended up putting his own freedom on the line for Midge. He owed her so much, and he certainly repaid it, even if Midge had no idea what was going on for the longest time. When she did find out, she stood by him as a thank you. He could have been selfish again, but she saw him as a changed man.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 2

I had to watch the second season twice to really gain an appreciation for it. This season just felt so over the place after the first season, which was set in one place. We start off with a trip to Paris, and then we head to the Catskills for a few episodes.

The different settings certainly did help to keep the series feeling fresh. It also brought up some interesting topics that we’d commonly overlook in a TV series. Midge was thrown back into a world that was judgmental and snobbish. Everyone was in each other’s business, and all Midge wanted to do was enjoy her life and move forward.

Zachary Levi coming into the series as Benjamin was a great addition, and I wish that Midge could have been with him and have her career at the same time. In the end, it’s probably a good thing that it didn’t work out. At least he wasn’t one of the four ex-husbands.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 1

There is no better season than the first. This is the one that captured our hearts. It made it clear that we needed more, and it gave us something so completely different to anything else on TV.

Midge became our leading lady for so many reasons. Susie wasn’t that far behind her, making it clear that this was about two women’s journey to be the boss of their own lives in a time when women couldn’t even own their own bank accounts!

First seasons can often suffer from having to introduce so many characters. This series didn’t have that problem. We got to know their personalities within the first episode, and we were immediately ready for more.