Producers Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino weigh in on the latest episode.
Spoiler alert! Do not proceed if you have not watched the latest episode The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
Midge and Joel's relationship has endured its fair share of ups and downs on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. The latest episode, which dropped Friday on Prime Video, shed light on the former couple's status following the surprising revelation that Joel is serving time in prison in 1987. But for what exactly?
As it's revealed in the episode, titled "The Tetsi-Roastial," some time before then, Joel is arrested in the middle of a service at the synagogue and in the chaos, he hands Midge a letter explaining everything. In it, Joel tells her he's been arrested for racketeering and money laundering, but most importantly that he did it to protect her. "He did this for me," Midge confronts Susie, who is at the center of the mess. To put it simply, Joel made a trade with the mob -- "him for me," Midge says -- which Susie has backroom ties to, as Midge alleges her friend and manager essentially sold her to them.
"He'll be in jail for years, Susie," Midge tearfully cries. After years of friendship and successful business ventures together, everything becomes clear for Midge, who asks Susie who "owns her today." When Susie says she owns herself, Midge has had enough, calling BS -- that the casinos she's been regularly booking gigs at are all to help pay off Susie's massive gambling debts. Before she leaves, effectively ending their friendship and relationship, Midge tells Susie her books will be audited.
"It was shocking. It definitely was," Maisel star Michael Zegen, who plays Joel, told ET's Deidre Behar. "There were hints. There were whispers about it. I think one of the makeup people might have spoiled the surprise for me, but when they asked me, 'Do you want to know?' And I was like, 'All right, tell me,' because it was this big secret. They're like, 'Joel is in prison.' And so, it was a complete surprise but it turned out, it was better than I had anticipated because he didn't do anything shady. He was in there because he was saving Midge."
"And that really speaks to Joel's character and it makes sense because he's always looking out for Midge," Zegen added. "Any time she has a problem, he's the first one she calls. He's protecting her and their kids and there's always gonna be love there, regardless of whether they're actually together or not."
For Maisel herself, Rachel Brosnahan, she recalled having a conversation with creator Amy Sherman-Palladino back in the show's first season about where Midge and Joel would be years down the line. Considering the entire premise of the show is, in a way, borne from Joel's affair amid his struggles to become a big-time comic, it's fitting that it's Joel who makes the sacrifice to ensure Midge and their family are taken care of.
"I remember Amy saying something to me during the first season. I'm sure that some of this has changed, but she said to me during the first season, I was asking her where Midge and Joel were going and where they were going to end up, just as I was trying to wrap my head around their relationship. And she told me that they would always love each other, but that they would never be on the same page at the same time again," Brosnahan shared. "She would always look back on the day before Joel left her as the happiest day of her life... You think he may not be around at that point anymore? He'll always play that significant role in her life and in her story."
Executive producer Dan Palladino, who wrote and directed the latest episode, debunked any speculation that Midge and Joel reconnected in the future.
"We always knew from the beginning. We talked about after Midge gets dumped, what her life was going to become. She was going to make more money. She was going to have greater experiences. She was going to experience a life that she never dreamed, but she was never going to be happier than she was on the day before she got dumped," Palladino said. "So we always kept in mind that that's still her happiest time was when she was living that idyllic life that she never really questioned."
"Even though she achieved so many of her goals, there wasn't that pure joy that she experienced before she knew that she could do something else," he continued. "So, we always knew that he was the ultimate love of her life. We imply that she had many, many loves of her life, several marriages and she was probably happy during those. But she was never happiest than when she was with Joel on that wedding day."
Sherman-Palladino acknowledged that "had they gotten together at a different time where they were in different places, who knew" what would come of their relationship.
"But once he did what he did and once she did what she did, which is walk onstage and say, 'I'm talking about my life and that's just the way it is,' there are two people that were going to circle around each other for many years. They were probably going to fall back into bed. They're probably going to talk about, 'We're 80. Can't we be together now?' But in the end, a choice was made. It was a moment in time and I think that she always would consider him the male love of her life and probably was always wistful for that companionship. And, but in the end, she made a choice to follow an ambition and to follow this career. And that meant you had to leave that behind for her. She had to leave that behind."
New episodes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel drop Fridays on Prime Video.
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