Tony Shalhoub on his moving The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel speech
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WARNING: This article contains spoilers for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel season 5, episode 8.
Abe finally understands what a treasure Midge is.
On episode 8 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel's final season, Abe (Tony Shalhoub) came to quite the revelation while out drinking with his friends. Realizing he was wrong about roles for men and women, he declares that his daughter Midge (Rachel Brosnahan) has a degree of strength and fearlessness he never had.
"My daughter is a remarkable person, and I don't think I've ever told her that," he concludes.
It's a hell of a speech for a man once so infuriated by Midge's comedic stylings that he sat panic-stricken in a Borscht Belt nightclub. But for Shalhoub, this was the moment Abe has been building to all along.
"I was so thrilled because I felt like this is the point that Abe has been marching toward for five years," he tells EW. "This is the coin dropping, his understanding of what his whole life has been about — being a part of this burgeoning movement that his daughter is going through."
It was also a very personal scene. "I related to it because I have two daughters around the age of the character of Midge," he says. "I've seen them grow and evolve and become advocates for themselves, and do things and know things that I certainly didn't teach them or impart to them. Not just in their working world, but in their character as people, as women."
amazon studios Tony Shalhoub on 'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel'
Creator Amy Sherman-Palladino wanted to write this speech for Abe to give a fitting grace note to his character's journey as the show reaches its conclusion. "With an ensemble like this, we knew that we weren't going to be able to give everybody their moment in the last episode," she explains. "So, we were carefully picking and choosing. We wanted to complete this journey."
"We started [with] a man who was very, very comfortable in his life and in his thinking completely thrown off his axis by his daughter's journey and his daughter's independence," she continues. "I wanted to see that man feel some regret for years that he missed when he just did not understand his daughter and really see her for what she was."
Indeed, the speech — with its reflection on Midge's extraordinary achievements and Abe's own sense that he failed to recognized it — could be the thesis statement of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. "It definitely was that," Sherman-Palladino says. "The world couldn't see it, and they insisted that they'd be seen."
"Men underestimating women and husbands underestimating their wives and daughters, yeah, that's the show," Shalhoub adds.
Philippe Antonello/Prime 'Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' season 5 first look
Sherman-Palladino likens Tony's speech to a eulogy at a funeral where you discover something you missed about a person you thought you knew and loved well. "We've all experienced something like that," she says. "It's like, 'I have no idea why I didn't know that while this person was alive.' I wanted Abe to have that kind of regret because it's going to make him grow. My sense is that from there, that man finally became the better version of the man that he always could have become."
While Midge made some personal discoveries through a day out with her sorority sisters earlier in the episode, Abe finds himself in the opposite environment of that feminine energy — surrounded by men and cigars discussing "serious" subjects. Sherman-Palladino very specifically wanted to juxtapose those two spaces and the way that Midge is straddling both worlds and shaking them up.
"I used the other characters to lead Abe down this road," she notes. "For all that it got very erudite at times, I wanted it to land on a very, very simple emotional regret. I would like to think that that character went on to grow as a person."
For his part, Shalhoub promises we'll see that moment payoff in next week's series finale. "That revelation comes to fruition and there's a major payoff and connection between Abe and Midge, even if it's an unspoken one," he says. "Even if it's just within the eyeballs. That plays out in the final episode in the final scene."
The final season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is now streaming on Prime Video. The series finale drops May 26.
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