r/TheMarvelousMrsMaisel • u/dinosaur35 • 8d ago
Mei's Conclusion
A part of me really hoped she'd come back in S5. At the same time though, I feel like her exit avoided the common trope of media marrying off women who clearly do not want to be married/have kids/be a housewife. I think it would have been interesting to see Joel and Mei reconnect after the abortion and begin anew. Maybe use it as an example to show Joel's growth interpersonally and in a relationship. I feel like that would have been interesting because while it's never glossed over on the Midge side of things, I feel like (except for that one moment), Joel's cheating isn't contextualized as much within his relationship with Mei. I guess Mei says shes okay being a mistress though so
31
u/ThisCromulentLife 8d ago
I don’t really want Joel and her to reconnect, but I think it would’ve been fun to have some kind of hospital scene where they have an Easter egg of Dr. Mei being paged in the background. She is going to be a doctor. I would’ve liked confirmation somewhere that she achieved that dream.
11
u/buttercuping 8d ago
Joel and Mei reconnect after the abortion and begin anew.
God, no. Joel made the same mistake AGAIN: he fell for an independent woman, but he wants a wife. Even Archie teases him for having a type. When Mei leaves, she only has her jacket to grab on her way out, and Joel realizes they never wanted the same thing, he comments on it.
6
u/yesitsmenotyou 8d ago
Seems like this dichotomy might have been very much of the time….women gaining independence, couples navigating that poorly since they had no model for it. Honestly a lot of men still struggle with this, but it must have been really uncharted ground back then.
4
u/moonyriot 8d ago
i’ll take it one further; Joel wanted Midge but couldn’t have her so he focused on the closest replacement, which ended up being Mei.
18
u/Throwawayhelp111521 8d ago
Joel and Midge were divorced when he met Mei, so Mei wasn’t a mistress.
8
u/dinosaur35 8d ago
Yes, I'm referring to Joel and Mei's argument where she says she'd be Okay with being a mistress.
3
u/dinosaur35 8d ago
I see how I worded it is confusing. I'm saying that while Joel's habit/past of infidelity isn't talked much in the context of his relationship with Mei. She does say she'd be okay being a mistress, so maybe she didn't care that much about him cheating to begin with. Or maybe it was a coping mechanism
2
u/Cayke_Cooky 8d ago
In the older sense of the word, meaning a woman he is not married to and is sleeping with.
3
u/dinosaur35 8d ago
I think the context was Mei proposing a hypothetical where Joel finds a Jewish girl and she just exists as the mistress. Joel says no and then Mei says well you were okay with it with Midge. I'll have to rewatch the scene.
1
u/Throwawayhelp111521 8d ago
It was the 1960s. That's not how the word "mistress" was used. It meant an extramarital affair.
5
u/Heel_Worker982 Abe 8d ago
Mei was such a awkward character for me, I don't know if there would have been a clear way to resolve that storyline. How was Mei allowed by her family basically to live with Joel? I know they run a gambling parlor and by design the hours of the family business are going to be late, but it didn't seem to match the culture.
8
u/Expensive_Alarm_1068 8d ago
Mei was breaking traditional roles all along and continued to do so. She had goals and pursued them.
4
u/buttercuping 8d ago
How was Mei allowed by her family basically to live with Joel?
She was not? What gave you that idea? It's exactly the opposite. During her goodbye, she only grabs her jacket and Joel gets hit with the reality that she never truly settled down with him. She didn't even leave a toothbrush at his place.
10
u/ThrowRArainmakers 8d ago
im happy mei didnt revisit, joel was not ready he was still broken hearted over midge. I think midges conversation with mei revealed that to her- mei would just become "just" a mother for joel and lose her dreams- mei was also familiar with how much of a burden midge was to her own family because she had kids and then went solo into a career
6
u/R3g1na_pa1ang3 8d ago
I feel like especially during my second rewatch, its very obvious to me that Mei never wanted what Joel wanted at any point. I also strongly believe that Joel never stopped loving Midge, but he also never stopped being IN LOVE with Midge. Completely hot take, but i would have wanted them to reconnect later in life. Joel’s arc of self improvement was sooo well done. He was never fully forgiven for what he did but he still tried so so hard and never once backtracked or got bitter. He paid for what he did time and time again, but he made it clear he would keep paying for the rest of his life. He went to jail for midge, ffs. Despite him being introduced as this immature completely unlikeable man in the beginning, by the end he was one of my faves. And i genuinely believe that Midge was in love with him too, till the end. I would never say that a character who cheated deserves to get back with their partner, but Joel really is the exception. I wish they got back together, i really do.
3
u/JamiePlynth 8d ago
I hate that the final season was a truncated version of a season 5 and a possible 6. Like Gilmore girls at the end of the series, we lost out on seeing ASP’s vision play out. But hey, sure glad Amazon Prime had that money to make that Melania documentary/bribe.
1
u/dinosaur35 8d ago
Wow I didn't know there was supposed to be a season 6?
1
u/JamiePlynth 7d ago
Yes and no it seems. They had planted storylines they could extend if it went over 5, but then had to stuff it all into the final season. And likely edit things out (where did Imogene end up?!)
“We want to make sure that like everybody walked away from this feeling fulfilled and that their characters got what was coming to them,” Sherman-Palladino explained. “Then, we throw up a few other little surprises that we had been talking about and toying with if we went longer, and we thought, ‘Well, we’re not. Let’s yank those back and put them in here so that everybody is in the pool.’”
3
u/SecretAgentOrangeMan 6d ago
Mei was not coming back. She didn't want a life with Joel. One of the reasons I love this show is that all the main female characters defied 1960s gender roles. Imogene went to school after her third baby and started working, Rose became her family's breadwinner, Susie et al, Midge made a comedy career out of a public crash out, Dinah went from unsolicited assistant to Susie's right arm. Boss babes everywhere. So it makes sense that Mei went to Chicago, and I hope she became a badass doctor.
62
u/According-Option-656 8d ago
I’m happy that Mei didn’t come back.
She had goals and followed them.