Why to watch Season 2 of Mrs. Maisel

There's at least one good reason to stay with The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Prime) through Season 2: Rachel Brosnahan, who has simply made the lead character her own, dominating the show in every scene she's in, which is most scenes. Just to watch her walk with her elbows tucked in and her torso leaning forward, always in a rush, and to hear her in conversation, clipped and sharp and so fast you can't even think straight, to hear her answer the telephone (which opens the season and leads a real payoff in the final episode) is half the fun of the show. The highlight of course is her comic routines, which unfortunately she does not get to do in each episode of Season 2, but when she does it's always surprising and funny: the French nightclub bilingual routine, the "Blue Night" in the Catskills w/ her cantankerous father in the audience, the night she rips into the fellow (male) comedians, when she bombs at the wedding reception. The key is that these aren't pauses in the plot for a shtick - as in say a Seinfeld episode - but are integrated into the on-going plot. Another + in season 2 is that Alex Borstein comes into her own as well, not just as a sidekick: in particular in the fine episode where she wins over a couple of thugs hired to abduct her. Unfortunately, Season 2 is not all great, however;:the Catskills interlude drags on for too long, love interest subplot has little energy or chemistry, it's increasingly disturbing how indifferent Midge Maisel is to her kids, and most of all the ancillary parental dramas, in particular the idiotic behavior of her mother at the outset (flying off to Paris for no reason) and of her father throughout (who can believe for two seconds his vetting of the suitor? - unfunny). So you take the bad or mediocre with the good or really good and hope for even better in Season 3, which the final episode unerringly cues up.