Saying goodbye to Mrs. Maisel and celebrating the genius of Amy Sherman-Palladino

The time has come to say goodbye to Midge with the final season of the Prime Video hit, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (premiering April 14).

Season 5 begins moving forward in time to 1981, with Esther Maisel. As an adult she's neurotic (not unlike her mother) and is complaining to a therapist about Midge (Rachel Brosnahan). Throughout a number of flash forwards in Season 5, we see the impact Midge's pursuit of a stand-up career had on her life, and her family.

Going back to the moment after the Carnegie Hall show from Season 4, Midge had been out in the blizzard so long she got frostbite and might even lose a toe. When she recovers, in some capacity, she instantly feels regret about her "no opening act" decision, and turning down the Tony Bennett gig.

But Susie (Alex Borstein) always has something up her sleeve, eying an opportunity for Midge to get a job as joke writer on Gordon Ford's late night show, ultimately hoping she'll be able showcase her stand up on the show after she gets her foot in the door.

Much of the first eight episodes of the season also chronicle the friendship between Susie and Midge, how that continued to evolve throughout the years and decades as they face some significant disagreements.

At this point in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, the actors and the story are very tapped in. The comedy is as funny as ever and the actors continue to be an absolute joy to watch, including the incomparable Tony Shalhoub, Marin Hinkle, Kevin Pollak, Caroline Aaron and Michael Zegen.

While moving between decades, like you'll see throughout Season 5, can seem chaotic at times, it works for this show in the sense that it really makes you curious and invested to find out what led to events later in the timeline.

We can't say much in an effort to not spoil Season 5, but as a final bow, the first eight episodes of the season are as joyous and infectious as ever.

Amy Sherman-Palladino should be TV royalty

With this being the last season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, we can't talk about the show without mentioning the brilliance of Amy Sherman-Palladino.

The Emmy winner's legacy is strong, extensive and incredibly important in pop culture. Throughout the years, significantly more so in recent years, audiences and reporters have praised women characters on TV that are quick, quirky and witty, but we'd argue that Sherman-Palladino's work really established what that actually means for TV characters.

From Gilmore Girls to the too short lived Bunheads and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, there's something unique to the women that make up the worlds that this TV creator develops, and they're so identifiably Sherman-Palladino. These women are smart, funny, and they're not ashamed to be talkative.

Moving beyond that, for a generation of women who navigated their teens and early womanhood watching Sherman-Palladino's shows, these were all the women we kind of aspired to become, even with their messiness. They're real women, with real faults, but they showed us that all the misogyny towards and doubts cast on women is, frankly, bullsh-t. Whether you're a bookworm like Rory Gilmore, a stand-up comic like Midge Maisel, a dancer like Michelle Simms, or even a socialite like Emily Gilmore, these characters exemplify that life is absolutely not easy, but you deserve the right to be whoever you want to be.

The impact of her voice in television can easily be seen in a show like Gilmore Girls, created by Sherman-Palladino, working with her husband Daniel Palladino. They both ended up leaving the show after they couldn't come to an agreement on contract negotiations with the CW. If you watch Gilmore Girls Season 7, without Sherman-Palladino's involvement, you feel a shift in the story. It shows that she really is a TV genius who is truly one-of-a-kind, with a signature style that can't be replicated.

Her brilliant work is also likely a testament to the fact that famed cast members continue to work with her, like Milo Ventimiglia, Kelly Bishop, Alex Borstein and several others that come up in Season 5 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which we won't spoil for you.

In the history books of TV and pop culture, Sherman-Palladino deserve a giant slot for her impact. Let's just say, whatever she decides to do next, we'll absolutely be watching. But for now, we'll continue to lust over the final season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.