Why is ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ ending?

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel comes to an end with its fifth season.

Created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, the comedy drama series follows 1950s New York housewife Miriam ‘Midge’ Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) who decides to pursue a career in stand-up comedy.

The series has become a critical darling since it began in 2017, winning 20 Emmys, including Outstanding Comedy Series in 2018, from 66 total nominations so far.

Alongside Brosnahan, the show’s cast includes Alex Borstein, Michael Zegen, Marin Hinkle, Tony Shalhoub, Kevin Pollak, Caroline Aaron, Jane Lynch and Luke Kirby.

Why is The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel coming to an end?

Speaking during a Q&A in 2020 (via TVLine), Sherman-Palladino explained that they knew where they wanted to end the show from the beginning.

“We don’t want to overstay our welcome,” she said. “Midge has a journey she has to take. It’s the struggle that is fun [as opposed to] ‘I’m sitting in a penthouse and I’m really rich and I’ve got a lot of chihuahuas.’ We know emotionally where we want to end her and at what point we want to cut it off, we just don’t know how many episodes it’s going to take to get there.”

That point has arrived in season five. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in April 2023 about writing the fifth season, co-showrunner Daniel Palladino said: “We knew exactly where we wanted to end. And we just sort of like knew that these are our last markers that we wanted to hit towards the ending that we knew was going to be the ending from the very beginning.”

When is the final episode released?

The season five finale arrives Friday May 26 on Amazon Prime Video.