There are countless remarkable on-screen first kisses, but there’s nothing like Midge and Lenny’s first kiss, and it’s largely because none of us ever thought it’d happen. Despite the brilliant chemistry between Rachel Brosnahan and Luke Kirby, we all knew we were shipping a pipe dream—a “maybe someday” paired with lots of fan fiction and fan videos because Lenny Bruce was a real person, and Midge Maisel is fictional. But instead, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s Season 4, “How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?” not only delivered a kiss, it gave us so much more.
As much as the actual kiss matters, the moments leading up to it matter, too, and their conversation here is especially substantial because it’s all about the thing that binds them and the way they perceive each other. As I wrote in my feature right after the episode’s release: “A blizzard, a shared room, mutual pining, and finally giving in to the years of longing that’s had both of them (and viewers) in a constant chokehold is, quite literally, everything. It might just be a one-time thing—their “maybe someday” coming to pass, but it’s utterly beautiful. It’s the kind of scene you repeatedly replay because, for two people who can make the world laugh, they can only find true solace and laughter in each other.”
Another detail that ensures sparks spread throughout the scene is the effortless means of silent communication that Brosnahan and Kirby have perfected up until this point. Together, Midge and Lenny are often in their own little world, communicating in a way that’s theirs and theirs alone. There are words said aloud, but there’s so much more in the silence that it’s astounding. Every head tilt, every breath, every time their eyes lock, there’s something bigger happening—something weighty and substantial.
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To top things off, Lenny not only says that she’s more important than God, but there’s magic in the way they bring it back to the show corset. Back to the thing that he can’t see. The thing he wonders about, and not just in this moment, but all their shared moments before. So when he stands and draws closer, it’s game over after that. We know what’s about to happen, and as it does, it’s everything.
Midge and Lenny’s first kiss starts in a way that’s sweet and tender. Slow at first. Staggering. And then it’s all that they’ve both been wanting—dreaming of. Heated, fiery, intimate, and full of such profound longing that it’s a moment they’re going to carry with them forever. Even if we’d just gotten this kiss, it’d still encompass a plethora of emotions that words or jokes couldn’t describe. And that’s another detail that makes everything so breathtaking because even comedy takes a brief backseat. This thing that fuels them both and ribbons itself around them stands still for a moment as they give in to every other rattling desire inside.
There’s something in every pause, every tug, every choice. It’s a moment to lose themselves, yet it’s also the most calculated decision both Midge and Lenny have made because they’ve thought about it for so long. The lighting in the room. The blue hues surrounding them as a discernible reminder that this isn’t going to end well. We know all of this. They do, too. Yet for a moment, none of that matters. Midge and Lenny’s first kiss, in many ways, is the best they’ll ever have. The thing no one can take from them. The thing no one else can understand. The yearning that spreads between them lingers—it stays even after they part. It’s always there, in the sidelines, like a member of the audience, remaining with the echoes of laughter. It’s healing, in the same way that comedy can be. It’s haunting in the same way that the pain they carry is.
And that’s another detail—perhaps the darkest of all—though in vast different ways, Midge and Lenny both carry crosses that no one else can see. She dove headfirst into comedy because of all the ways Joel hurt her, and while we don’t explore the fictional Lenny Bruce’s history as much, we know that there are tremendous aches in him, too. There are reasons why he can’t go home. Reasons for all of it. Yet in this single moment, before it all blows up and the laughter turns into an empty hall and lonely alleyways, they have each other in a way that they’ll both cherish. I can write dissertations on this kiss—analyze every move and every detail, but do you ever just cry because it’s so achingly haunting in the best way? Same.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is streaming on Prime Video. What are your thoughts on Midge and Lenny’s first kiss? Let us know in the comments below.
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