‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ Star Luke Kirby on Lenny Bruce’s Ending

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 5, Episode 9 “Four Minutes.”]

The curtain has closed on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and its version of Lenny Bruce played by the charismatic Luke Kirby.

Compared to previous seasons, Lenny had few moments onscreen in the final chapter, but he did resurface in the series finale episode through a few flashback sequences. For anyone familiar with Lenny’s real-life history, the comedian never made it beyond the year 1966 after dying from an overdose. His dabbling with drugs was teased in Season 4 when Midge (Rachel Brosnahan) discovered various paraphernalia in their hotel bathroom, but the series doesn’t show Lenny’s demise onscreen.

(Credit: Prime Video)

“There weren’t many conversations had because it always felt like Amy [Sherman-Palladino] and Dan [Palladino] had something set,” Kirby tells TV Insider of the choice to leave viewers with Lenny still alive. The opening of the finale episode sees Susie (Alex Borstein) visit Lenny in California where he’s bombing while delivering a standup routine.

She offers to represent him and show him new opportunities, but he denies her. We learn that Susie’s pitch was put on by Midge when the manager exits the club to meet her in the alleyway outside. Opting not to see him, Midge takes her leave with Susie, presumably never seeing Lenny again. At this point, Midge has begun making it in her career, following her run at The Gordon Ford Show and Lenny’s on the decline.

As to why Lenny refuses Susie’s help, Kirby believes “what she presents to him, as appealing as it sounds, it is a fantasy to him. It just doesn’t line up with his truth. It’s like hearing someone say, ‘I invented a time machine.’ He’s not the guy to go to.” It’s a sad realization, but thankfully not the closing chapter on Lenny’s screen presence as he pops up later in the episode, sometime before Midge’s “big break.”

(Credit: Prime Video)

Enjoying a meal together in a Chinese restaurant, Midge and Lenny discuss her future, and he promises that success is around the corner. Opening fortune cookies together the pair part ways here on a positive note, and we later see Midge holding that fortune moments before taking the stage at The Gordon Ford Show where she has her big moment.

What that means in regard to their relationship is open to interpretation, but Kirby says, “I feel like they love each other. They clearly share a kind of chemistry that’s at times hot. But they also share an affection for each other’s pursuits and yearnings that are born out of crazy ideas about what it is to be a person.”

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“The fact that they have each other, I think it really feels lucky,” Kirby adds. “They’re like two trains running side by side. There’s a love there that’s equal to the love that they have for the work that they are pursuing.” Sadly, that fire began to go out for Lenny towards the end, but Kirby is glad fans didn’t have to see it go all the way out.

“It’s really important to not always remember people, how they are at the end,” Kirby says. “It keeps us hopeful and keeps us moving forward.”

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Streaming now, Prime Video