I’m not gonna get too deep into a discussion about cheating because there’s no way to tackle the whole of human relationships and experiences, and what “discourse” exists is pretty un-nuanced: cheaters are the worst and they can fuck off while the cheatee deals with long-lasting trust issues.
Pretty decent generalization for monogamous relationships, although it is very much for the perspective of the person who was cheated on. What don’t really know what happens to the cheater, not do we usually care. They fucked off. They are an archetype whose purpose is to spur growth in the cheatee.
So, let’s talk about Joel Maisel. The silver spoon-fed boy. The insecure coward. The self-flagellating cheater. The man who did not fuck off.
This post is obviously Joel-centric but it’s really about our general attitude towards cheaters in films/shows (and maybe real-life?). I guess I’m just tired of people writing off cheaters so broadly that they’re entire identity is erased.
Let’s get this this out of the way: We know what he did before/during season 1 was wrong, and he lied about a bunch of important things and blah blah blah he sucked. Joel betrayed his wife. He threw their whole life into chaos not only because he lied, but because he let his insecurities consume him.
If you’re not into Joel it’s completely fair to dislike his scenes, but I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss him as trash forever because of his past behavior, including his cheating. I still see people really hating on him for that, and it’s fine, it’s just my personal take that characters should be allowed to bounce back from transgressions like cheating.
I’m interested in Joel’s trajectory because when it comes to “redeeming” himself, Joel doesn’t know what the fuck to do and it’s kind of fascinating. (I love it when people have no idea what to do cause like, it me.) In season 1 he tried to lean into it and stay with Penny, but he wasn’t happy. He could’ve been, but he chose not to because he was still so, SO indecisive. He still wore his wedding ring!
It is clear that he wanted Midge and their old life, but he couldn’t have them because the one thing he stuck by is his own fragility. Season 2 begins with him rejecting Midge because he knows he couldn’t take her comedy. That’s kind of revelatory because he has the self-awareness to know what he can handle in a relationship.
Joel set up boundaries that he doesn’t want to cross in a relationship, which is healthy. And I think by season 3 he’s been good at managing his issue… So much so that he tries to stop his best friend from going down the same road. This is for a couple of reasons, but the point is that there is some kind of quiet redemption going on for Joel and it’s largely internal. I don’t think redemption in his case involves some grand epiphany or gesture.
That stems the question of what redemption looks like for a cheater, narratively or in real life. Redemption in stories usually involves Fighting for Justice or Bouncing Back from Failure, but when it comes to intimate, complex human relationships (with the added layer of marriage), growth is often invisible and sometimes imperceptible to outsiders. Frankly, esp. in real life, they don’t owe us outsiders “proof” of such growth.
It’s probably really difficult to start a story with a cheater and have him not go away. I feel like most shows/movies we watch featuring cheaters are usually from the POV of the cheatee, and the best outcomes between the two are either that the cheater fucks off forever, or, they make peace with each other and then the cheater fucks off (both valid, by the way). So watching Joel Maisel exist and try to come back from his truly ugly transgressions is pretty compelling to me. There’s not one way to redeem someone like that, and frankly as the audience, it’s understandable that we don’t always know how to feel about such a character.
You know who else has no guidance? Joel. Like, there’s no blueprint on how to come back from that, or how to atone, or who you owe.
This is all to say that yes, it does still feel a little weird for me to reblog/post about Joel Maisel and tag it with stuff like “#boi LOVES her” and “#he precious!” because his cheating and lying ‘taints’ him. Like it’s hard to straight-up “stan” him. But I really don’t think he should be forever hated for it.
I’m posting this because there are a lot of cheaters on-screen but usually singular, broad ways of looking at them. Because the stories usually aren’t about them, we don’t see their interiority. I argue that Maisel gives us a great opportunity so dive into another viewpoint regarding someone who’s cheated. It reminds us that humans can turn around shitty behaviors, and that life really does go on for both people in a broken relationship.
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