Midge Maisel and Susie Myerson have weathered their share of ups and downs through The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel‘s five seasons, but nothing could prepare us for the lowdown, nasty tussle the BFFs found themselves involved in this week.
And we weren’t the only ones thrown for a loop.
Speaking to TVLine about the events of Season 5’s sixth episode, which dropped Friday on Amazon, the characters’ portrayers, Rachel Brosnahan and Alex Borstein, admit their synagogue-set showdown — triggered by Midge’s discovery that manager Susie sold her No. 1 client out to the mob — caught them off guard, too.
“It was tough… It kind of snuck up on us,” Borstein concedes in the above video. “It was jarring. The fight was vicious. And it was cutting. And [we were] learning [in real-time] just how badly Susie betrayed Midge. [We’re] learning it as [we’re] getting that script.
“This was not a good color for Susie,” Borstein adds. “She really lied to her partner… [She] betrayed her.”
Adds Brosnahan: “It was the ultimate betrayal — and by the two people that Midge trusts and loves the most in her life. Joel betrayed her, too. The whole thing just comes crashing down.”
Midge leveled a particularly brutal blow when, at the end of the fight, she dismissed Susie as being metaphorically small. Borstein notes that the pointed barb “is a throwback to what Susie first said to Midge in the pilot. Susie says, ‘I don’t mind being alone, I just don’t want to be insignificant.’ And what [Midge] says to Susie [in Episode 6] is, ‘You’re small.” It’s really powerful and vicious and, I think, well-deserved in the moment.”
Midge took some hits, too. In fact, Borstein playfully concedes that Susie calling Midge a certain C-word sparked extreme joy in her. “I’ll always remember it,” she says with a smile. “When people [ask me], ‘What’s your favorite line?’ I have to pretend it’s something else. But it’s really that.”
Watch Brosnahan and Borstein break down Episode 6’s big face-off in the video Q&A above, and then hit the comments with your reaction to the epic kerfuffle.
This story originally appeared on TVLine
