On 50 States of Fright, Rachel Brosnahan appears on a three-episode arc called "The Golden Arm," set in Michigan. Directed by Sam Raimi and written alongside his brother Ivan, "The Golden Arm" tells the story of Heather, a woman unwilling to let go of a very important part of herself: her golden arm.
Based on a classic folktake — also called "The Golden Arm," which was made famous by authors like Mark Twain and tells listeners to respect the dead and control their greed — the story focuses on Heather, a vain young woman who plunges her loving husband (Vikings' Travis Fimmel) into debt by requesting a custom golden arm after she loses her real arm in a horrible accident. However, Heather faces a unique problem when she discovers that her arm is making her sick. As her doctor tells her, she has "pulmonary gold disease" and she'll only live if she removes the arm entirely, something Heather is unwilling to do. Ultimately, Heather chooses to die, and commands her husband to bury her with her beloved golden arm as she passes away. Following her death, Heather's husband steals the arm from his wife's grave to help pay his bills, and is then haunted — and murdered! — by Heather's angry ghost, who reminds him of his promise. (Serves him right, don't you think?)
Despite the roles being vastly different in terms of characterization and the general tone of the projects on which they appear, there's a common ground between The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel's Midge and 50 States of Fright's Heather: There's a certain sort of sparkling charm about them, which Brosnahan captures with ease, and as she does on Mrs. Maisel, Brosnahan fully commits to the role, bringing depth to the entire story.
