Series / Maid

Maid is a Netflix miniseries created by Molly Smith Metzler and inspired by the memoir Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive.

It follows a Struggling Single Mother named Alex (Margaret Qualley), as she escapes an abusive relationship with her toddler-aged daughter, Maddy. It also explores Alex's unstable relationship with her mentally ill mother, Paula (Andie MacDowell), and her struggles to make ends meet by cleaning houses.

The show premiered on Netflix on October 1, 2021.

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This series provides examples of:

• Adorably Precocious Child: 3-year-old Maddy is this in spades and provides some comedic relief.
• The Alcoholic: Substance abuse underlays most of the worst behavior in the show.
  • Sean (Alex's boyfriend) is one.
  • Hank (Alex's father) is a recovered alcoholic.
  • It's mentioned that Sean's mother was also one (likely why he ended up as one as well).
• Ambiguous Situation: In the finale, does Paula choose to stay with her new boyfriend because she's a basket case with no hope, or does she realize how toxic she is for her daughter and staying to ensure Alex can be happy without her instability messing things up for her?
• Belated Love Epiphany: Paula says her sort-of-boyfriend who was still entangled with his ex became willing to commit to her after she told he she was about to leave town.
  Paula: Isn't it funny how these things work out? I mean, as soon as I told Micah I was leaving, he realized he had feelings for me. I mean, baby, it was, "Boom!" And he told Alaina-May about me and everything.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Zigzagged with Alex's dad. His commitment to his sobriety and his desire to help Alex and Sean with their issues are sincere but it's also shown he is still in denial about how abusive he was to Alex's mother, blaming his alcoholism, and he hasn't yet fully come to terms with how his behavior affected her as a child. He has a Commonality Connection with Sean as they're both alcoholics trying to be sober, and as a result he's overall more sympathetic to Sean than his own daughter.
• Blah, Blah, Blah: When she's first in court, Alex's incomprehension while the judge and Sean's lawyer spout legalese is rendered as just "Legal, legal, legal, legal" amid their understandable words.
• Broken Bird: When Alex returns to Sean and realizes she's returned to the same abusive situation she desperately escaped from, she becomes this and basically has her spirit totally broken. It's only when she realizes she has her daughter to think about that she finally snaps out of it.
• Catch-22 Dilemma
  Alex: I can't get a job if I can't afford day care.
  Social worker: Well, we have access to subsidized day care grants once you have a job.
  Alex: I need a job to prove that I need day care in order to get a job? What kind of fuckery is that?
• Commonality Connection: Sean meets Alex's father Hank at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and they bond. It's implied Hank sees a younger version of himself in Sean. He takes the younger man under his wing. When Sean stops attending meetings, Hank comes by to check on him and tries to get him back on the wagon. When Sean is struggling with his sobriety due to his work as a bartender, Hank helps find him a carpentry apprenticeship. Hanks wants to support both Sean and Alex, but he has more a father relationship with Sean than with his own estranged daughter. When asked to side with one of them over the other, he picks Sean.
• Consummate Liar: Alex becomes quite good at lying about her job and professional experience in order to qualify for jobs or specific housing in order to earn better money or to simply find a good place to live. Although that's not to say she won't do her best in order to make up for it.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Alex and Sean are broken up from the opening scene of the series, but it's still recent and they're still entangled in each other's lives. Sean wants to get back together, and gets jealous when believing Alex is sleeping with Nate. He gets drunk during Maddy's birthday party and causing a huge scene about it. Sean himself is not not chastely waiting for them to get back together, casually hooking up with his co-worker Stella in the meantime.
• Creepy Twins: Alex's father has twins in his second marriage. Alex thinks they're creepy.
  Alex: I'm bunking with the twins from The Shining.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Alex recalls witnessing her mother being abused as a little girl by her father. In one instance, she hid in a cupboard and secretly watched as her mother was beaten. When Alex goes back to Sean and the abuse restarts (and Maddy parallels a moment Alex remembers having with her own mother following a beating), Alex realizes how Maddy's living the traumatic childhood she herself did. It triggers her Mama Bear instincts to leave yet again to ensure her daughter has something better.
• Didn't Think This Through: Given she was forced to leave in the middle of the night with no real plan and the clothes on her back, Alex finds herself essentially winging many of her next steps as she's forced to adapt to the new unstable life she's been thrown in after leaving her abusive boyfriend along with her very young daughter.
• Domestic Abuse:
  • Played with in Alex and Sean's relationship. Alex begins with the viewpoint that the threshold for abuse is hitting your partner (probably because that's where Paula drew the line). Sean never laid a hand on either Alex or Maddy. Alex questions if she should stay at a domestic violence shelter because "I'd really hate to take a bed from somebody's that been abused for real." The DV shelter is happy to aid her because they consider Sean's behavior abuse. The court system does not consider it abuse, and making a legal case proves hard.
    Howie: Emotional abuse is tricky. Legally, it's not classified as domestic abuse in this state.
    Alex: All right so I'm in a DV shelter, and the DV shelter says emotional abuse is domestic violence. But the court says that it's not?
    Howie: Correct.
    • Sean's physical aggression frights Alex to the point where she leaves him over it. He's an alcoholic who has violent drinking-fueled fits that involve him throwing things at Alex and punching holes in the wall (sometimes next to her head). She leaves after he threw an item that left her picking broken glass out of Maddy's hair. In the world of DV support, this kind of violent and intimating behavior is understood as a common prelude to physical abuse. In the legal system, however, Sean can only be charged for what he's actually done, not what it's suspected he may do in the future.
      Danielle: Punching a wall next to you is emotional abuse. Before they bite, they bark. Before they hit you, they hit near you. Next time it was gonna be your face, and you know that.
    • Sean has a pattern of control issues. Earlier in their relationship he took away her ATM card. When Alex returns to Sean, he makes her dependent on him by taking away her borrowed car in a fit of jealous rage, stranding her at their slightly-remote trailer. When Alex's phone runs out of minutes, Sean suggests they turn off her phone and share his. He frames that one in financial terms, and it is true that money is very tight and this would be a way to save, but given his track record it looks controlling as well.
      Alex: I was opening a bank account because I don't have one, because Sean took my ATM card when I didn't pay the electric bill and said he would handle all money.
      Paula: Honey, Sean's good with money, and you're like me, shitty with it.
      Alex: Or, I was isolated in a trailer for two years without any access to money, and that's financial abuse, which is a form of emotional abuse.
      Paula: [...] I'm obviously supporting you here, but can I name 450 things that men have done to me that are worse than balancing a checkbook? Yes, I can!
  • Hank was an alcoholic and would beat Paula during his alcohol-induced episodes. Paula left him because of that. Seeing her mother abused and battered stayed with Alex as she grew older, traumatized at seeing her mother horrifically beaten.
• Double Standard: Both Alex and Sean's mothers were subpar parents. They're not either Alex or Sean's first choice of people to watch Maddy — but as newly single parents, childcare is hard to come by, and their moms are basically the only people who are willing to watch Maddy for free. Alex and Sean both view their own mom watching Maddy as less-than-ideal but acceptable, but the other grandma watching her as worse.
  • Sean on Alex's mom Paula watching Maddy:
    Sean: I'm surprised Maddy was at your mom's. Is Paula finally on meds, or... ? […] You know how much I love Paula, I do, but... leaving Maddy with her? I thought we had an agreement. […] She was alone when I got there. Playing with a vape and watching a cage match on TV.
  • Alex on Sean's mom Doreen watching Maddy:
    Alex: Are you kidding me, Sean? What if she got sick? What if she got hurt? What if she needed to go to the ER?
    Sean: My mom would take her.
    Alex: Your mom that spent half your childhood addicted to Oxy? That's taking care of our daughter?
    Sean: My mom's sober.
• Dysfunctional Family: Alex's mother is mentally unstable and goes through a long string of boyfriends. Her father is a recovered alcoholic, who's eager to provide material support for his daughter and granddaughter, but who sides with her abusive ex given they both dealt with alcoholism. While Alex loves her parents, even trying to take her mom with her to Montana, she eventually decides that leaving them behind is for the best.
• Eccentric Artist: Paula's eccentricities initially come across as her being just being New Age-y, and kinda a Cloudcuckoolander. With time, it becomes increasingly clear she's quite unstable and bipolar. She loves creating art and various crafts, having a strange yet unique talent in it.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After going through much trauma and struggling, the story ends as Alex finally gets to leave for Montana to restart her life, along with her daughter, and is set to attend university to study writing. We last see Alex exploring the landscapes of Montana, showing Maddy various flowers and insects. While she does say she's going to keep housekeeping and cleaning to make ends meet, she's finally at peace with her life and happy.
• Faith–Heel Turn: Finding God appears to have played a significant role in Hank getting sober. He seems to be a pretty good husband and father to his new family, and he's involved in AA. It's not perfect — he won't own up to his past. But it's not fully deconstructed either, as he's not continuing his old behavior and really does appear to have turned his life around.
• Flashback: There are numerous flashbacks that reveal how Alex met Sean, her life prior to Maddy, and how she ended up in the situation we see her in during the show.
• Foreshadowing: Early in the show, Alex finds out her newly made friend at the shelter, Danielle, has returned to the husband who tried to strangle her — and that she'd been at the shelter and gone back to him several times already. Denise says most battered women take up to seven times to leave their abuser for good. Alex is aghast and can't imagine why someone would return. Alex eventually returns to Sean herself, because he offers her a place to live after all her other housing falls through, and he's trying to get sober and get a new job to better himself. After she leaves a second time, she looks around the shelter in a haze, at a loss for how she ended up in this situation twice.
• Go-Getter Girl / The Determinator: Alex is this in order to make it on her own and to find a way to survive on her own and provide a good life for her daughter.
• Hidden Depths:
  • At first, Regina appears to just be a Rich Bitch. Eventually, however, she and Alex grow close enough to where Regina opens up about certain issues she's dealing with and even gives sincere life advice to Alex based on her experiences.
  • Sean is surprisingly good at handling Paula.
• Horrible Housing: Maddy gets sick from a black mold infestation while staying at the subsidized housing and Alex is also wary of the fact that it's a halfway house for newly released criminals.
• Interclass Friendship: Alex and Regina eventually form a close friendship, with Regina even using her connections to get Alex a lawyer to help her custody lawsuit with Sean. Alex later thanks Regina before leaving for Montana, saying she could have never gotten where she is without her help.
• It's All About Me: Comparatively mild, but Alex and Sean both get pretty bent out of shape when the other can't take care of Maddy when they have work. They both need to work full time, and they're both perpetually confused and angered that the other person works full-time too.
• Jerkass: Alex's mother, complete with spending her entire time talking about herself and even dropping Maddy off with Sean despite knowing why Alex left him because she wanted time for herself. She even encourages her daughter to go back to Sean, saying she can't "leave a good man when he's trying" despite the fact that Sean is more than a little like the men she herself left due to abuse. Early in the show, she also (albeit possibly during a manic episode) nonsensically starts accusing Alex of flirting with her current boyfriend when nothing Alex has done suggested this.
• Jerkass Realization: During Sean's supervised visit, he's experiencing withdrawal symptoms. He has a Wake-Up Call that if he were Maddy's guardian right now, he would end up recreating his own childhood with his addict mother. He doesn't want that for his kid, so he allows Alex to have full custody of Maddy.
  Sean: I haven't had a drink in 24 hours. I was trying to be straight for Maddy. And, uh... just, I'm irritable. My skin fucking crawls. The sun hurts. I'm just rubbed raw. [beat] And I was pushing Maddy on the swings and she kept saying, "Higher, Daddy, higher!" And it was nice. She was giggling. [beat] But even then, I was still planning my next fucking drink. I was trying to find some... relief. And she had the tantrum, and I knew that if Paula wasn't there, I would have found a drink with Maddy in tow. [beat] Just like my fucking mom. [beat] I don't wanna do that to Maddy. [beat] I'm signing over full custody to you.
• Lazy Alias: Alex and Danielle check out Regina's house at an open house under the names Taylor Swiftmen and Yasmina Jade Skye (the name another woman at their shelter is using). They're also pretending to be married.
• Left the Background Music On: During Alex's first hoarder clean, the song "Send Me On My Way" starts playing during her Hard-Work Montage. Then the woman who hires her come in to talk, and the music cuts off so they can talk. When the conversation ends, she turns the music back on, diegetically this time.
  [music stops, seemingly non-diegetically]
  Penny: You have to stop. That's time. I can't pay you for more hours.
  Alex: Don't worry about it.
  Penny: No. That's not right.
  Alex: Honestly, I'm weirdly in it now, so I got summit fever. [beat] Hit it, Stu.
  [Stu turns the stereo on and the song resumes]
• Lives in a Van: Paula is revealed to be doing this late in the show, but refuses to be pitied by Alex for it. She says she likes her lifestyle and prefers being "independent".
• The Loins Sleep Tonight: Sean desperately tries to tell Alex a story of being unable to get an erection with another woman. He clearly views this as a touching story of Single-Target Sexuality and his abiding love for Alex. The fact that he's naked and drunk and making a a scene in front or Alex's landlords, getting her kicked out, negates any sentimental value this story had.
• Mama Bear: While Alex may have many issues to deal with, she absolutely loves her daughter, and the desire to give her a good life is what drives her to do better. The reason she finally worked up the nerve to leave Sean at all was because his last violent fit left her picking broken glass out of her daughter's hair. When she realizes Maddy was taking note of the abuse upon returning back to Sean, Alex is horrified and leaves yet again, vowing to not return.
• Most Writers Are Writers: Alex is an aspiring writer and scored a university scholarship to further excel in it before she became pregnant.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Late in the series, Alex has this moment when she returns to Sean, believing he had changed for the better, only to realize he was still the same person and she's ended up in the exact same situation she started out in prior to her first leaving. As she horrifically realizes what she's done, she drops to the floor and scolds herself saying, "I'm so stupid. I'm so stupid!" over and over again.
• Never My Fault: Alex's father Hank has gotten sober and turned his life around since she was a child. He has a new family now, and he seems to be a pretty good man to them. However, the sticking point is that he seems unable or unwilling to own up to what he did in the past.
  Hank: [Sean's] an alcoholic, okay? He's got a disease that turns him into a monster. But it's the booze that's the enemy, it's not him.
  Alex: Okay, is it the booze that hit Mom, then? [...]
  Hank: What do you want me to say, Alex? What do you want me to say?
  Alex: I want you to say, "Yes." I want you to say, "Yes, I did hit Mom. I'm sorry."
  Hank: I don't remember that.
• Nice Girl: Despite all she gets put through, Alex is a kind, good-natured person. She even keeps cleaning a hoarder's massive pile of junk after she couldn't pay anymore.
• No Sympathy:
  • Despite Alex's difficult situation, she comes across many people who don't care about her being a Struggling Single Mother. In one instance, she's forced to do a cleaning job on her own when her scheduled cleaning through a small agency cancels, as she needs the money to keep Maddy in a daycare. Given her boss told her she was to never take a personal cleaning job that served no benefit to her business (and she actually harmed the business by stealing a job under-the-table that would have exceeded her hourly limit), Alex is instantly fired when said boss finds out. The boss is dismissive of her reason to do it (to keep her daughter in daycare after the originally scheduled job canceled), saying she doesn't care.
  • Possibly even worse, several of Alex's own friends and family are angry with her for choosing to leave Sean, believing his abusive actions are just him "drinking too much" and tell her she's overreacting or that Alex shouldn't leave as he's struggling with addiction and lay a guilt trip on her. Even after Alex makes it clear the danger staying with him proves to be for her and her daughter, people still view Sean as the victim and make Alex out to be the bad guy for leaving and taking his daughter away despite her valid reasoning.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Alex is only rarely called by her full name, Alexandra, when her parents do it.
• Parents as People: Besides seeing Alex as a mother to her daughter, we also see Alex as her own person; the life she had before Maddy, her desire to become a writer, her dating life, and her childhood.
• Perpetual Poverty: A major theme of the series is how difficult it is for people to get out of difficult financial situations due to the cost of living compared to low wages, limitations on payment or benefits by bosses, the expenses accumulated by unavoidable things like travel and and how a single emergency or instance of bad luck can wipe out weeks or even months worth of savings or work established.
• Pet the Dog: Paula falls through a lot, but in episode 3 she comes by Alex's new apartment while she's out and paints a beautiful mural on the wall of Maddy's new bedroom.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In episode 9, Alex finally works up the nerve to leave Sean yet again when she makes the mistake of returning to him, taking Maddy with her. After deciding to face Sean down in court in order to get full custody, she plainly tells him that he abused her, she's dealing with trauma because of it, and she's decided to never let him control her ever again.
• Rich Bitch: Alex's first client Regina starts as one, even assuming the worst of Alex due to her being low-class and refusing to pay Alex for her first job because she left streaks on some of her kitchenware. Eventually, however, she begins to show a kinder side as the show goes on.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Alex realizes she's suffering from PTSD due not only to her ex-boyfriend Sean emotionally abusing her, but also her own father abusing her mother during her childhood. Seeing her daughter hiding as she once did when Sean's abusive toward her convinces Alex that they have to be out of that situation permanently, or else Maddy might suffer the same mental trauma.
• Ship Tease: There's some between Nate and Alex, especially when he briefly takes them in and Alex starts fantasizing about him. Nothing comes of it, though, as Alex wants to avoid a romantic relationship, especially one with a power imbalance.
• Struggling Single Mother: What Alex is and the plot of the series, so much so that it's the page image for the trope. Alex struggles to get by with even the most basic necessities to take care of herself and her 3-year-old daughter.
• Taking the Kids:
  • The series opens with Alex sneaking out in the dead of night with her daughter Maddy after her boyfriend had an alcohol-induced fit of rage that left broken glass in Maddy's hair.
  • How Sean gets Alex to stay when she wants to move to Montana and take Maddy with her. He sues her for custody of their daughter, threatening to take her away, forcing Alex to fight him for custody.
• Trash of the Titans: Alex builds up enough money by specializing in helping hoarders clear out truly staggering amounts of junk accumulated from years worth of storing various items and trying to clean it all out.
  Penny: I'm a member of an online support group for hoarders. We have a hard time keeping cleaning ladies. Maybe I could recommend you?
• Troubled Abuser: None of the abusers in this story are two-dimensional Hate Sinks. They're real people with their own struggles, and addiction and mental illness underpin many of the worst behaviors.
  • Sean is an alcoholic from a rough childhood, trying to stay sober while working exhausting nighttime shifts at a bar.
  • Hank was an alcoholic when he abused Paula. He also implies that Paula's bipolar behavior was really hard to deal with and propelled him further into it.
  • Paula's erratic behavior often endangers Alex and Maddy — and endangers herself even more.
• Truth in Television:
  • A major factor for its positive reception was its realistic portrayal of the government and financial assistance system for low-income families and the struggle in gaining needed benefits (worthwhile benefits at that). Alex has to learn to jump through hoops and obstacles to qualify for subsidized housing and financial assistance after leaving Sean (such as paying for bills and food), handle legal requirements during her custody case for Maddy, and struggles to make it on her own with very few resources and qualifications on her side.
  • It was also praised for portraying how, while Alex's situation with Sean is considered domestic violence, the legal system doesn't view Sean's actions as domestic violence because he never physically hit her. Also considering she never filed a police report, it's stated that legally proving domestic violence in a situation where physical abuse didn't take place is very hard as many don't consider Alex's situation as "real" abuse. In fact, the court considers Alex's actions as wrong and that her taking Maddy away from Sean was her victimizing him.
    Commissioner: Ms. Russell, did you file a police report on the night you left?
    Alex: [Beat] No.
    Commissioner: Do you have third-party witnesses to confirm this allegation?
    Alex: [beat] No.
    Commissioner: Have you ever filed a police report at any time documenting the domestic abuse of Mr. Boyd?
    Alex: [beat] No.
• Turning Into Your Parent:
  • Alex finds out that her mother, like her, got with an alcoholic guy, had a kid with him, and then fled because of domestic violence.
  • Not extrapolated upon, but there's references to the idea that Sean's mother before him was an addict.
• Unequal Pairing: Nate and Alex like each other, and they're both single parents of toddlers so their lives could potentially fit together pretty well. But their financial circumstances are vastly different. Nate wants to help Alex and he also wants to date her. Alex won't date him because that would be "light prostitution." This is a comparatively favorable situation—Nate is kind, quite deferential to her, and willing to give her things without getting anything in return—but even so, even just the idea that's he controls the purse strings would seriously skew the relationship.
  Alex: [to Nate] You feed me, house me, board me, hot-water me. You are the only difference between us sleeping in a bed and sleeping on the street tonight. [beat] Yeah, I just don't know how I could go to dinner with you and sit across the table from you and share an appetizer, because it's not equal between us.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Non-death example. Early on, Danielle and Alex befriend each other at the shelter and become close. Danielle even lends Alex some clothes for her custody hearing and cheers her up when Sean gets one-week custody over Maddy (saying how one week is nothing compared to months other moms have faced). For a while, it looks like Danielle and Alex will end up as best friends. However, Danielle suddenly vanishes and Alex learns she returned to her ex as per habit at that point. Alex later runs into Danielle and asks how she's doing, but Danielle pretends not to know her.
• Wham Line: When Alex confronts her father about his past and beating her mother, he blames his former abusive behavior on his former alcoholism. She bluntly asks, "Was it the booze that hit Mom?"

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