The Maid Netflix series is a short 10 episode Tv show based on the book Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive; by Stephanie Land. Since its release on October 1, 2021 has been watched by 67M households on Netflix. 

It stars Margaret Qualley as the main character Alex and Nick Robinson as her emotionally and borderline physically abusive boyfriend and father of her child. Gaffney’s own, Andie MacDowell, plays Alex’s bipolar unmedicated free soul mother.

The show starts off with Alex waking up and quietly moving around while someone sleeps next to her. She grabs her daughter and gets in a car and we see the sleeping person step out and yell at them. We later find out that the person is Alex’s ex-boyfriend and the father of her daughter Maddie who’s name is Sean.

Sean has a bad drinking problem and on top of that works as a bartender. While drunk he gets aggressive and has a bad controlling problem where he doesn’t let Alex control her finances or have a life outside of raising their daughter.

The show portrays Alex navigating the social services and the law as she deals with her ex. She becomes a maid to hopefully make money and this job is nothing like she expected. After having money trouble she decides to go back to Sean and he progresses past just emotionally abusive, he starts trying to harm her and also does not allow her to leave at all. She does not have a phone and cannot talk to anyone unless Sean approves. She sinks into a dark depressive hole until she is finally able to escape him again.

After escaping Alex accepts a scholarship to go to school for art and her and Sean starts a legal battle with her for custody of Maddie so that Alex cant leave and go to school unless Maddy stays with him.

The show ends with Alex accepting the scholarship and hopefully moving there with her mom and Sean agreeing to let her take Maddie so he can work on his alcohol problems and get better.

In all honesty, no writing or summary regardless of how long could do this show justice. It is one of the best shows I probably have ever watched. It captured the rawness of dealing with abusive people and social services. Every single obstacle that Alex overcame or succumb to felt so real. The show gave a great glimpse into it and both Qualley and Robinson portrayed their characters perfectly. Their on screen performance was so heart wrenching I thought of it for days afterwards. MacDowell showed such a great display of beauty and pain in her characters personality and mental illness and the shows display of her relationship with her daughter and the men she fell in love with was such a great portrayal and seemed so real.

I would recommend this show to anyone and everyone! I hope to see more of this, but regardless if their is a second season or not this was a wonderfully written show and watching it is like no other!