Maid on Netflix - Covering Emotional Abuse and Alcoholic Issues

Maid is a tv show on Netflix. It stars Margaret Qualley (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) as Alex, the twenty-five-year-old daughter of Paula, mother played by Andie MacDowell (Ground Hog Day), and the father played by Billy Burke (Twilight). Maid has glowing reviews and is highly relatable to many women like Alex. If you haven't seen this tv show yet then you should definitely watch it. It is binge-worthy too.

Maid - the story

Maid is the story of a twenty-five-year-old single mother, Alex who turns to house cleaning to earn a living for her and her daughter, Maddy when she escapes her partner, Sean (played by Nick Robinson), and from her emotionally abusive alcoholic relationship with him. Alex seeks help from a government worker who suggests she should file a police report on Sean but this is the tricky bit because Alex asks, 'And say what? That he didn't hit me?' It turns out that because there is no physical violence, there's not much that can be done for Alex. This is a highlighted area for many other women out there like Alex that suffers from emotional abuse.

To make it even harder for Alex, she cannot get subsidized housing without proof of a job, and without daycare, she is at a loss. In the end, to create a better life for her and her two-year-old daughter, Alex is thrust into a self-employment job of cleaning for others but she also loves writing in her diary. She goes on the run away from Sean and tries to do the best thing for her and her daughter but life throws negativity her way when Sean tries to get custody of Maddy. Sean is an alcoholic and emotionally abuses Alex but she does not realize this until one night when he becomes violent and punches the wall near her whilst their daughter is sleeping. This is enough to scare her and so she runs with her daughter in the middle of the night. She eventually seeks out her mother for help and gradually their relationship is rekindled. Of course, Alex's relationship with her father is distorted because she cannot remember much about him.

Maid is an uplifting tv series. Alex lives her life bringing up her daughter alone in the best way she can. It also has a mother-daughter relationship side to it as Alex gets closer to her and realizes that her mother has had similar problems with her own father. Alex's father tries to help her but she has a moment with meditation during a group session where her childhood memories start to evolve in her mind. She soon realizes that her father has issues from his own past alcoholic self and cannot come to terms with the things he did in the past to his daughter, Alex.

This show gives out issues that many others have suffered from. The alcoholic abuse side of it for Sean, who tries to get off the drink by going to AA is a long haul but the emotional abuse he bestows on Alex is something else in my opinion, and has nothing to do with his drinking. So, watch Maid and see what conclusion you will get to concerning Sean's past abuse and alcoholic issues. Perhaps, you will see that the alcohol made him abusive towards Alex but I think otherwise. There is no excuse for any kind of abuse whether that person is alcoholic or not.

Alcoholism is a horrible disease but becoming abusive and angry is a different matter. Perhaps, alcohol pushes the person to be abusive to the family but this is not in all cases. To be honest, it is a sore subject when a person has alcohol issues. It generally comes down to Sean's mental state with his own childhood abuse from his family but not all alcoholics have this background. Of course, there is no reason that anyone should put up with any kind of abuse or even if the partner has alcohol issues that weigh on their own life and family. My brother was an alcoholic (unfortunately, he passed away), but he never had a partner or children, and he was not abusive to anyone except to himself. Of course, alcoholism can bring on abusive language and hatred so it does make it very hard to live with an acholic. I have lived and seen what alcoholism can do to a person.

Rating

So, if Maid interests you, then you can watch it on Netflix. It is rated 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and the average audience score is 87%. I rate it 10 out of 10.

Also published on Medium.com