REVIEW: The Mixed Messages of “Maid”—New Netflix Series Addresses Domestic Abuse, Poverty, and Social Work

by SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD

Content Warning: Domestic Violence

(Please note: In the first part of this review, I will discuss numerous strengths of the series through non-specific framing, with no spoilers. In the second half, I will address unsettling inaccuracies in its presentation of the realities of domestic violence. This segment will be introduced with the words: SPOILER ALERT.)

     Maid, a Netflix series gaining enormous acclaim, offers a superb starting point—for social workers, practitioners, and the general public—for necessary, authentic examination of domestic abuse and violence. The engrossing drama is a fictionalized account of the suffering, grit, and determination of a young mother, Alex, played by the multi-talented Margaret Qualley, and supported by a skilled supporting cast. The opening scene highlights Alex’s dangerous middle-of-the-night escape from an abusive relationship, clutching her 3-year-old daughter, Maddy, played by the endearing Rylea Nevaeh Whittet in her first film. Alex has $18.00 to her name, a battered car, and a future devoid of secure love and safety.

     Maid is one story. However, as social workers, we know that people of all ages, races, genders, and range of socioeconomic opportunity experience the brutality and ravages of domestic violence.

     Created by gifted writer Molly Smith Metzler (whose credits include Orange Is the New Black and Shameless), the script was inspired by author Stephanie Land’s best-selling memoir, Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive, a true depiction of an escape from torment and the ability to survive by becoming a maid. (See The New Social Worker’s book review of Land’s real-life memoir.)

     Newly released and broadly viewed, the 10-segment Netflix mini-series offers testimony that well-acted drama educates and informs. By showing a mom and daughter viewers care about and relate to, the series’ focus is domestic violence intensified by poverty, untrustworthy parenting—and what clients with no resources face in an endlessly flawed, contradictory, grossly inadequate, and impersonal, bureaucratic system. This portrayal offers viewers insight into the pain and fear of those abused, as well as the maddening administrative quagmire of the so-called “helping system.”

     Through this exposure, the series introduces viewers to rarely depicted truths about our professional responsibilities, frustrations, and overload—all that makes us heart and soul sick—and why social work has been called “an impossible profession,” where burnout is ever in the wings: We see endless pain, suffering, and the impact of grave inequities and prejudice. We are surrounded by people in powerful positions and their enablers, who refuse to provide a path of hope and promise to society’s most vulnerable children and families, our clients. When asked by those who care about us how our day has been, we do not have words to respond. Who, other than other social workers, can really understand? We do not want to burden anyone, so with regularity, we change the subject.

     Viewers meet Alex’s first “social services” worker, with a seemingly cold exterior—a defense we understand all too well. It is born of facing countless who are impoverished seeking hope and help through an inadequate, contradictory system that cruelly withholds sustaining resources. Desperate and homeless, Alex is offered a filthy, perilous undertaking, but one that can finally lead to housing.

     We experience Alex’s deep shame as she imagines (incorrectly) what the social worker thinks of her. We experience her terror about providing necessary medical care when Maddy is ill. We feel the impact of meager funding to provide food. We root for her as she fights shame and exhaustion, and we are humbled by her as she faces necessary work, even when it sickens her, and withstands nasty treatment by her co-worker and employer (the talented Tracy Vilar).

     We delight in her sense of humor, and are grateful when she experiences kindness and sees the beauty of love. Although Alex’s shelter director, Denise (BJ Harrison), is not identified as a social worker, her social work skills abound. We watch as Alex learns that although she has never been hit, emotional abuse is domestic abuse. With Denise’s professional skill and devotion, Alex receives free legal guidance and prepares for a custody court case with all stakes against her.

SPOILER ALERT (The remainder of this review reveals key plot details.)

     Despite the strengths stated above, my head reeled watching Maid. Although mesmerizing in script and its depiction, the series presents an unrealistic portrayal of the brutal, life-threatening epidemic of domestic violence, where “72% of all murder-suicides involve an intimate partner; 94% of the victims of these murder suicides are female,” according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV).  Further, of the 1 in 15 children exposed to this travesty, 90% are eye witnesses.

     I appreciate that viewers will be appalled by the vivid trauma seen in Maid and uplifted by its resolve. And surely, I well know that those imprisoned by domestic violators can set themselves free. I write to emphasize, however, that as professionals in discussing this series, we have the responsibility to draw attention to realistic data, experience, and expectation.

     Alex’s self-destructive decisions, though painful to view, are far less than those of Paula, Alex’s bipolar mom, played by the stunning Andie MacDowell, Qualley’s mother in real life. (In certain shots, their resemblance is uncanny.) Alex is devoted to Paula, an artist who sees her mania as free spirit and refuses medication.

     There are various script flaws in the depiction of Paula, whose abuse by Alex’s estranged dad, Hank (Billy Burke), traumatized the young Alex. We learn that after Paula left him when Alex was young, she continued to be used and manipulated by dishonest, disreputable men. Yet, she has stayed free of physical disease—a nearly impossible feat—and her beauty remains intact.

     Although Paula has brief bursts of affection for her daughter and granddaughter, her paranoia overtakes her. She lashes out cruelly at Alex, and any sustained contact is impossible. To heal from parental abuse and rejection—to no longer fear standing alone, to no longer believe that abuse offers “something, someone, rather than the hell of nothing, no one” (a depiction my clients repeat again and again), Alex will need far more than the time-limited support and insights of a highly competent, devoted social worker and a few group therapy sessions. 

     Further, Sean (Nick Robinson) is an unrealistic example of a violent perpetrator. Typically, an inability to control rage results in threats that a partner’s determination to leave will result in grave physical impairment or death. Or the rage is displaced, as is the case of a client’s former husband, who did not stop sending me messages that he planned to “cut me up in little pieces and feed me to his dogs” until police stepped in.  

     Sean is different. Yes, we see his capacity for cruelty and the harm he can inflict. Yet, Sean also has true (not contrived) insight into reasons for this abuse, and both the capacity for kindness and for love. This core is real, not a manipulation to seduce and con.  A moving indicator, which appears more script than real life—Sean experiences Maddy’s reliance on Alex as the primary parent, relinquishes his custody fight, gives full custody to Alex, and supports their leaving the area for Alex to take advantage of a full college scholarship. He promises to visit. With therapy, coupled with regular AA meetings, Sean can heal, recover, and keep this promise.

     Offering her beloved Maddy safety and security is Alex’s life force, a force that so many moms share. But most little ones who have experienced abusive homes have suffered to such an extent that they understandably are not as trusting and giving as Maddy. And sadly, many children suffer from physical illness (as we see when Maddy becomes ill from unhealthy conditions in the transitional housing where she and Alex live) and emotional difficulties that further deplete their moms.

          My primary fears about this popular, engrossing series--with a feel-good resolve--rest with the power of extraordinary drama, when misleading. I fear that funding resources will expect all who suffer abuse to free themselves in the relatively short period evidenced by Alex, will judge harshly when they cannot, and subsequently will not appreciate and support the necessity for generous, long-term financial support for shelters and professional services for families in dire need. There is another fear--that those enduring abuse and violence will watch this series and believe that, like Sean, their violators will keep their ongoing promises and change. They will not. 

SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD, whose private and pro bono clinical social work practice is in Philadelphia, is a certified group psychotherapist and family life educator. Edition 2 of her book, Burnout and Self-Care in Social Work (which introduces the concept of societal burnout, first discussed in these pages), will be available in early November 2021. SaraKay is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award (2004) and the Social Worker of the Year (2018) from the Pennsylvania chapter of NASW, and the 2013 NASW Media Award for Best Article. In 2018, she was one of five graduates of the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice selected for the school’s inaugural Hall of Fame.

UPDATED 10/19/21