String Cheese
Episode 7 of Maid Season 1 begins with Alex’s downward spiral continuing. She shows up for work but her client isn’t there. Unfortunately the only other job is a 5 hour gig and that will put her allotted hours over the 30 threshold. So to get around this, Alex shows up at 19 Glastonbury (the house she’s scheduled to clean in the afternoon) and offers to do the gig in person for cash – if she cancels the gig with Value Maids. When it comes to problems, Paula’s are mounting up. Without her RV, no forms of identification and a reckless ignorance that Basil will come back, she’s not able to get her house back. The same house that Basil has been renting out. It’s now clear that Basil is a scam artist, something that was foreshadowed by his shaky Australian accent. Anyway, the marriage looks to be the final deal and an excuse to get the keys to her house, family name…and the RV. Alex does her best to try and help Paula, managing to gain the deed to the house and confronting the tenants. The only trouble is, they’ve obviously already signed the forms giving Basil the money, so he scoffs at their attempt to get around this. Given how close her and Nate have been getting, Alex starts to look at Nate differently. She ponders whether he’s really relationship material but she obviously doesn’t want anything long-term right now. No, Alex has dreams of going to college instead and focusing on herself and Maddy. That evening, Nate offers to take Alex out for dinner and a movie. Only, Sean shows up at his place and immediately gets jealous, lashing out at Nate. Sean’s real purpose here though is not to be a pain in the ass (believe it or not.) He’s found Paula’s mortgage folder but unfortunately her mortgage is in default and she’s about to lose her house. Given it hasn’t been paid in six months, Paula is still adamant that Basil is an angel. Sean and Alex do their best to team up and try to find Basil, and it doesn’t take long before they track him down at a casino. Paula tags along for the ride, still oblivious over the seriousness of the situation she’s in. That is, until Paula shows up at the casino and hears Basil using his normal voice as he’s kicked out the casino. Sean has a baseball bat in hand and immediately confronts Basil about the mortgage payments he’s been dodging. As Paula questions him over the truth, Basil admits that he’s gambled all of her money away. Paula is understandably upset, but does manage to get her stuff from the RV before taking off. However, Paula lashes out at Alex, claiming that she’s smug and loving this. With her house about to be seized and Alex feeling alone, Sean tries to talk her around, claiming that they both can help Paula. Only, while they talk, Paula hurries back to her house, smashing the glass with her bare hands and ending up a bloodstained mess. On the back of this, she’s forced to be kept in the hospital overnight to undergo surgery. Alex, in her desperate state, ends up over at Sean’s place. As the pair get cleaned up, Alex leans forward and kisses Sean. That kissing soon turns into a whole lot more as this looks to end in some serious tears.
The Episode Review
It’s hard not to feel sorry for Paula. Despite all of her issues, she’s been conned by Basil who happens to have a serious gambling addiction. So if taking her mortgage payments and losing her house wasn’t bad enough, there’s now no way for Paula to get her one remnant of the past back again. The ending with Paula slicing up her wrists and despairing like that is difficult to watch and something that reinforces just how difficult her life has been too. Of course, it doesn’t excuse her for lashing out at Alex and making her life difficult too, but I guess everyone goes through grief in different ways. It’s just a pity that she doesn’t see how much good Alex does and how hard she’s trying for Maddy’s sake. The ending with Sean and Alex hooking up again is bound to cause no end of problems going forward as well, and it’ll be interesting to see how both of them react to this when they’re a little less vulnerable than they are now. Interestingly though, all the characters we’ve met across the season are extensions or exaggerations of Alex’s life, to some degree. The thieving housemaid that helped clear out Barefoot Billy’s house is a more extreme version of Alex eating food at Regina’s and snatching the cleaning gig from Value Maids. Danielle’s strength, only to be thrown back down again and go back to her partner, is almost synonymous with what’s happening here with Sean. I could go on, but you get my point. The way Maid uses its characters to complement Alex is really well-handled and with three more episodes left, it remains to be seen exactly what direction this one takes next.
