What ‘Maid’ Gets Right About the Dangerous Relatability of an Abuser

Maid, which debuted on Netflix in October, is a groundbreaking depiction of domestic violence for a lot a reasons. The first and most obvious is because the victim of domestic violence, Alex, is never hit. She is shoved, has glasses thrown near her head, is verbally degraded, physically intimidated and financially dominated. But Sean, her boyfriend and the father of her daughter, Maddy, never gives her a black eye or pushes her down any stairs. And that becomes the crux of one of many crucial and commonly misunderstood aspects of domestic violence that the series helps to shine a light on.

The series opens with Alex fleeing with Maddy in the middle of the night, after Sean, in a drunken rage, threw a glass at the wall. Alex, after having to pick shards of glass out of her daughter’s hair, has decided not to stick around to see just how bad it will get. When the friends Alex heads to for help explain that they believe Alex is overreacting and have told Sean where she is so the couple can “work it out”, Alex is left with few options. After a few nights sleeping in the car and other various public places, circumstances conspire to make Alex finally call her situation by its proper name — domestic violence — so that she and Maddy can take up residence at a shelter.