Maid Review

Alex (Margaret Qualley) leaves Sean (Nick Robinson) in the middle of the night with their daughter Maddy and about twelve dollars, and Molly Smith Metzler, adapting Stephanie Land's memoir, turns that sum into a running device, a counter in the corner of the screen that shrinks with every meal and bottle of cleaner. Alex doubts she even counts as abused because Sean never hit her, and the series is exact about control that works without fists, and about a benefits office that wants two pay stubs before it will house a mother sleeping in her car.

Qualley is in nearly every scene and never plays for sympathy; Alan Sepinwall called it a movie-star-level performance. Her real mother, Andie MacDowell, plays Alex's mother Paula, a bipolar free spirit who is funny until she is frightening, and Inkoo Kang was right that the two are each other's best scene partners. Robinson makes Sean likeable enough to show why leaving is so hard, and Anika Noni Rose is sharp as the wealthy client who becomes an ally.

Some middle episodes stack setbacks with a schematic rhythm; that is the only real complaint. John Wells and Margot Robbie's LuckyChap produced it; it reached 67 million households, scored 82 on Metacritic and made AFI's list of the year's best television.