As the 5th episode of Netflix’s Maid begins, Alex (Margaret Qualley) wakes up in the middle of the night after hearing Maddy (Rylea Nevaeh Whittet) coughing in the other room. She takes her daughter back to her bed. In the morning, Alex wakes up before her daughter and notices black stains that could be mold on the ceiling above her. This continues for several more nights until Alex uses the hot water from the bath to help her daughter breathe easier. Then, she tries to call her mother, Paula (Andie MacDowell), to make sure she is going to watch Maddy for the day, but her mom doesn’t answer. She calls Yolanda (Tracy Vilar) who refuses to let her take the day off because she has a big project for her and Kelly (Jill Morrison). In the end, Alex has no choice but to take her daughter to the local daycare. She breaks the news to her daughter before heading outside and reminding Luis about the mold on her wall.
Luis instructs her to open the windows but agrees to look at it as soon as possible. She heads to the daycare where Rose (Jelena Milinkovic) reminds her she hasn’t paid the copay yet. Alex promises to get it to them by Friday, but it takes a lot of convincing. She tells Rose she has a roll of toilet paper for her daughter before leaving. When she gets into Nate’s vehicle, she angrily smacks the steering wheel a few times. Next, she heads out into the woods and passes by a sign warning trespassers to stay away. Soon, she makes it to the house and learns from Kelly and Yolanda that a famous person used to live there. Alex guesses a serial killer or Pennywise before Yolanda tells them it was Barefoot Billy the kid burglar who is still on the run. He broke into every house on the island to steal Doritos, so Kelly isn’t impressed.
Yolanda explains Billy’s mother there lived until she died last week and they’re going to have an estate sale. They’re going to be there for three days. Alex jokes about Billy coming back to murder the unsuspecting maids, but the others don’t find her joke funny in the least. Once Yolanda leaves, Kelly begins looking through the items in the house and contemplates taking a few whatnots and the television. Alex notices one of the figurines is wearing a Swastika and convinces her not to take it. Alex promises not to say anything if Kelly steals something, but she makes it clear she doesn’t want to be a part of it. They split up the work and Alex is tasked with cleaning the dead woman’s room. When Alex goes upstairs, she finds a window open and something outside. She checks the mother’s room and finds newspaper clippings about William ‘Barefoot Billy’ Ritchie. Once she checks Billy’s room, she finds locks on the outside and suspects someone was locked in. She doesn’t understand why someone would lock their kid in their room.
Kelly takes her downstairs and shows her the locks on the cupboards and pantry. Alex argues this is the reason William Harlan Ritchie is so obsessed with junk food. Kelly goes to the bathroom, so Alex begins cleaning the house. When she stops, she checks her phone and finds missed calls from the daycare. She calls back and learns that her daughter got a fever and was sent home. Since they couldn’t reach her or her mother, Sean gave them permission to send Maddy home with her grandfather. Alex is angry to find that Maddy went home with her father. She asks Kelly to grab her stuff before fleeing the house. She rushes over and Hank (Billy Burke) answers the door to tell her Maddy is fine. Hank and his wife Sharlene (Erin Karpluk) watch from the doorway as Alex kisses Maddy. In the kitchen, Sharlene gives her a drink and Hank reminds her that she has always been invited over. They also offer to watch Maddy tomorrow since she can’t go back to the daycare yet.
The twins are brought in to say hello to Alex, but they’re only interested in playing. Despite the offer, Alex decides to take Maddy and leave. She goes to the pub to see Sean (Nick Robinson). Frankie (Jessie Liang) agrees to get him for her. Sean admits he gave the daycare permission to send Maddy with Hank and didn’t think it was a big deal. He doesn’t understand why Alex is so weird about her father. Although Sean doesn’t know him, Alex doesn’t either because her mother took her away when she was like five. They try to find someplace for Maddy to stay tomorrow, but Sean is working a double and Alex has to clean. Both are on the verge of getting fired forcing them to find something else. Sean recommends taking him to Hank’s since he has a nice house and wife. Alex tries to find her mother, but she is nowhere to be found.
They go back to the apartment and Alex opens the windows to help combat the mold. In the middle of the night, Maddy coughs and gets cold. Alex fixes that, apologizes, and watches a video about Barefoot Billy who was the only son of Louisa Ritchie. Alex goes to sleep and dreams that she is walking through the woods like Barefoot Billy. She wakes up after seeing her mother trapped in the room upstairs. In the morning, she notices that the mold is getting worse. She removes a piece of drywall and finds mold behind it as well. Maddy is taken to the daughter who confirms she has two ear infections. Dr. Baig (Eileen Pedde) learns about the mold-infested apartment and tells Alex she is going to have to do better. She relents and takes her daughter back to her father’s house. Hank asks Alex to sick around before praying with the kids. Then, he tells Alex he regrets not asking her to stay when he picked up her near the ferry.
Since it is going to take months to fix the apartment, she is going to need a place to stay, and Hank believes she should stay there. Alex agrees to stay. She tells him about Paula being missing. Hank suspects that likely has something to do with her boyfriend. She thanks him once again before heading to work where Kelly steals her bottle of bleach. Kelly puts on some heavy rock music while Alex continues cleaning one of the bathrooms. While cleaning the window, she notices something outside and decides to check it out. She finds what looks like a small campsite. Then, she hears Kelly yelling for her. When she returns, Kelly shows her the small door she found upstairs. Alex manages to pry the door open and climbs inside. She uses Kelly’s lighter to look at the walls. Since the walls are covered in childish drawings, Alex believes Billy’s mother locked in him there. The door shuts on Alex and she begins freaking out.
In a flashback, we see a young Alex (Mila Jones) running through the house before hiding in the cupboard. Her mother finds her and pulls her out of there. Kelly gets the door open. She realizes Alex is having a panic attack, so she tries to calm her. Then, Alex says she believes something has happened to her mother. She decides to go looking for her immediately. She goes to the RV park, multiple medical dispensaries, and art shops. She also calls the phone number for the rental but only gets a voicemail with Basil’s voice. Late that night, she spots Danielle (Aimee Carrero) on the street. She tells Danielle about all her problems before asking why she didn’t leave her number. When Danielle’s boyfriend, Kyle (Nick Preston), walks over, Danielle pretends she doesn’t know who Alex is. Alex is worried about her friend, so she goes to Denise (BJ Harrison) in hopes of getting Danielle’s phone number to do something about it.
Denise knows Danielle isn’t okay, but she can’t give Alex her phone number. They agree it is sad although Denise says they can only hope she’ll come back here someday. She hopes seeing Alex might trigger something for Danielle and convince her to return. Denise says Danielle might be trying to break generations of abuse and Alex would know this if she was coming to group therapy. Then, they talk about Billy Barefoot, and the stuff Alex has been seeing at the house. Denise wonders if the panic attack was telling her she knows something, but Alex believes she just needs a good night’s sleep. Alex returns to Hank’s place where he is waiting with Maddy. She has another dream of the Barefoot Billy house and sees someone who appears to be Danielle banging on the window. When she gets up for water and finds Doritos in the cupboard, Hank enters and asks her to hand him the peanut butter.
She gets permission to ask him a few questions. Alex starts by asking about the cupboard and whether she used to hide in there. Hank doesn’t believe so because they weren’t there until after the renovation. He insists there wasn’t a cupboard there before that either. Then, she asks him about her mom leaving and why she didn’t stay with him. He says he didn’t have much of a choice because he was young and Paula was more than he could handle at the time. When asked whether he worried about her, Hank says he did worry about her, and he should’ve done something about her being at the commune in Alaska. Hank believes he has awesome grandpa potential if Alex will let her get it right with Maddy. The next day, Alex learns the black mold is in the walls and it is going to take months to fix. Luis admits she is going to need to get her stuff out and find somewhere else to stay since there is no other unit in the building.
He recommends talking to her caseworker. When she leaves, she calls Hank who agrees to help her get her belongings this weekend. After that, she meets with Kelly and Yolanda. They’ve finished cleaning the house and Yolanda thinks they’ve done a great job. Alex stays behind to lock up the house. She grabs a bag of Doritos from her bag and takes them to the campsite in case Billy is still out there. She notices the window upstairs open on her way back in and heads up there to shut it. She climbs into the small room again while controlling her emotions. This time, she sees more of the flashback and sees her mother with blood running from her nose. She realizes Hank had attacked her mother on the night they left. She rushes back to Hank’s house to grab her daughter and get away. He follows her outside before she screams for him not to touch Maddy. She tells him there was a cupboard and she was hiding there to get away from him.
She goes on to say they went to Alaska to run away from him. As they drive into the night, Maddy says she wants to go home. They arrive at the campground and Alex finds the door to the RV open. She soon learns that her mother went to Joshua Tree and got married to Basil along the way. Alex wants to learn more about the abuse her mother suffered, but Paula isn’t eager to talk about it. Paula doesn’t want her bringing up that dark stuff and says she doesn’t think about that stuff. Alex admits she doesn’t know what to say about the wedding, so her mother encourages her to congratulate her, and she does. They agree to go inside and celebrate with tequila, but quietly to prevent Maddy from waking up. The episode ends as Alex carries Maddy into the RV.
Maid Review
I surely can’t be the only one who finds some of the characters in Maid a bit annoying because a few are so over-the-top that they’re unrealistic and cringey. Still, it is hard to deny that Thief was the best episode of Maid yet. The episode had everything including enough revelations to keep the viewer interested in finding out what is going to come next.
The Barefoot Billy storyline was sad and touching as Alex returned with the bag of Doritos for the fugitive. The episode was great thanks to the fugitive storyline, the secrets about Hank, and Alex’s reaction to those revelations. Admittedly, I was hoping Billy would show up at some point, but the episode was one of the best regardless.
It scores an 8 out of 10. All recaps of Maid can be found on Reel Mockery here.
