The Maid My Wife Hired review

The setup

The wife has hired a maid, and before leaving for the day she gives her husband two instructions: be pleasant, and expect her home at eight. The maid arrives, something goes wrong with his drink, and she promises an improved replacement. Most of what follows is wordless: cleaning, glances, the husband watching more than he should. She checks whether she is performing well, addressing him as sir. When his wife phones to ask how the new hire is working out, he assures her all is well, which is the episode's one plot point.

Episode 2

More silence, more cleaning. The maid keeps colliding with him, apologizes in a way that suggests she is not sorry, and explains that the wife told her to handle the whole house, so she is only following orders. There is dusting. There is a coffee spill. Then she surveys the clean rooms and concludes that the husband is the only mess left, a closing line with more wit than everything before it.

Who's who

• The maid: deferential on the surface, deliberately clumsy, and treating the husband as her final chore
• The husband: left home alone with orders to be nice, and following them loosely
• The wife: the employer on the phone, trusting, punctual, and due back at eight

Verdict: 5.0 out of 10

The maid fantasy is about as old as housework, and this version adds nothing to it until the very last line. Most of both episodes plays without dialogue, leaning on glances and spilled drinks, and the wife's phone call is the only flicker of risk. That closing quip about the husband being the messiest thing in the house shows the writers can be funny. They just wait too long to prove it. Hard to recommend paying for more on this evidence.

Episode guide