Well that finale just straight-up snuck up on us didn’t it? Not only does The Maid I Hired Recently Is Mysterious just sort of end with very little buildup to it, but it simultaneously answers a bunch of questions while also backtracking on some things that I feel like it was insinuating before. While I do like some of the points that the show ends on, it also best encapsulates the overall confusion that the series has left me with. Mysterious Maid can be incredibly heartwarming and impactful when it explores themes of found family and coping with loneliness, uncomfortable to watch when it gestures at a romance between our two leads, and downright frustrating it kind of spits in the face of its own premise.
In fact, let’s start with that last point, because this episode just kind of randomly and unceremoniously answers one of the biggest questions that I and a lot of other people had watching this show. The relationship between Lilith and Yuuri from when they were younger has been teased as early as the first episode. We knew there was a reason for Lilith’s arrival that she hides behind this façade of mysteriousness which just made everybody, including Yuuri, all the more curious about her. She was very protective about that information as well as where she worked before, and the past 10 episodes have constantly reinforced that there is a deeper reason for all this secrecy. After all, if Lilith just decided to work under Yuuri because of a simple and mundane reason, and if her former master had no problem whatsoever with her changing jobs, wouldn’t it make all of the effort that went into making her past feel “mysterious” seem really superfluous and downright frustrating?
*Sigh* So it turns out that the reason why Lilith knows Yuuri and his family is because she also lost her parents at a young age and was bounced around a bunch of different families before Yuuri’s family looked after her for a short while. I genuinely have no idea why this was a mystery at all. I also have no idea why she still can’t just tell Yuuri all of this the same way that she explains it to her former master at the beginning of this episode. The episode literally ends with Lilith hoping that Yuuri will still like her even when he finds out more about her and all the while I am sitting here screaming at my monitor “WHY DON’T YOU JUST TALK TO HIM?”. Maybe there’s some other hidden detail about her past that she doesn’t want to be brought to light? I was thinking maybe her former master knew something about her which is why she was so adamant about being secretive about it but no, not only was her former master completely cool and understanding with why she was there, but he is super courteous to Yuuri when he meets him. I feel like this episode hurts me for being invested in the story at all.
And then the show makes the very odd decision to end on this note of ambiguity regarding the will they/won’t they between Yuuri and Lilith. Even though they go out on a date—not to mention that everything we have seen about their relationship strongly indicate that their love for each other is far more romantic than familial—the writer decided to introduce the idea at the very last minute that maybe that’s not the kind of love either of them are feeling. I could’ve believed this if it was introduced earlier, but not all the way at the tail end after these two have already said everything that they have. It just feels like really weird timing and I’m not really sure what the intention is supposed to be.
And it’s doubly frustrating because I think that would’ve made the show more interesting if it was kept vague and ambiguous up until the very end. I was already of the opinion that Yuuri is way too young to even understand or differentiate those types of love, especially since he’s at a very sensitive point in his life where he arguably will just latch on to anybody to fill in that void of loneliness. There could have been a really interesting conversation about what role Lilith exactly plays in his life whether it’s as a lover, a big sister, or a foster mother. In fact, I think I would find their romance more believable if there was a bit more exploration of or reflection on where those feelings are coming from.
The Maid I Hired Recently Is Mysterious had a lot of good, well-written moments that showed a lot of promise. It had compeliing characters, and it showed that it can be dark and heartfelt and even silly at various moments without inducing whiplash. However, my biggest issue is that even up until the very end, I’m not 100% sure what it wanted to do with these characters and themes, because it feels like It’s trying to scream multiple things at once even though the only way that some messages can be made clear is by ignoring some of the other ones. Even if a second season were to come out, I’m not sure how you could fix some of the problems established in this first season because the foundation is so shaky and uneven. I’m not mad and I’m not disappointed—I’m just really confused.
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