The Maid I Hired Recently Is Mysterious

Episode 4

There is so much good material in this episode but I can't help but shake the weird feeling that a lot of these moments would have hit a lot harder if they were just organized in better places. In fact, if it wasn't for the ending skip taking place at school, I would almost go so far as to say that this episode should switch places with last weeks because narratively I think it would've flowed better. To the show's credit, I genuinely did not think that it was going to show any proper forward development between our two main characters after the strong emotional moment that they had last week. We do get that in this episode but it's towards the end, the final skit in an episode comprising three. That part of the episode was definitely my favorite as it shows how comfortable Yuuri is about having Lilith attend his school in his parents' place. Not only is this great development for him because he's basically giving her more prominence in his family, but it was also the part of the episode that I think had the least if not any romantic teasing in it so that was definitely a big plus.

My problem is with the former two skits of this episode, not because I think they're poorly written or unhumorous, rather I just feel like they shouldn't have been moments these characters had right after what we just saw last week. The first section allows us to see things from Lilith's perspective which was surprising and refreshing. This whole time we've seen things from Yuuri's perspective because the joke with the show is that he can't tell what his maid is thinking and he just blurts out whatever goes on in his head, but Lilith isn't like that. She's a lot more reserved and seems to internalize things a lot more, overthinking things to the point where it's very easy for her to get caught off guard. That's a good explanation for why she gets embarrassed when Yuuri confronts her so directly because it's clear that she's not used to acting like that. She's not trying to tease Yuuri in a seductive or condescending way, she's just trying to appear more like an adult in front of him so that he can rely on her more. It's actually funny that the episode is still filled with a lot of clearly romantically charged shipping moment because you could argue the episode is also going out of its way to say this isn't supposed to be embarrassing because she's romantically interested, it's embarrassing because she is so far outside of her element that she doesn't know a proper follow up the young masters directness. That's genuinely funny and cute but I think it would've been even better if this skit was somewhere in the second or third episode instead after the show was really hammering in the joke when the show first started.

It's also a little out of place because Lilith is worrying and obsessing about whether or not Yuuri actually needs her in his life. It feels weird that this is the time the show chooses to have us take a glimpse at these insecurities when we just had such an emotionally heavy episode where Yuuri basically was a puddle of tears begging her to stay by his side. I'm not saying she shouldn't have doubts in herself at all, I'm saying that it would've been better if this had happened sometime before that event, not immediately afterwards. This can also apply to the second skit as well which gives us a little bit of a nice flashback into Yuuri's past and what it was like interacting with his parents. The show has very subtly yet heavily laid into this idea of how lonely this kid is so showing how happy he was with his parents before they died is a great way to twist the knife. I'm not saying this moment doesn't work as a follow-up to last week because you can argue the order it which we get the contrast between what his life is like now versus what it was like before doesn't necessarily matter, but since I'm already stuck on this mentality of rearranging the puzzle pieces of the show, I don't see why this situation also couldn't have functioned as a lead in to last weeks moment. I'm sorry if it seems like I'm informing too much of what we got here based off of last week. So let me make it clear that I did like this episode and a lot of the material in it. In fact, it's probably the second strongest episode of the show so far. I'm just really being swept away at the potential of what the show is putting out and only want it to perform at its absolute best.

Rating:

The Maid I Hired Recently Is Mysterious is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.