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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I liked the newest episode. I’m glad we got to see the helpers POV. 
It seemed like everyone got a little crazy during the storm and then went back to normal when it cleared in the morning. I’m confused about puri, did she miss the competition? They didn’t show it either way so I thought she could still be going? She just realized her friend was right - you aren’t friends with your employers. No matter how much she wanted it to be true. 
And why won’t Essie just say no if she doesn’t want to go to the us? It doesn’t sound like Margaret is forcing it and knows it is a big decision. If she wants to go home so bad just say no, it’s kind of a perfect time/opportunity to break free.[/quote]

My read on the ending:

Puri was supposed to get the morning off for her competition (she mentions to her friends that Hilary has given her the morning off for it). So Hilary asking for breakfast and being very hungover and saying nothing about it does not bode well for Puri going. I think the resigned look on her face indicates that she's not even going to try. It's really sad.

Regarding Essie, from her conversation with Puri about Gus and the family, it's clear she has a very strong feeling of responsibility towards the family and is genuinely worried about the kids (who she has helped raise for the last several years). Essie tells Puri that her kids are telling her she should retire and move back to Manila to be near them and her grandchildren, but that Essie hasn't done it because especially with Gus's disappearance, she can't bring herself to leave the family. Kind of in the same way that the family is having a hard time leaving Hong Kong without Gus because it feels like giving up on them.

I don't think Margaret was pressuring her, necessarily, but I did find it presumptuous that it doesn't seem to occur to her that Essie has children and grandchildren in Manila who it would become very hard for her to see if she moved to the US. Unclear how often she sees them now but from her conversation with Puri, it sounds like they speak often and are very much in touch. Manila is about 2.5 hours from Hong Kong and flights can be found pretty cheap. But from the US you are talking about a really difficult time difference and travel to see them would cost thousands. It is strange to me that Margaret doesn't even seem to have considered this -- perhaps to offer to pay for her to travel to Manila every year or something, I don't know. Margaret says she knows it's a big ask, but[b] it's just felt like a bizarre myopia about Essie's own family, [/b]given what Margaret has been through with Gus. Essie would be leaving all her children and grandchildren behind. To not acknowledge that feels callous or at least oblivious.[/quote]

I don’t share this view at all. Essie is a much older women with grown children (or 
maybe just the one grown child we’ve seen?). It’s not rude/clueless/cruel/whatever for Margaret to not be peppering Essie with questions about her kids (or grandkid(s) - and grandkids aren’t the same as kids in terms of one’s responsibilities anyway) or have that top of mind. People in this thread seem to be bending over backwards to find things to criticize about the westerners here. [/quote]

DP.  Also agree with this!  Margaret was lovely to Essie.  She told her how much she loved her!  And she didn’t pressure Essie to come to the US at all.  [/quote]

No. Margaret shows her true colors when essie comes home from her day off and margaret [b]tells her to make pizza for the kids[/b][/quote]

The horror! It’s not enough for there just be inescapable awkwardness/tensions in the relationship between live-in help and a family, no matter whether all involved are doing their best in good faith. Someone has to be the bad guy. I hope people treat you with more grace than you treat others.[/quote]

A day off is a day off. The writers deliberately used pizza because it's such an easy thing Margaret could have done it herself. It's not like one of the special Filipino dishes the kids ask for. There's no awkwardness and no tension because Margaret knows she can and does boss Essie around and Essie always says yes ma'am[/quote]

I agree with this (Essie should have had a chance to settle and relax on her day off, not have to immediately prepare dinner for the family). Though I disagree that Margaret is cognitive of what's happening. I don't think she thought "I will make Essie do this because I wield this power over her."

That's sort of the crux of the issue. Margaret is nice to Essie. She's polite and pleasant. She is not super demanding or rude. But she's also kind of oblivious to the dynamic where Essie is nowhere close to an equal in their home. She is the help. So Margaret can tell her to go get changed (Essie doesn't need this instruction, she's not a child) and then also call to her to come get dinner ready, even though it's Essie's day off and it would be normal and appropriate for her to simply go lay down or take a shower or whatever she needs to do. And Essie complies with Margaret's demands silently, politely. No pushback or even a flash of annoyance on her face. It's the same with Puri. These women know that their job is to be compliant, and that any hint of irritation even when being asked to do things that should be outside their job description or push the boundaries of appropriateness could be grounds for dismissal. They have to stay in their employer's good graces.

To me, seeing how subservient these women are pretty much conditioned to be whenever they are in their employer's home (where they also live) was really remarkable. Especially when contrasted to how they are with each other and out in the world, where they have bigger voices, they argue, they tease each other, etc. At work, they can't really have any of this personality. Look at how Puri is with her friends versus how she is with "Miss Hilary" when they are having their "girl's night." The job these women perform is to be inoffensive and helpful at the expense of their own personhood. I think it's an inherently exploitative job, much more so than even American household staff, who tend to have a bit more agency and whose roles tend to be more defined with better boundaries (unless you have a bad boss). We don't have amorphous live-in "helpers" here. I think it's a disturbing dynamic where the two people can never, ever be equals.[/quote]

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