Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
If you binged your way through Netflix’s Maid this weekend, you might have noticed a very familiar face in a shockingly familiar role. Canadian actor Raymond Ablack plays Nate, the nice nerd who keeps popping up to help Alex (Margaret Qualley) in her many hours of need. It’s clear from the moment he finds her on the floor of the ferry terminal that Nate has it bad for Alex. So much so, his attraction to her ultimately blows up their friendship. After Alex hooks up with ex Sean (Nick Robinson) in a rare moment of emotional vulnerability, Nate severs all ties with her.
What’s interesting about Ablack’s Nate isn’t just that he’s a pitch perfect portrait of a certain kind of “nice guy” who help women out in the expectation that romance will happen, but that Ablack’s played a riff on this character before. Albeit a much less presumptuous version. In Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia, Raymond Ablack also plays a nice guy who finds himself constantly helping a down-on-her-luck single mom and her kid. However in that show, it seems like Georgia and Ablack’s Joe might actually be endgame. In Maid, however, that’s not what happens.
Based on the memoir by Stephanie Land, Maid tells the story of Alex (Margaret Qualley), a young single mother struggling to raise her daughter while trapped in poverty. Her one guardian angel? Old pal Nate, who seems to earnestly want to help Alex by providing housing, a car, and even setting her up with a fancy nursery school. There’s even a moment where it seems like Alex might be falling for Nate. She starts seeing him not as a friend, but hottie. Of course, that falls apart when her mother (Andie MacDowell) has a dangerous meltdown and the person who shows up for her is none other than her ex.
Maid showrunner Molly Smith Metzler explained why Nate was in the story: “I think there’s a version of this story where she goes off with him and he pays for everything and takes care of her kid, and that would look like a happy ending to a lot of people.”
“But I think for her, getting out on her own, investing in her writing, being a mother to her daughter and setting an example that you can’t pretend to love someone you don’t,” Metzler said. “You have to have principles and integrity, and it made me love Alex even more when she didn’t fold like a house of cards with Nate. I think a lot of people out there would’ve been like, ‘Yes, please. Check. Check please.'”
That said, Metzler teased Decider by saying, “I think they might fall in love a tiny bit. Don’t you? Like a tiny bit.”
Whether or not you think Nate is a good guy or a bad guy or if you were ‘shipping Alex and Nate, the larger question might be…why does Netflix keep casting Raymond Ablack as the nice, handsome dude thrust into a hot single mom’s orbit? First Ginny & Georgia, now Maid? Obviously there are worse things for an up-and-coming actor to be typecast as, but can Raymond Ablack get the girl next time round?
