Devious Maids

Rating: 4⁄5

Already renewed for a second season in the States, Devious Maids, a new Lifetime drama/comedy, that serves as a spin-off of ABC’s hit show Desperate Housewives has struck gold for the creator, Marc Cherry. In keeping with the Marc Cherry tradition of opening an episode, the pilot starts with a death. Not a suicide this time like Mary Alice Young, but a murder of a maid, Flora (Paula Garces), who was working for Adrian (Tom Irwin, effectively creepy and slimey) and Evelyn Powell (the excellent, irreplaceable Rebecca Wisocky who acts as comedy gold in every episode she’s in). Her friends Carmen (Roselyn Sanchez), Rosie (Dania Ramirez), Zoila (Judy Reyes) and Valentina (Edy Ganem) are devastated but hardly surprised, given what Flora was really up to. But life goes on. Carmen, working for the famous Latin recording artist Alejandro Rubio (Matt Cedeno), dreams of one day becoming a pop sensation herself. Although working under Odessa (Melinda Page Hamilton), a mean Russian who rules over household with an iron fist is no easy task. Rosie is under tremendous pressure working in the household of Peri Westmore (Mariana Klaveno), a self-absorbed actress and her has-been soap opera actor Spence (Grant Show) who she has an inappropriate crush on. Zoila also has her plates full, dealing with her hilariously ditzy boss Genevieve (Susan Lucciww). Further adding to her list of things to worry about is her daughter Valentina’s crush on Genevieve’s son, Remi (Drew Van Acker). The arrival of Marisol (Ana Ortiz), a new maid at Michael (Brett Cullen) and Taylor Stappord’s (Brianna Brown) house, and her link to Flora’s murder is the season’s long-running mystery. Why is Marisol asking questions about her? Who killed Flora? What exactly was Flora doing that put her in so much danger? Behind the expensive doors of the Beverley Hills mansions that are quite simply out of this world, these Latina maids work tirelessly, picking up on all the gossip and dirty laundry of their rich and famous bosses. Looking at the world through their eyes, from the view of “the help” is certainly an interesting concept, but one that is perhaps not utilised fully, as there are so many plotlines to juggle at once. When it deviates away from the main murder mystery, the other subplots have a varying degree of success, mostly relying on the talents of its many stars to pull it off (all five Latina actresses are spot-on), and they usually do, no matter how stale some of the weekly scenarios turn out to be. The big mystery of whodunnit is yet to be solved, but given the way everything is building up, it promises to deliver a season finale of shocking reveals. So stay tuned.

Mistresses

Rating: 3⁄5

Four successful professional career women, all of them in complicated personal crises of their own - that is how you describe Mistresses, the US remake of the hit UK show. Savi (Alyssa Milano) is a lawyer, Karen (Yunjin Kim) is a psychiatrist, April (Rochelle Aytes) is a furniture store owner, and Joss (Jes Macallan) is a real-estate agent. Savi and her hunky Australian chef husband Harry (Brett Tucker) are struggling to conceive and she cheats on him with Dominic (Jason George), a colleague of hers. Karen had an affair with a terminally ill patient before prescribing him enough medication to kill himself. Now his son is distraught and seeks her help, not knowing the shady history between the two. April’s husband passed away a couple of years ago and is struggling to be a single mother; also not helping is her belief that her husband may still be alive. Joss is the most liberated one of them all, decides to strike up a lesbian relationship, something which she’s never done before, with a client’s girlfriend, even though her attractive foreign boss with an accent starts pursuing her. How these women have time for relaxing coffee meetings and fancy lunches is anyone’s guess, given the magnitude of the problems going on in their lives, but the soapy, dramatic twists are deliciously absurd at times, but that is kind of the appeal of the show. The characters have a knack for not taking anything too seriously it seems, and as an easy-going drama this sometimes works as a plus. Everyone makes bad life choices, and these women are experts when it comes to creating conflict and getting stuck in impossible situations. Which is great news for the audience, who only have to sit back and watch.