On Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed Season 1 Episode 6, “Rosebud,” Paula hosts a pizza party for Hazel and her friends while the case intensifies.
Much of Paula’s conflict on “Rosebud” centers on her attempt to garner support in the upcoming custody battle. Tatiana Maslany ramps up the desperation for this particular event, almost more than when Paula’s dealing with an ominous criminal organization. It goes to show that, despite her missteps, her greatest priority always has been and always will be Hazel.
The preparation and execution of the pizza party is filmed with the same suffocating tension as when Paula deals with Dennis. It effectively adds weight to Paula’s personal woes, making sure it, and therefore Paula’s humanity, is never dwarfed by the thriller aspect of the show.
It also emphasizes the pressure for mothers to carry on parenting as if nothing is wrong. Paula’s entire life is in jeopardy, yet she is focusing on gathering character letters for her custody hearing, an event for her daughter and her friends, and coaching her daughter’s soccer team. She is not allowed a moment to step out of her identity as mother; in fact, she’s being asked to give even more of herself.
In the last few years, we’ve gotten multiple pieces of media that embrace the difficult and demanding side of motherhood; Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed joins that list in its own unique way. Motherhood is overwhelming, thankless, and difficult. The world can be crashing around you, but if you stumble ever so slightly in your job as Mom, you’re judged as a failure.
Against all odds though, Paula keeps the outside concerns at bay and pulls off a rare win with the pizza party. At one point, another mother tells her she’s doing a great job. Based on Paula’s reaction, it’s not something she’s been told often but that she needed to hear.
Up until this point, Paula’s been repeatedly told that she is not up to par in this custody hearing. Her ex hired a private investigator with the intent of proving her to be an unfit mother.This moment, though small, is given enough levity to land for Paula and the audience. It plays like a deep breath before the episode ends on a tense and jarring button.
We’ve spent most of the episode wondering when Dennis will show up and ruin things so the tension hits a boiling point. “Rosebud” puts us seemingly on stable ground as the pizza party wraps up, only to knock us over with the final moments.
Paula shooting Dennis is a nice payoff to her to-do listen at the top of the episode where one of her tasks is to “shoot a gun.” It also shakes things up with so much more season left to go. We already know Dennis isn’t the head honcho, so this cleanly paves the way for the larger organization to step into the spotlight.
Murray Bartlett’s portrayal of Dennis is menacing and unsettling, but, unfortunately, Dennis was largely relegated to skulking. Though effective in creating tension around Paula, I was always waiting for the show to take Dennis to the next level. The mystery around him is done with the intention of adding to his menace, but, six episodes in, he just feels like a blank canvas.
Moving forward, it will be exciting to see the ramifications and how it impacts Paula’s impending trial and date. Hopefully, we start to get some more insight as to what exactly Paula’s stumbled into.
Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed streams Wednesday on AppleTV.
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Adam Patla
Adam grew up less than 3 minutes away from a movie theater so he was always destined to love all things entertainment. He studied Broadcast & Cinematic Arts at Central Michigan University before working as a talent agent in the Chicago area until 2020. During lockdown he began discussing film and television on TikTok where he cultivated a platform of over 50,000 followers. He is currently a member of Chicago Indie Critics.