- “You just don't fit in around here, do you? - Too bad you wouldn't leave my son alone.”
- ―Maude Pearson[src]
Maude Pearson was the owner of the Pearson Arms apartments complex in Los Angeles. The widow of William Pearson, she was the over protective mother to her son Dennis. Maude's afterlife consisted of a period of haunting the home in which she died after killing her own son, for over 50 years until Cordelia Chase took tenancy of the apartment.
Biography
Life and Death
- “Look what you're making me do, Dennis...How are you going to leave now, huh? How are you going to marry that streetwalker now. You are a nothing without me.”
- ―Maude Pearson[src]
Maude dies after murdering her son
Maude constructed and owned Pearson Arms, the apartment complex in which she and her son Dennis also lived in until 1946. Maude exhibited excessive over-protective behavior of her son, and when Dennis fell for a woman and told his mother he would be leaving her to live with this woman, Maude tied him up and placed him inside a space in the apartment before sealing him in a brick wall constructed by herself to keep him from leaving her. Shortly after completing the new wall, Maude suffered a fatal heart attack, leaving Dennis to slowly die with both their spirits trapped between worlds.
Haunting
- Cordelia: “Okay. Listen good, Casper, you haven't won a thing here! I'll die before give up the apartment, you hear me? I'll die!”
- Maude: “All right dear, if that is what you think is best.”
- — [src]
Years passed and as new tenants of the apartment arrived, each of which are tormented by Maude's poltergeist, who saw any woman as the representation of the one that Dennis would have left her for.
As a ghost
Maude was bound to the emotions that she felt at the moment at her death, stuck perpetually in that persona, unable to move on with the lack of closure that may have occurred following her sealing away her son, and before her abrupt death.
While haunting the apartment, Maude was presumably the cause for the suicides of residents Margo Dressner in 1959, Jenny Kim in 1965, and Natalie Davis in 1994.
With the assistance of one of Doyle's connections, Cordelia Chase signed a lease to rent and became the new tenant in Maude's apartment. Soon after moving in however, Cordelia was tormented as each tenant before her. Despite Cordelia's perseverance to keep the apartment, Maude's psychological torment made her emotionally break down.
Banishment
- “Dennis, it was for your own good. I had to do it. She would have made your life miserable. I'm sorry! Please! - Please!”
- ―Maude's final words[src]
Maude attempted to finally kill Cordelia by luring her into the appartment by mimicking Angel's voice on an answering machine. Maude tied a piece of wire on Cordelia's neck to simulate suicide but she was then saved by Angel and Doyle who tried to exorcise Maude out of the apartment. The hitmen Griff then burst into the apartment along with two fellow hitmen, angering Maude as she didn't want more people. She killed one of his men before forcing Cordelia into the bedroom to torture her some more.
Maude realizes what she's done
Maude told the weak and desperate Cordelia to make a noose from the bed sheet. However, after calling Cordelia a "stupid, little bitch", Cordelia regained the self-esteem and confidence she had in high school, stepping up to Maude and telling her "the bitch is back". This caused Maude to lose her control, interrupting the flow of events which had kept Maude in her unresolved state. With her control broken, Dennis' ghost took the opportunity to temporarily possess Cordelia in order to break the wall in which his corpse rested, still bound. Maude saw Dennis' remains and finally came to terms with what she had done. A guilty Maude pleaded with Dennis that she did it for his own good but the furious spirit of Dennis roared and burst into Maude, obliterating her presence.
Personality and traits
- “You're worthless. You've never been kind. You've never been smart. You're a user. You're nothing. Everyone would be glad if you were dead.”
- ―Maude Pearson[src]
Maude was obsessively over-protective of Dennis in life, so much so that she became delusional; convincing herself that the dire actions she perpetrated against Dennis were for his protection as well as both their welfare. She would demean her victims, calling Cordelia a "small-town tramp" that tried to make herself sound better than she was and that Maude could smell the "stench of poverty and failure on her" along with claiming Cordelia had no friends.
The degree of her over-protectiveness and the trauma of her death seemed to affect the state of Maude's mind. When Griff bursted into her home, she seemed oblivious to the fact he was a demon and when one of the hitmen shot at her; the bullet passing through her intangible body to her fireplace, damaging it, Maude exclaimed, "You broke it!"
Powers and Abilities
Maude was a poltergeist, meaning she could effect her environment. She did through means of Telekinesis, using it to shake Cordelia's bed, move a chair out of place, make a noose out of a piece of wire, chuck knives into the torso of one of Griff's men and pull Cordelia into the bedroom. As a ghost, she was intangible and could be not be harmed, as shown when shot at. She could also make herself invisible to others but visible to some when Angel tried to preform the excorcism, Maude talked to Cordelia out of his sight. Maude could change her voice, mimicking Angel's to his exact likeness in order to lure Cordelia and could also teleport which was shown when she appeared right behind Griff and his men after they broke into the apartment.
Behind the Scene
- She was portrayed by Beth Grant.
- Maude's ghost looked physcially different from her appearance as she died; more winded and aged. Jane Espenson noted this on her DVD commentary of the episode where she suggested that ghosts may continue to age or it might just be a lack of hygiene.