Beware of the Midwife Review: Yep, Still Not Giving You Grandkids, Mom!

If you thought your parents and relatives were bad, hounding you about when you'd have a kid, then they had nothing on Rose.

Sarah and Kevin lived every person's worst nightmare on Beware of the Midwife when the woman they invited into their home and entrusted with their baby betrayed them by kidnapping her.

You know, it's just Lifetime things.

Rose is a woman who loved children, and despite having a perfectly nice adult child, Anna, whom Rose treated like garbage, Rose wanted a new and shiny child to start the child-rearing process all over again.

And Rose didn't mind taking extreme measures to get what she wanted. The woman was certifiable, 50 pounds of crazy in a five-pound bag, but by the time Kevin and Sarah saw what was happening behind the crazy eyes, it was too late.

The sad part about Sarah's ordeal is that she had so many valid reasons why she wanted to switch up her maternal care.

Kudos to the film for slipping in the startling statistics about maternal healthcare and death in America, and worst yet, how that disproportionately affects African-American women.

Black women do have the highest maternal mortality rate in the country by a landslide, to the point that anyone seeing those numbers and fitting the bill would be justified in their terror and concern.

Someone like Sarah, who already endured miscarriages and other fertility issues, would be on edge.

Ironically, all it took for a skittish Sarah in the final stages of her pregnancy to opt for the midwife route at home, something she wanted anyway, was Rose's attempt to kidnap a baby from the same hospital's neonatal unit.

Sarah's doctor had her concerns. She was worried about accidents or things getting hairy, and they didn't have someone equipped to handle things there with her.

It was a bit of setting alternative birthing methods against those in the hospital, but then Sarah's OBGYN didn't appear again until the end of the movie.

While there wasn't an overt "I told you so" vibe, it did make you wonder about setting two methodologies against one another in that manner.

Rose swooped in fist upright and appealed to Sarah's concerns by toting solidarity as a fellow Black woman who understood Sarah's fears, a mother who had a miscarriage, and more.

She also oozed maternal energy that put Sarah at ease. It's too bad Anna didn't get any of that Mary Poppins goodness Rose doled out to Sarah and later on Mary.

Poor Anna got Mommy Dearest in full force.

Kevin was the closet MVP because if anyone had their hackles up and spidey sense going off about Rose, it was him. And Rose knew it too since she often regarded him as if he was a bug she was trying not to squash.

Rose was persnickety AF. She was so freaking controlling, too. Honestly, it's a shock that Rose ever lasts long in anyone else's household with all of that.

But maybe it was the stark contrast between the icy energy she directed at Kevin, who she knew had his reservations about her, versus the false cheer she gave off with Sarah.

Maybe Rose was accustomed to no one else challenging her. Her true personality often slipped through with Kevin and Sarah's sister, Danielle.

The way she spazzed out when Danielle showed up to see the baby or when she bumped into her bag was unreal.

Sarah's labor and delivery was a harrowing one, and it was disturbing that she nearly died, and Rose and Anna kept their mouth shut instead of considering calling for help.

But the labor and delivery process had nothing on Rose's behavior in the aftermath. The woman was like a bad rash; she would not go away!

How long does a midwife expect to hang around when a child is born? Rose damn near made herself comfortable at their home. I'm surprised she didn't have a key made of her own.

She was smothering them to death and running interference between both parents and their kid. What about the bonding process, Rose?!

At one point, it almost felt as if she'd yank out her boob and try to breastfeed baby Mary herself, or at least opt for some skin-to-skin contact for bonding, and all the signs were starting to point to how attached she had become to this child.

What was Rose's initial game plan? Did she think she'd be part of their lives for a bit and spend all the time in the world with Mary?

When she poisoned Sarah and offered to take Mary home with her for the night, did she plan to kidnap her then? The woman was diabolical, but she also didn't appear to have a set plan.

Did she think she would've managed to keep Mary and leave the state fast enough without getting caught if she didn't show up the kid the next day or was unreachable?

And even if Sarah didn't have her suspicions at the time, Danielle and Kevin sure as hell did.

Rose overhearing the conversation between the pair was that last thing that pushed her over the edge, and then she made the most outrageous move ever.

I don't know how that woman managed to sneak into their home late at night like that. Don't people with nice houses invest in security systems or at least Ring services? Good grief!

Rose excelled in the arts of drugging people, so it wasn't too surprising that she managed to use chloroform on both of them without knowing for certain if it worked or not since they were already sleeping.

And her clean escape to her home with baby Mary in tow raised a few red flags with Anna, but she was too afraid of her mother to turn her in.

What's insane is that Sarah, and especially Michael, didn't suspect Rose was behind the kidnapping of their child first thing.

They were about to let her go because of how overbearing she became. Sarah said Rose gave off too many bad vibes now, and she felt the shift in them. Kevin said he had them the whole time.

Yet, when the police came, they weren't singing like a canary on a summer morning about the woman whose maternal energy shifted to something more concerning.

And once the police conveniently found the jar of chloroform in the backseat of Kevin's car, they directed all of their attention to him.

Didn't that seem too easy? Who leaves a jar of chloroform and the rag right on the seat in plain view? Did they think he drugged himself and brought it back down to put it in the car?

Did they think he faked being drugged and took the baby somewhere? What gives? And why didn't they contact and speak to Danielle and Rose when they heard that those two women were in the house at some point too?

I wonder if Rose would've been able to hide her coo-coo for cocoa-puffs from the officers if they talked to her?

Poor Sarah had to deal with a missing baby and her husband getting questioned for the crime. And for some reason, she forgot about her gut instincts screaming hoarsely at her about Rose, and she called the woman and even invited her over.

Fortunately, Sarah picked up on how sketchy Rose was behaving, how Rose slipped up with providing details about the crime scene that Sarah didn't share, and the whole missing key fiasco.

And shockingly, Rose didn't realize that Sarah was onto her.

Sarah was damn near a one-woman show trying to get her baby back. A woman's work is never done, you know?

Sarah going to her OBGYN with her suspicions instead of the cops was an unusual choice, but at least it brought things back around to Rose trying to steal the baby at the hospital.

And the showdown at the bus station was peak action.

Anna dropped the ball on turning over her mother before, but at least she came through when it mattered the most and helped Sarah and Kevin find Rose.

Sarah damn near singlehandedly solved two crimes for the police on her own, and she got her baby back. You can't underestimate the power of a mommy's love.

I wish we got an update on poor Anna. She had to deal with her mother's verbal, mental, and physical abuse. Obviously, she already was having a tough time since she couldn't get pregnant either, and then her mother went and lost her marbles stealing babies.

What would've happened if she did have a child of her own? Rose was obsessed with Anna having a kid and even shucked over thousands of dollars for treatments.

She thought her daughter was inadequate and resented her for her inability to bear children. But then, her stealing a child wasn't about Anna. She did it for herself.

In Rose's mind, Mary was Rose's baby (and the Rosemary reference is brilliant), not her grandbaby.

Would she have taken her grandchild from her daughter, too?

Over to you, Lifetime Fanatics! Did you love this one? Are you rethinking your birthing plans? Hit the comments!

Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. She is an insomniac who spends late nights and early mornings binge-watching way too many shows and binge-drinking way too much tea. Her eclectic taste makes her an unpredictable viewer with an appreciation for complex characters, diverse representation, dynamic duos, compelling stories, and guilty pleasures. You'll definitely find her obsessively live-tweeting, waxing poetic, and chatting up fellow Fanatics and readers. Follow her on X.