Maria House (Jennifer Podemski) is a villainess from "The Overpass", episode 5.02 of Republic of Doyle (airdate October 9, 2013). She was a Crown Prosecutor who was on the case of Stanley Westcott and Charlie "Big Charlie" Archer, who had been operating illegal call centers in both St. John's and Corner Brook. She first encountered Rose and Malachy Doyle as they were awaiting Jake to transport Stanley back to St. John's to testify against Charlie, with Maria instructing them to call Jake and instead have him taken to Corner Brook, claiming she had brought new charges against him there and wanted him prosecuted in her jurisdiction.
But as revealed over the course of the episode, Maria was revealed to have ulterior motives for wanting Stanley brought to Corner Brook. Maria was in the running for a provincial election in Corner Brook, and was planning to use the Charlie Archer case to bolster her campaign. To achieve her goal, the evil Maria became involved in four past cases against Archer, insuring all four cases ended in a mistrial. When Malachy resisted Maria's request to have Westcott brought to Corner Brook, Maria enlisted Sheriff Toby Quinton (who harbored a grudge against Jake from the police academy) to stop him and Westcott, with her phone call to him serving as her villainous reveal. Maria also had Malachy and Rose charged with obstruction of justice in order to keep them from interfering with her self-serving plan, offering to drop the charges if they brought Westcott to her.
Rose and Malachy were able to uncover Maria's corruption, with Rose planting a device on Maria that allowed them to access her business bank account and see a series of payments for $110. When confronted by Malachy and Rose, Maria claimed that nothing she had done was illegal and that if they reported her, it would be her word against theirs. But once she was shown that Rose had found evidence to Maria's corrupt actions, and that Rose and Malachy were planning to give the evidence to the press, Maria admitted defeat and later followed the Doyles' order to make a call for Jake, most likely to call off her plans. Maria's fate beyond that, however, was left unknown.