‘The Cleaning Lady’: Where Season 2 Left Off & What’s Ahead in Season 3
No amount of bleach or elbow grease can tidy up the mess The Cleaning Lady left behind in Season 2. After making drastic decisions for the sake of her son, Thony De La Rosa (Élodie Yung) will now have to go to extremes to save sister-in-law Fiona De La Rosa (Martha Millan) as the Fox drama continues, especially now that FBI agent-turned-ally Garrett Miller (Oliver Hudson) is no more.
“[Thony] always thought she could stay ahead of the game and maneuver the pieces on the chessboard better than anyone else,” co-showrunner Miranda Kwok told TVLine in 2022. “But with the death of Garrett and Fiona’s deportation, she has to face those consequences and realize all the mistakes she made.”
Where Season 2 left off
In the Season 2 finale, Thony De La Rosa teamed up with Arman Morales (Adan Canto) to procure life-saving drugs and hospital equipment for a liver treatment for son Luca (Sebastien and Valentino LaSalle) while Fiona took the boy to the hospital, but Luca’s doctor ended up reporting Thony. Garrett was able to rescue Thony, but Fiona got deported.
Meanwhile, Nadia Morales (Eva De Dominici) fatally shot Season 2 big bad Robert Kamdar (Naveen Andrews), her ex, and surprised Arman with the news that she’s keeping — not splitting — the La Habana empire she inherited. And a shootout between the FBI and Kamdar’s men claimed Garrett’s life, meaning he’s not around to help get Fiona back to the United States or to be Thony’s lifeline. And so Season 2 ended with Thony and Arman scheming to get Fiona back through drug-trafficking channels.
“We’re trying to show that in crime you can’t really control the outcome. You step over a line, you may not be the one to get punished,” then-co-showrunner Melissa Carter told Entertainment Weekly in December 2022. “We also wanted to catapult to a cliffhanger where in a Season 3 we see what Thony is gonna have to do to get Fiona back. It was her fault ultimately. … Thony is very good at talking her way out of things, and we wanted to show this was something she couldn’t talk her way out of. The repercussions reached far beyond her to someone that she loves so deeply.”
What’s ahead in Season 3
Fox renewed The Cleaning Lady for Season 3 more than a year ago, with Jeannine Renshaw replacing Carter as an executive producer and Kwok’s new co-showrunner. “After two heart-pounding seasons, we’re thrilled with how audiences have latched on to this incredible story,” Michael Thorn, Fox Entertainment’s president of scripted programming, said in a statement. “The cast, led by the incomparable Élodie Yung, along with our brilliant creative team and our partners at Warner Bros. Television have expertly crafted a highly compelling, emotionally-driven show that gives a perspective you don’t often see on television.”
The Cleaning Lady’s third season will be missing one of its star players: Adan Canto, the actor behind Arman, died on January 8 after a battle with appendiceal cancer. His health precluded him from returning for Season 3, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
A handful of new actors are entering the Cleaning Lady canvas. In December 2023, Deadline announced the casting of Kate del Castillo (La Reina del Sur), Santiago Cabrera(Star Trek: Picard), and Clayton Cardenas (Mayans M.C.).
Del Castillo will play philanthropist and art collector Romona Sanchez, a family matriarch who has a ruthless cunning below the surface. Cabrera, meanwhile, will play Jorge Sanchez, Ramona’s brother, a Harvard Law-educated fixer and money launderer struggling with insatiable rage since the untimely death of his wife. (It’s Jorge you see grilling Thony in the teaser above.) And Cardenas will play Dante, Ramona’s assistant, whose intense devotion to the business puts him at odds with Thony, the site reported.
Additionally, Jacqueline Obradors (NYPD Blue) and Jason Manuel Olazabal (Dexter) were brought on to play Arman’s estranged parents. The soulful and devoted Teresa Morales and the stubborn-to-a-fault Eduardo Morales both feel the shame Arman’s criminal activities have brought to the family, per TVLine.
And this January came the news that Brandon Jay McLaren (The Rookie) and JB Tadena (Kung Fu) were joining the cast. McLaren will play Jeremy Dolan, a charming contractor-turned-entrepreneur who befriends Thony but harbors a sinister secret, while Tadena will play Paolo Belleza, a fun-loving Manila food stall owner with intimate ties to the De La Rosa family, per Deadline.
All told, The Cleaning Lady Season 3 marks frightening new territory for the namesake character. “Whatever journey Thony thinks she’s going to be on, she probably won’t make that journey,” Kwok told TheWrap in 2022. “It will continue to be a challenge that she’s going to have to find other resources to help her family, to help her son, to get Fiona back. That it’s always going to be a struggle for her. Now, is she going to sink deeper into a world of crime? Probably. And so what is going to be that influence to bring her back if it’s Luca or the family? There’s no more Garrett who’s trying to reel her back. She’s a little bit without a net right now.”
The Cleaning Lady, Season 3 Premiere, Tuesday, March 5, 8/7c, Fox
