‘The Cleaning Lady’: Fox Cancels Élodie Yung-Led Thriller After 4 Seasons

Kelli Boyle June 6, 2025, 5:30 pm

The fate of Fox‘s The Cleaning Lady has finally been decided, along with the network’s other title, Alert: Missing Persons Unit, both of which will not return for the 2025-2026 TV season. The Cleaning Lady Season 4 finale aired on Tuesday, June 3, and now serves as the show’s series finale.

The outcome isn’t too surprising after decreased ratings and viewership spelled trouble for the Élodie Yung-led crime thriller. Here’s everything we know about The Cleaning Lady‘s Season 4 ending and how it left things open for a fifth season that will never be.

How did The Cleaning Lady Season 4 end?

Thony (Yung) faced her most grueling challenges yet in the two-hour finale on June 3, which started with Thony in prison after her fake husband, whom she has real feelings for, Jorge (Santiago Cabrera), framed her for the murder of Rex Blackley. Thankfully, she ended the finale out of prison, and the charges against her were dropped, but her time in prison with nemesis Ramona (Kate del Castillo) nearly killed her.

Thony provided medical attention to her fellow inmates in the finale between beatings from Ramona’s crew. Both Thony and Ramona got out of the slammer in a snaky prison break, but they crossed paths again when Ramona attempted to kill Thony by burying her alive. Her plan was to kill Thony, and then kidnap Thony’s son, Luca, and Jorge’s daughter/Ramona’s niece, Violeta, and raise them as her own. A timely arrival from Fiona (Martha Millan) gave Thony the chance to fight back. She was going to kill Ramona right then and there, but she couldn’t bring herself to murder the woman. So Thony buried Ramona alive instead, but Ramona survived.

Jorge was ousted as Sin Cara’s leader by Feng (Alain Uy), but he’s determined to make a comeback. Jorge was leaving to regroup and was bringing Violeta with him, and he wanted Thony and Luca to join. But Thony committed herself to the cartel life and used information Jorge provided as an advantage with Feng. Through the sharing of this damning info about the District Attorney, Joel Herman (Robert Cicchini), Thony negotiated herself a place as a cartel associate. But she’s playing both sides again. She plans to be a mole for Joel by reporting her key findings about Sin Cara now that she’s more deeply involved in it — very deeply.

The finale ended with Thony declaring her new plan to Fiona. “They all want to control me. But this puts me back in control,” she said. “I’ll let those men think that they own me, but I don’t want to be a cartel associate. I don’t want to be an informer. I want to take over Sin Cara.”

Taking over the cartel could have been The Cleaning Lady‘s intentions for a fifth season if it had come to pass.

Kate del Castillo in 'The Cleaning Lady' Season 4 finale

Jeff Neumann/FOX

Has The Cleaning Lady been renewed for Season 5?

No, unfortunately for fans of The Cleaning Lady, Fox canceled the series following its fourth season, which underwent a massive story overhaul between Seasons 3 and 4 following the tragic death of leading man Adan Canto , who died of cancer in January 2024.

Michael Thorn, President of Fox Television Network, told the press ahead of the network’s upfront presentation that its renewal announcements would come in waves. Since then, Fox has pulled the plug on The Cleaning Lady.

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“The Cleaning Lady, Alert, and The Great North are still in the middle of their runs,” Thorn said on a call to press at the time. “We love the teams and those shows. I think there’ll be more to come after they finish their current seasons. As you know, we order series all year round; the upfronts for us is one cycle of ordering. And there will definitely be more sometime, probably later this summer.”

The Cleaning Lady renewals haven’t been quick in the past; it’s usually weeks or months after the finale airs that the show’s renewal announcement is made. But the lengthy gap between the Season 4 finale and Fox’s decision wasn’t entirely unexpected, as Deadline previously noted that the renewal prospects for The Cleaning Lady hadn’t looked good.

The Cleaning Lady‘s first two seasons had strong ratings and viewership, but there was a considerable dip in Season 3. After having over 1 million viewers per episode throughout Season 3, the two-part Season 3 finale drew in only 0.85 million viewers in May 2024, according to ratings-watcher TV Series Finale. The Season 4 premiere had an uptick, with 1.295 million viewers tuning in. Every episode except Episode 4 has stayed over the 1-million mark since then, but none have surpassed the Season 3 premiere viewership.

There was a small increase in viewers in Episodes 5 and 6, but weekly decreases for Episodes 7 and 8 (the latter of which aired on May 13). Episode 7 had 1.099 million viewers, followed by an even 1 million in Episode 8.

Ultimately, the numbers didn’t add up enough for The Cleaning Lady to land a Season 5 renewal. Let us know what you thought of the cancellation in the comments section below.