The Cleaning Lady: 5 Things We Want to See in Season 3 (and 1 Thing We DON’T)
The Cleaning Lady will return to our screens sometime in 2024, and she’ll have to confront her biggest mess yet.
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When the Fox drama wrapped its sophomore season in December 2022, Thony had run out of leverage in her increasingly precarious situation with the FBI: Agent Garrett Miller, one of Thony’s most crucial allies, was fatally shot, and the subsequent death of crime boss Robert Kamdar rendered Thony’s partnership with the Bureau meaningless. Thus, the FBI could no longer help Thony bring her deported sister-in-law back to the States, forcing Thony and Arman to use more unsavory means (see: drug trafficking contacts) to get Fiona back.
As we wait for The Cleaning Lady‘s third season to arrive — premiere date still very much unknown, given Hollywood’s ongoing strikes — we’ve crafted a wish list of five things we’d like to see in the show’s new episodes, and Fiona’s safe return home is certainly one of ’em.
We’re craving some other developments, too, like a properly powerful reign for new La Habana boss Nadia, and — superficial though it may be — a humble request for Thony and Arman to take their sizzling chemistry to the next level.
Plus, there’s one particular plot point we do not want to see when the show comes back. Keep scrolling to see the one thing we don’t want (and the five things we do) from The Cleaning Lady‘s third season, then drop a comment with your own wish lists!
WANT: Fiona’s Safe Return
In the final scene of Season 2, Thony and Arman appeared perfectly confident that they’d be able to retrieve Fiona on their next trip to Manila to smuggle drugs. But every time these characters leave the United States, something seems to go horribly wrong, and we can’t stomach the idea of Fiona meeting a premature end or being separated from her kids forever. We’ll take one successful rescue attempt, please!
WANT: Thony the Antihero
It’s her. Hi. She’s the problem, it’s her. For two seasons now, Thony has straddled the line between hero and villain, always just managing to keep her family, Arman and FBI contacts on her side despite some messy decisions. But with Fiona now deported (a result of helping with Thony’s very illegal plan to get Luca the medication that he needed) and Thony now managing the drug pipeline in Manila, we’d like to see Thony get even darker — and embrace it, too. Sure, she’s got good intentions rattling around inside. But we suspect Thony likes calling the shots, and the show can do so much with a protagonist who’s not afraid to be bad. Plus, with Robert Kamdar now dead, the series needs a new villain, anyway. Might we suggest the main character?
WANT: A Newly Powerful Nadia
Speaking of complicated women, Nadia made it very clear to Arman in the Season 2 finale that she runs La Habana now, not him. And now that she’s out from under Kamdar’s thumb, it’s time for Nadia to have some agency over her own life, which she’s lacked for the past two seasons.
“If Arman is going to stay with Nadia, he is going to have to earn back her trust,” former co-showrunner Melissa Carter told TVLine at the end of the sophomore run. “She will now enjoy this power, and you can see it on her face in the finale when she points out that La Habana is hers, not theirs. And after Arman’s emotional infidelity with Thony, I think the audience will enjoy Nadia holding that over on Arman.” Hear, hear!
WANT: The Consummation of Thony and Arman
On the other hand, our next ask puts us in a bit of a moral quandary. Because Nadia does deserve better than Arman and his wandering eye! Infidelity is gross! [heavy sigh] But, c’mon: We all know where it’s headed for Thony and Arman. It’s been heading there since the pilot episode, and nearly happened in the show’s sixth episode before Thony cut their intimacy short. And now that Thony and Arman are working even more closely to get Fiona back and take over Kamdar’s drug business, it feels inevitable that their relationship will go there sometime in Season 3. And, yeah, we’re here for it. Forgive us, Nadia.
WANT: A Win for Russo
There’s one more female character we’d like to see thrive in Season 3, and that’s Katherine Russo. Professionally, she’s been dealt a weird hand, forced to work alongside an FBI informant — the frequently disobedient Thony — who she doesn’t trust. Personally, she just lost one of her closest friends and confidants — R.I.P, Agent Miller! — just as they were exploring a romantic spark. And in the Season 2 finale, Kamdar was killed before the FBI could get to him, making Russo’s weeks-long effort to track him down totally futile. Let’s give the woman a win in Season 3, then, no matter how small. (Even better if it’s not small.)
DON’T WANT: More Woes for Luca
Thony’s son’s ongoing health troubles were a compelling impetus for her involvement in the criminal underworld — and, as we said earlier, it’s admittedly thrilling to watch Thony discover how far she’ll go to save her baby. But now that Thony has access to a drug from Manila that seems to work quite well on Luca’s ailments, we wouldn’t mind if the show phased out his health scares in Season 3, and not just to keep the storytelling fresh: Frankly, we’re not sure how many more brink-of-death scenarios little Luca can take, and unless The Cleaning Lady plans to go incredibly dark and have him lose his health battles altogether (yikes, perish the thought), we’d much rather see him recuperate completely than continue to languish in limbo.
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