Series / The Cleaning Lady

The Cleaning Lady is a series airing on Fox, starring Élodie Yung. It is a remake of an Argentinean series.

In Las Vegas, former doctor Thony De La Rosa ekes out a living as a cleaning lady while waiting for her immunocompromised son to get a bone-marrow transplant and hoping that she and her son don't get deported before then. One night, she accidentally witnesses a killing and in order to avoid being murdered, she offers to clean it up, which leads to a lucrative new career as a Cleanup Crew for local gangster Arman Morales, but also begins her double life.

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This series contains examples of:

• Accidental Murder: In "Sins of the Father" Thony, Fiona, and Chris arrive at the cheap motel where Marco took Luca. Chris tries to get pass Marco to check on Luca, only to physically blocked by Marco. In the resulting struggle, Chris ends up shoving Marco down a flight a stairs with the fall killing him. Although Chris acted in self-defense, didn't really like the guy (even before he tried to skip the country with Luca), and the whole thing being pretty much a freak accident, Chris is rather unnerved over the dark deed.
• Affably Evil: Arman, despite being a high-level gangster in the criminal underworld of Las Vegas, is a pleasant fellow on a personal level and is sympathetic towards the kind of struggles Thony faces due to being an undocumented immigrant who can't get the financial support her son needs.
• Aloof Big Brother: Chris plays this straight with Jaz for the most part. Subverts with Luca though.
• Awful Wedded Life: Thony's marriage to her husband Marco is under serious strain, both because of his inability to join her in the US and because he has a terrible gambling addiction.
• Back-Alley Doctor: Deconstructed in "Full On Gangsta", where Thony and Arman take Luca to an off-book Mexican clinic for Luca's liver transplant. The clinic is entirely modern and more comfortable than a normal US clinic, because most of its clientele would not pay its high prices for substandard care. There is, however, a significant downside: the clinic bumps Luca's surgery off their schedule because a higher-playing client shows up demanding treatment.
• Beneath Notice: Invoked by Thony when asked why she'd be trusted with jobs for a mobster and she replies "no one notices the cleaning lady".
• Best Friends-in-Law: Thony and Fiona to a T.
• Big Sister Instinct: Fiona for Thony, who is her sister-in-law. When Thony was getting messed with some drunk pervert, Fiona almost killed the guy with one punch!
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Arman and Hayak gradually become this to each other as the season goes on. For Arman, it was Hayak not partnering with on the newly acquired hotel. For Hayek, it was Arman swiping his gun stash.
  • Arman fully regains Hayak's trust after he prevents Noah from fatally shooting him.
• Chekhov's Skill: Years of cleaning up hotels has made Thony an expert on getting rid of all manner of viscera. Her background as a former doctor also gave her some skills at treating wounds, which comes in handy when her new boss Arman takes some shrapnel to the leg. Her background specifically as a cardiothoracic surgeon comes in handy when the surgeons she hires cancel on her; all she needs is an assistant and a clean operating room to perform Luca's liver transplant herself.
• Conscience Makes You Go Back: In the climax of the first episode, Arman runs back to save Thony after discovering that he sent her into a building that was rigged by one of his associates to blow up. He gets shrapnel in the leg for his trouble.
• Cowboy Cop: Garrett, the FBI agent investigating Arman and his friends, has been repeatedly written up for going outside the law to follow leads. When his partner hears that he tried to question Thony alone in a bowling-alley restroom, she warns him that if their boss finds out, he's going to get pulled off the case.
• Dating Catwoman: No, Thony and Arman are not sleeping together despite what their respective spouses may think, but it is obvious they have some type of attraction to one another.
• Declaration of Protection:
  • Thony gets Arman to promise to protect her as she continues to work for him, as well as, if something does happen to her, that her son will still be protected.
  • Thony herself makes this promise to Chris after he accidentally kills her husband Marco.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • In "ICE" Garret uses his FBI connections to temporarily detain Thony's undocumented immigrant coworkers to force her cooperation, but he never intended to have them actually deported. Unfortunately, he miscalculates and this is exactly what happens.
  • "El Diablo Que Conoces" After the power rush from quiting their job begins to wane, Fiona realizes that she inspired ALL of her friends to become unemployed; costing them their income and health benefits, while her own startup isn't ready yet.
• Dying Declaration of Love: Hayak admits to Arman that he loved him more than his own son. This is literally right after Hayak tried to kill him in the shower.
• Establishing Character Moment: The first time we see Arman, he is berating Tarik for carelessly throwing something in Thony's direction, which tells us that Arman actually pays attention to people like Thony.
• Ethnic Menial Labor: Deconstructed; Thony and Fiona work as cleaning ladies because that's the only work they can get with expired visas. Back home in the Philippines, Thony was a cardiothoracic surgeon, but can't get a medical license in the US because of her undocumented status.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Arman is a brutal enforcer for a crime syndicate, but he refuses to let the harmless Thony get killed by his boss for seeing too much. He's also both angry and disgusted when he learns that Luca's only prospective bone marrow donor is refusing to help (doubly so when he pretends he'll do so for payment).
• Even the Girls Want Her: In the first episode, Thony is propositioned by a male client, which sets off a chain of events that almost gets her and Fiona fired. Later in the episode, Arman's wife calls her beautiful and tries to kiss her. To be fair, she was clearly drunk.
• Evil Mentor: Hayak to Arman in addition to being his boss. Ironically, Arman later becomes one for Thony.
• Expecting Someone Taller: Maybe not "taller" per-se, but Fiona clearly wasn't expecting Arman to be such a dashing figure when finally meeting him in "Bahala Na".
• Faux Affably Evil: Zigzagged for Robert Kamdar, the loan shark introduced in season 2. His unfailing manners and charm are totally on the level while talking his old girlfriend Nadia and, to a lesser extent, when meeting Thony. Toward just about anyone else there seems to be some underlying tension that permeates the room as he is conducting "business" deals.
• Friend to All Children:
  • Thony in spades. So much in fact she refused to perform a potentially life-threatening operation to remove a kidney from a small girl for Mother Donna in exchange for a new liver for her own son.
  • Arman shows signs of this too. He was willing take Luca, who at that point never even met, to his personal doctor despite knowning his boss likely wouldn't approve.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Fiona towards Thony; subtle yet there. Deep down, Fiona has always felt that Thony's education caused her to think she knew better than everyone else.
• Has a Type: Garret appears to have a thing for pretty blonde ladies.
• The Help Helping Themselves: Thony, Fiona, and their co-workers sometimes lift some of the leftover food that they're paid to clean up. One episode has Fiona finding a leftover half of a cake while cleaning up after a birthday party and gleefully taking it home to her kids.
• If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: After Thony and Arman complete Kamdar's drug deal by the skin their teeth, Robert has one last test of loyality for them. He revels a tied up Maya, having discovered she was a rat, and orders Arman to shoot her. At first Arman staunchly refuses even upon the threat on his life. However when Robert pulls a gun on Thony's head and threatens her life? Welllll...
• The Illegal: Thony and her sister-in-law Fiona are undocumented. In Thony's case, she had only intended to stay in the US long enough for her son Luca to undergo a bone-marrow transplant, but the donor for the transplant backed out and she and Luca have had to stay while she waits for another donor, and her visa has since expired. In Fi's case, she attempted to come to the US to give birth to her oldest son Chris, but went into labor when she was still in Manila.
• It's All About Me:
  • Marco had this for a lot of their marriage due his gambling addiction despite genuinely loving Thony and Luca. That said, Thony is not entirely immune to this either.
  • One of the reasons why Thony does not want to go back to Manila is because it's impossible to get a divorce there.
• It's Cuban: Arman has sufficient connections that he's able to get his hands on Cuban cigars. He often gives them to potential clients to help seal an arms deal. Sometimes, he'll also have Nadia put on a show of smoking one of them to demonstrate their supposed potency.
• Jerkass Has a Point: The way Marco went about returning Luca to their homeland leaves much to be desired, however, the reasons for doing so happen to be fairly valid - Thony's undocumented status and involvement with a criminal enterprise are risks to Luca's safety.
• Last-Second Chance: Kamdar knows Thony played a part on the assassination attempt on his life and offers both forgiveness AND a ranking position in his operation if she just admits the truth. Thony sticks to her story, however, so Kamdar decides to have her executed.
• Mama Bear:
  • God help anyone who gets in the way of Thony's efforts to save her son's life.
  • This the one area where Fiona is Thony's equal. The sleazy hotel manger learns this hard way after further blackmailing Chris.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Hayak refusing to treat Arman as anything other than another a mook causes Arman to plan to steal his gun supply, sell them for his own profit, and run off.
• The Millstone: Marco has a gambling addiction and a stupid amount of pride, so as soon as he arrives in Las Vegas, he starts making things complicated for Thony and Luca at a time where Thony is desperately trying to arrange Luca's liver transplant.
• Moving The Goal Posts: The hotel manger, who caught Chris accidentally killing Marco, blackmails Fiona for $10000 for his silence. When Fiona brings him the money and asks him to delete the video, he instead asks for an additional $10000 per week. Naturally, Fiona snaps and knocks him out.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Chris understandably has this reaction when he accidentally kills his uncle.
• Naked First Impression: Thony first meets Nadia while the latter is passed out on a bed in her underwear.
• Nice to the Waiter: Arman greets all the hostesses at his restaurant personally when he comes in to work. He's also usually willing to help Thony, despite her only being a cleaning lady.
• Oppressive Immigration Enforcement: ICE (specifically its ERO branch) is presented as a cruel, inhumane agency that treats immigrants like cattle. In "ICE" when Garrett uses his FBI connections to have them detain Thorny's illegal workers so he can force them to cooperate, they simply go behind his back to deport them.
• Papa Wolf: The Devil's temptations cannot keep Marco from reuniting with son. The gambling bug, however, might be strong enough to make him take a quick detour.
• Pet the Dog:
  • In "The Lion's Den" Hayak is not happy Arman hasn't killed Thony yet, and even less that he took Thony's son to his private doctor. However, after Thony helped to identify person who was stealing his guns, Hayak personally thanks Thony for her loyalty and wishes her son a speedy recovery.
  • In "Truth or Consequences", Garrett counsels an increasingly-anxious Chris about how to deal with his guilt over fatally pushing his uncle down the stairs.
• Properly Paranoid: Thony is an undocumented immigrant with an immunocompromised son. Between her fears of being deported and her fears of her son getting sick, she has a whole lot of survival instincts that make her uniquely suited to survive in the heady world of organized crime.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Jacinto, Thony's father-in-law, rightly suspects that she had something to do with Marco's death, but thinks her culpability is indirect - he thinks Marco was killed by a cop when Thony put out an APB on him.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In "El Diablo Que Conoces", Thony, Fiona, and all of their co-workers walk off the job after their boss orders Samentha to continue working after she nearly falls into a diabetic coma.
• Shameful Strip: Kamdar doesn't trust last-minute changes of any kind, and his suspicions are triggered when Thony arrives as a substitute for Nadia to collect a loan that's needed for bribe money. He makes her strip to her underwear to prove she isn't wearing a wire, thanks her afterward, and then punches his henchman for not checking her first.
• Shower of Angst: Thony's go-to method of dealing with stress. Lampshaded in that she has to shower regularly in order to be around her immunocompromised son without infecting him.
• Stiff Upper Lip: Kamdar does not lose his composer even when being strangled by Arman.
• Stealing from the Till: Tony engaged in this from her new business venture with Arman and Nadia. It's a relatively small amount (10k from the 58k they still needed) and only because she needed the money pay off Chris's blackmailer.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Garrett's Cowboy Cop tendencies constantly come back to bite him in the ass when his evidence of Arman and Hayek's crimes gets thrown out because he used underhanded methods to get it.
  • His ICE raid scheme from "The Icebox" ends up having particularly disastrous consequences for both him and Thony, as the US Customs and Border Protection agency gains access to his files on Thony and decide to use all the evidence he'd compiled against her as a basis to deport her. He himself is fired for interfering with their operations while trying to smuggle Thony back into the States.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: In season 3, with Arman being written out due to Adan Canto's death, Thony is suddenly introduced to Jorge, Arman's uncle, who also happens to be handsome and good with kids.
• Taking the Bullet: Mateo for Arman in "The Lion's Den".
• Taking the Heat:
  • On more than one occasion, Fiona offers to take blame for Marco's death. Neither Thony OR Chris are willing to explore that option.
  • In "Truth and Consequences", Thony tries to take the heat for Marco's death to spare Chris from being interrogated, knowing that the cops will break him and probably ruin his life.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: In "El Diablo Que Conoces", Thony, Arman, and Nadia become extremely reluctant business partners after Arman's attempts to get back into the gun-running business fall through, leaving him open to Thony's suggestion that he run pharmaceuticals instead.
• Thicker Than Water:
  • Played straight with Thony and her family.
  • Zigzagged when it comes to Fiona and Marco. Fiona does not appreciate being caught in the middle of her best friend and brother's issues; despite not agreeing with Marco's more reckless actions regarding Luca, she can't help trying to defend him because he always had her back while growing up. Fiona is the most openly emotionally distraught over Marco's untimely demise.
  • Averted by Hayek's daughter, who wants nothing to do with her father's shady dealings. At the end the season she (with a nudge from Arman) gives up Hayek's books to the FBI in exchange for protection for herself and husband.
• Undying Loyalty: Thony develops this for Arman over time. It gets noticed by more than one character and they can't help but question her why?
• What the Hell, Hero?: In "Mother's Mission" Fiona is PISSED with Thony for neglecting to tell her current connection with the FBI as well as a local crime syndicate. Despite Thony's claims of trying to "protect" them, Fiona has to point out they almost got deported because of it, and their good friend Gabby actually did get deported.
  • By the end of season 2, virtually everybody is upset with Tony for failing to prevent Fiona's deportation. Doubly so getting involved with the FBI in first place.
• Wise Beyond Their Years:
  • Chris looks and acts like the typical teenage slacker. However, he can be surprisingly insightful if the occasion arises.
  • It's Chris who figures out that the immigration lawyer Fiona hired was scamming them from the start, overcharging on things that don't even require money. To makes matters worse, when the dynamic duo confront him it turns out he hadn't even started ANY of legal paperwork at all!
  • In "Sins Of The Father" Chris rightly points out, with the exception of Jaz, he and Fiona will never be able to see Luca again if Marco takes him back to Manila since they are undocumented immigrants.
• Would Not Hurt A Child: Thony. Not even to save her own child.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: In the second episode, Arman deals with Viktor, the leader of a group of Armenians who are ostensibly liberating their country. While they don't give details, it's implied that the guns are headed to Nagorno-Karabakh, the disputed region between Armenia and Azerbaijan.