Spoiler alert: The following article discusses the Season 2 finale of “The Cleaning Lady.”
Having maneuvered through bureaucratic red tape, escaped near death at the hands of kingpins and wiggled out of immigration issues several times, Thony (Élodie Yung) finally finds herself in binds she can’t get out of at the end of “The Cleaning Lady” Season 2.
Her admirable, yet ultimately foolhardy, dedication to her son results in the death of FBI agent Garrett (Oliver Hudson) and deportation of sister-in-law Fiona (Martha Millan). The decision to leave Thony desperate and reaping the consequences of her rash and criminally amateur actions is one that co-showrunners and executive producers Melissa Carter and Miranda Kwok were keen to depict: As much as Thony believes she knows best, that she knows right from wrong, she can’t always get off scot-free.
“It puts her permanently in the corner, now, of crime, where Garrett was allowing an exit off-ramp to this world,” Carter told TheWrap. “And now that he’s gone, she really doesn’t have the law to depend on anymore.”
The finale also sees the shocking death of Naveen Andrews’ Kamdar at hands of former lover Nadia (Eva De Dominici), which restores her and Arman’s (Adan Canto) positions as criminal entrepreneurs and brings Thony covertly back into the fold. Below, Carter and Kwok break down what went into that explosive showdown, alternative endings and what they would like to explore in a potential Season 3.
Episode 11 really explores how devoted Thony is to saving her son at all costs. Could you talk about crafting that storyline with the unregulated Manila drug?
MC: We wanted to do an entire episode where you’re in the American hospital system. You see that all the opportunities to save a life are there except there are all these rules and regulations. She has the medicine that can save her son, but it hasn’t been FDA-approved. And also, Fiona’s biggest fear has always been going to a hospital, so we wanted to showcase that undocumented people can go to a hospital, that medical repatriation does exist, but that Las Vegas is a sanctuary city, and just basically tell any of the audience members that are undocumented that you have a right to go get and seek medical care without the fear of being deported.
Thony is willing to do anything — the journey that she goes through in just Episode 11 to get that medication, from the exciting shootout at the shipping yard, to calling Arman after they’ve had a rift, to facing the doctor that she thinks she’s going to be able to commandeer this equipment and save her son and convince the doctor that this is the right moral thing to do. We wanted to turn all of those expectations of what she’s been able to do in the past and show that it’s not always so easy.
MK: And show the consequences of her actions. She’s usually able to be the smartest person in every room to maneuver the chessboard into her own favor, but this is again a time that she’s not able to. Part of it is because of the system and part of it is we also want it to highlight that the things that she has been doing, that you’re not supposed to treat your own, that in itself is unethical. Yet she’s been forced to do these things in order to keep her son alive. It’s a little bit of a catch-22.
What went into the creative decision to have Fiona deported? With great sacrifice of course, Thony has previously managed getting herself and her family out of ICE issues throughout the two seasons.
MK: [There were consequences of] losing Fiona now that she no longer has a Garrett to get her out of these situations. So it was very important for her character, [because] this year she did dive deeper into crime. She went much, much further across that moral line.
MC: Over the two seasons, we did explore her walking that tightrope between crime and the law. Ultimately, the end of the second season shows that Arman always does come through for her and it’s through no fault of Garrett’s — he’s killed — but when one side let her down, she would reach for the other. So now all of her connections to the side of law have been removed.
Pivoting to Kamdar, I wanted to highlight the line Thony says, about how she was willing to essentially toss Arman aside since she needs Kamdar more for her son. How much of that is her playing the game with him, or is there a bit of truth to that?
MK: It’s definitely both those things. One, she was just trying to convince him to find the drugs, do the deal to get Fiona out. But at the same time, as we saw in Episode 10, she was really faced with the choice where she was told that Kamdar is going to kill Arman. But at the same time, her son needed that medication, and when push came to shove, she chose her son. She and Arman have a very strong bond, but at the end of the day, her family comes first.
MC: The irony or the crushing part is if she had just let him die, Arman [would be] able to get the medication and they wouldn’t be in any of this trouble.
And Garrett would still be alive.
MC: Yeah, she thinks she’s the smartest person in the room, but there are mistakes that she makes, and they’re very human, relatable mistakes, that she does what she does in the moment to put out the fire or to move forward in a way that she thinks is going to save her son. But sometimes she just plays it wrong because she’s not a professional criminal.
What went into the writing process of Kamdar’s eventual demise, especially at the hands of Nadia?
MC: We had several different endings that we floated past the network and we had various discussions about what was the best way. We always knew that we wanted Nadia to either participate in his killing or to enjoy watching his death [laughs] because of all that both Arman and Nadia were put through, really under Kamdar’s thumb and tortured by him. He is a sociopath, so he enjoyed taking Arman down, taking his dignity away from him one maneuver at a time. The decision to have her is something that Miranda — and I believe in conjunction with the director and one of our other producers — came up with and it felt like an exciting, surprising move that you wouldn’t necessarily see coming.
MK: And also the fact that she still had her doubts — Nadia was not a murderer before, but Kamdar tried to kill her. It is also her coming into her own power based on how she’s been treated, kind of getting her own justice, her own vengeance.
MC: To take it back once, she did try to poison him, so she did [try to kill him], so he only tried to murder her [after].
You could say he was trying to kill all of them first, so it was preemptive.
MK: To be fair, right [laughs].
MC: She was gonna stand to inherit everything as his wife, which he was tricked into believing they’d been divorced. She was like, “All right, maybe I’m on board with this,” but it wasn’t easy.
MK: Had we had more time in the episode, there was going to be another shift where she was actually not going to try to kill him. Instead try to talk Arman up, so if Arman doesn’t have to die, then Kamdar doesn’t have to die.
MC: She does try to convince him, she says, “I need Arman’s help to run La Habana.” [But] when she realizes that Arman’s head is on the chopping block, that’s the impetus.
Was there ever an ending where Kamdar survives and flees to the Caymans?
MC: We actually did talk about letting him live and just be out in the world someplace, but whenever you do that in a television show and a drama, you expect that person to come back. It feels very unsatisfying, especially with the dynamic and the relationships. We knew that if we didn’t permanently end him, the audience would constantly be wondering, and that would have been fine — we love Naveen. But we ultimately wanted that satisfactory ending where you have two deaths in one episode: one that you don’t expect to happen and don’t want to happen and one that you’re looking forward to seeing how that’s gonna play out.
MK: And we certainly did talk about different endings where Garrett did not die. We love Oliver Hudson, but this was going to be such a devastating death for Thony. It’s that unpredictability of this world, that anyone can go, that no one is safe. That’s so important to show the reality of what it is to be in a world of crime and a life of crime, especially somebody who shouldn’t be in it.
Where do Nadia and Arman stand now as a couple, since she is the sole owner of La Habana and they were never legally married?
MK: There definitely is going to be an interesting love triangle that will continue. Arman and Nadia do love each other, but Armand does love both of these women for different reasons and in very different ways. We really wanted this journey for Nadia to go from — being especially underneath Kamdar for so long — but also being shortchanged in her marriage with Arman, where she was absolutely loyal to him and devoted to him and unfortunately, Thony came into the picture and it affected them in ways that they could not get back. We don’t know if they’re going to be able to rekindle or rebuild, but what we do know is that she holds all the cards now. There is a complete power shift in their relationship.
MC: I think you can have a lot of fun with: Is Nadia going to take on a lover? Are they going to separate? Are they going to get together? Are they eventually going to get married again?
At the end of Season 2, Thony takes over the smuggling operation and sets in motion a plan to get Fiona back, further enmeshing herself in the world of crime. What would be next for her in a potential Season 3?
MK: Whatever journey Thony thinks she’s going to be on, she probably won’t make that journey. 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.
MC: It’s always fascinating to watch a character right wrongs with more wrongs. It’s a slippery slope, but in the world of crime, that’s what you expect, and you want to have it be difficult and morally challenging for her. But now she doesn’t have a choice; because of her actions, Fiona got deported, so she’s gotta bring her back.
This interview has been edited and condensed for concision and clarity.
