There’s much to be celebrated with the return of The Cleaning Lady for its highly-anticipated third season, but it’s also a bittersweet reunion on the heels of Adan Canto’s death, who brilliantly brought to life Arman Morales, a character that wedged his way into the hearts of fans.
Though the creative forces behind the series tried to keep things status quo, moments into the episode, it became clear that things were going to be drastically different this season without Adan. His presence was felt throughout every scene and storyline for two seasons—and it’s going to be hard to get fans to unlearn that.
But The Cleaning Lady wasn’t given much of a choice as everyone on the series, and behind the scenes, seems to be feeling his absence as much as fans, and they attempted to provide closure in any way possible while also honoring Adan and his contributions to the series.
Arman’s final storyline revolved around Thony mission to get Fi back to the States following her deportation to the Philippines. He was helping her with chartering the plane, however, she wasn’t clued into the drugs aboard, and before she could raise any concerns or questions at the scene, gunfire broke out as they were ambushed by masked attackers.
As Thony jumped into Nadia’s car for safety, they both watched Arman get hit with bullets. They couldn’t stick around to see if he survived—if they wanted to make it out, they had no choice but to leave him behind–but they never gave up on him, trying their best to figure out what happened to him in the aftermath.
It seems a good chunk of the season will revolve around Nadia and Thony—now bonded by the situation of looking for the man that they love together—trying to locate Arman to learn his fate. Of course, with Adan’s real-life death, fans know that the outcome likely isn’t the one that hopeful Thony was looking for. Nadia felt it in her bones that her husband was gone, even if Thony didn’t want to accept that she was now on her own without Arman’s protection and support.
It was nice to see Adan as Arman one last time as The Cleaning Lady did their best to write off his character in a sensical way, even if parts of it felt a little off. It was said at the time of Adan’s death that he didn’t get to film any scenes for the third season, so I’m not sure if the few glimpses of him before the shootout were scenes previously filmed and retrofitted for this moment or if his final appearance was aided by CGI. Either way, I appreciated it.
Thony was already dealing with a lot before Arman’s death/disappearance, which simply added another layer to her never-ending list. She can never catch a break, but though I feel for her, it’s a situation of her own making.
In her search for Arman, she and Nadia decided he may have gone into hiding at his parents—something I don’t think Arman would ever actually do since they cut connections but desperate times call for desperate measures—where they secured a pendant belonging to the Sin Cara cartel. Thony, in desperation, puts herself in the line of fire to get connected with the cartel, though her request is twofold: find Arman and get her family back to the States. And the Sin Cara cartel took mercy on her as the leader (and the show’s new big bad), Ramona, is Arman’s aunt, who picked up on the romantic connection between him and Thony. It’s another way the show plans to keep his legacy alive.
You’d think that’s enough to deal with for one person, but that doesn’t even begin to cover the extent of Thony’s issues, and I’m seeing now that Arman’s father was onto something when he said “blood begets blood” because the more Thony tries to dig herself out, the deeper she buries herself and the more crimes she wracks up, leaving a trail of destruction in her path.
One of the victims of her bad choices is Fiona, who is hoping Thony will find her safe passage out of the Philippines so she can be back with her children. And not only has she been deported, but she and her parents are attacked by people looking for Thony, who now has a target on her back in her home country as well.
Chris, who is frustrated by the situation created by his aunt and feeling rather helpless, makes the rash decision to travel to the Philippines to be there for his mother. As you imagine, she’s not pleased to see him there after all that she sacrificed to get him to America, but she also can’t be mad at him considering the risks he took to protect her. And it does give us a promising storyline of Chris getting to know his birth father, Paolo, who just found out about him. Maybe this is a good thing for Fiona in the long run as it allows her to distance herself from the life that Thony is leading, which is putting her family in danger. She’s sacrificed so much for Thony, but at what cost?
There were plenty of moments throughout the episode, particularly when Chris left, where I wondered and worried about who was watching Luca. Thony claims to do everything for her son, but throwing herself to the cartel wolves is risky and doesn’t guarantee she’ll come back home to her boy—so what happens then? Who looks after Luca when her string of bad choices means she’s no longer able to?
It’s a question that’s bubbled up to the surface more than once over two seasons, so I can’t say I was totally surprised when Child Protective Services arrived at her doorstep. The series, at its core, was always about the lengths a mother would go to to protect her child, and now that Luca’s health situation seems to be doing better, this is another threat she needs to find a way out of to save her son. But at some point, her life becomes too much and too dangerous to be able to safely care for Luca—and that deserves to be explored.
Thony does what she has to do, but since accepting the role of the cleaning lady, she’s taken shoddy job after shoddy job as the dangers intensify. Now, she’s going to have no choice but to offer up her services to the cartel to survive and protect her loved ones, as evidenced by the promo for the upcoming season.
But what was made evident is that the lack of Arman’s influence in her life makes things dark and grim. He provided a buffer for her—and the show—ensuring that things never got too dark. While there were intense moments during their “Bonnie & Clyde” relationship, their connection and love story always broke things up before it became too heavy. Arman was a good soul who cared deeply and understood her need to put family first. While he chose to go down a dangerous path, he gave everyone hope and reeled Thony back in whenever she went a little too far.
Without him, Thony doesn’t have anyone on her side as she dives deeper into Vegas’ criminal underbelly, so there doesn’t seem to be a saving grace for her.
What did you think of The Cleaning Lady Season 3 Episode 1 premiere?