January 3, 2022 (2022-01-03)– June 3, 2025 (2025-06-03)
The Cleaning Lady is an American crime drama television series developed by Miranda Kwok, based on the 2017 Argentine television series La chica que limpia. The series premiered on Fox on January 3, 2022. In April 2022, it was renewed for a second season, which premiered on September 19, 2022. In February 2023, the series was renewed for a third season, which premiered on March 5, 2024. In May 2024, the series was renewed for a fourth season, which premiered on March 25, 2025. In June 2025, the series was canceled after four seasons.
The Cleaning Lady centers on Thony De La Rosa, a Cambodian-Filipino former surgeon who is currently working and living in Las Vegas. She is in the US on an expired visa with her five-year-old son Luca, who has a rare and life-threatening medical disorder for which he needs a cutting-edge bone marrow treatment, which is only available in Las Vegas. In order to do so, Thony makes a living as a cleaning service worker alongside her sister-in-law, Fiona. After Thony witnesses a murder and is discovered by Arman Morales, the perpetrator, she is offered a job both as a cleaner and a doctor within Arman's criminal organization that could pay well enough to help her son and her family. As a result, Thony begins living a double life, keeping secrets from her family, while cleaning up crime scenes and evading the law.
Cast and characters
Main
Élodie Yung as Thony De La Rosa, formerly a Cambodian-Filipino surgeon in one of Manila's best hospitals, now trapped in Las Vegas as an undocumented immigrant due to her visa expiring. She becomes a cleaner for the mob in order to gain the connections needed to procure treatment for her sick son.
Adan Canto as Arman Morales (seasons 1–2),[1] a gangster associated with a powerful Armenian crime family operating in Las Vegas. He agrees to protect Thony and help her son in exchange for her services as a cleaner.
Oliver Hudson as Garrett Miller (seasons 1–2), an FBI agent who goes after Thony in his effort to bring down Arman
Martha Millan as Fiona De La Rosa, Thony's sister-in-law and closest friend, with whom she and her son live.
Sebastien and Valentino LaSalle (seasons 1–3) and Khalen Roman Sanchez (season 4)[2] as Luca De La Rosa, Thony's son. He suffers from a rare autoimmune illness that forces Thony to keep him hidden from the outside world to protect him from contagion.
While working as a cleaning woman, Thony De La Rosa witnesses mobsters killing her friend Theo, who failed to properly fix a cage match. After the mobsters discover her, a desperate Thony offers to erase all evidence of Theo's murder. Impressed, mobster Arman Morales later learns that Thony is an illegal immigrant whose son, Luca, needs expensive medical treatment. He leverages this information to get Thony to work for him as a professional cleaner. Thony's sister-in-law, Fiona, gets a job dealing ecstasy as a casino waitress; Thony objects, and Fiona angrily tells her to leave her house. Arman gets Thony to help him clean Theo's hideout when his body is discovered by the police; Arman's boss then informs him that a bomb has been planted to kill Thony, whom he regards as a liability. Arman eventually rescues her, but the explosion leaves shrapnel embedded in his leg. Thony cleans the wound and forces Arman to accept a new deal: he will protect her and treat her with respect. Meanwhile, Fiona quits her new job. She tells this to Thony, and they reconcile by building a new clean room so Luca can go outside. FBI agents are secretly monitoring Thony.
FBI agent Garrett Miller is investigating Theo's death. Theo was working as an FBI informant and spying on Arman's boss, Hayak, and his illegal weapons operation. Garrett interrogates Thony and Fiona about the night Theo died. Thony denies knowing Arman and his men. However, Garrett, who has seen Thony with them, does not believe her. Fiona tells her son Chris that he was born in the Philippines and is also undocumented, like herself. Arman discovers that some of Hayak's gun shipments have gone missing. Luca becomes sick. Desperate for help, Thony brings him to the private club that Arman and his wife Nadia manage for Hayak. Arman takes Luca to Hayak's doctor, Dr. Sorayan, for treatment. Luca pulls through after receiving treatment for his infection. Hayak learns that Arman had brought Luca to Dr. Sorayan and that Thony is still alive. Before Hayak pulls the trigger to kill her, Thony says that while she was cleaning for Arman, she saw a man secretly unloading something from his trucks. Arman finds and kills the thief. As a reward for her information, Hayak allows Thony to continue working for them.
Luca's recent infection has severely damaged his liver, which disqualifies him from participating in the stem cell treatment trial. He now needs a liver transplant to survive. Garrett tells Thony that he knows that she is lying about not knowing Arman and threatens to deport her unless she becomes his new informant. She initially refuses but after witnessing Arman's violent side, she agrees, in exchange for protection and his promise not to deport her. While helping Nadia at Hayak's daughter's wedding, Thony obtains a list of corrupt politicians and government officials who are working with Hayak. But instead of handing the list over to Garrett, she keeps it to herself. At her wedding reception, Hayak's daughter Isabel reminisces with Arman about their past romance and confesses she only broke off their relationship because her father forced her to. Meanwhile, Fiona consults an immigration lawyer to apply for legal status for her son Chris.
To fix Luca's immune system, Thony and Fiona seek out Joe Fabroa, the one who originally agreed to donate bone marrow to Luca. He says that his estranged daughter signed him up as a donor. He never wanted to be involved, even for fellow Filipinos, and turns down Thony's request. Arman and his assistant Carlos kidnap Joe and try unsuccessfully to force him to agree. Thony asks Arman to let Joe go and personally drives him home. En route, Thony sings a Filipino lullaby to Luca, the same one Joe's wife used to sing to his daughter. Moved by the song and Thony's story about her father, Joe agrees to help Luca. Meanwhile, Garrett asks Thony to secretly record meetings between Arman and corrupt city councilor Eric Knight. When the FBI uses the recordings to execute a search warrant on the apartment of Knight's girlfriend, Arman asks Thony to pose as a maid and steal a laptop with information linking Arman to Knight from there. Thony evades the FBI agents at the apartment but not before losing her Buddha pendant at the scene, which Garrett finds and recognizes as hers.
Nadia and Arman go into hiding after a failed attempt on Arman's life. Nadia urges Arman to take advantage of the incident to renew their marriage and cut Thony out of their lives. Arman suspects Hayak is behind the attack, even though the latter feigns ignorance when asked. Arman tells Hayak about the $6 million deal he has already arranged, hoping it would tempt Hayak to spare both his and Nadia's lives. Still stuck in Mexico, Thony reluctantly contacts Garrett to help get her back into the US. Without his supervisor's approval, Garrett drives to meet Thony in Mexico. She urges him to leave immediately so she can be reunited with her son. Garrett drives back to the border, with Thony hiding in the trunk of his car. She is discovered and arrested by Homeland Security, however, and now faces criminal charges and deportation. Nadia and Arman return home, only to find Carlos' corpse, delivered in a box as a warning.
Arman and Thony come up with a plan to resolve their problems with Hayak and the FBI. With Arman's help, Garrett and the FBI arrest Hayak in the act of selling illegal weapons to Arman's buyer. The FBI confiscates the weapons, but the cryptocurrency used as payment is missing. Garrett realizes too late that Arman had Thony and Fiona, disguised as hotel maids, steal a thumb drive containing the money during the raid. Arman is sent to prison along with Hayak, despite Garrett's earlier promise not to arrest Arman. Thony, now responsible for protecting Arman's assets, purchases a dilapidated building, which she and Fiona intend to use as a front for a back-alley clinic to both provide employment for their friends and treat local residents who don't have insurance, while also selling drugs and laundering the profits. Marco wants Thony and Luca to return to the Philippines with him. When Thony refuses, Marco abducts Luca.
On October 22, 2019, it was announced that Warner Bros. Television Studios had acquired the remake rights to the Spanish-language Argentine television series La Chica Que Limpia and was developing an English-language adaptation for Fox, with a script commitment attached. Miranda Kwok was set to write and develop the series adaptation, with Kwok also attached to executive produce with Melissa Carter and Shay Mitchell.[57] On January 23, 2020, Fox gave the project a pilot order, the first for the network's 2020–21 television season, with Fox Entertainment and Warner Bros. Television Studios set as co-production partners.[58] The series was ultimately pushed back to the 2021–22 television season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with Fox giving a series greenlight consisting of ten hour-long episodes on May 7, 2021. Carter was set as showrunner and executive producer along with Kwok, and Michael Offer was also announced as director and executive producer of the pilot.[59] On May 17, 2021, during Fox's Upfront presentation, it was confirmed the series would premiere as a midseason entry during the 2021–22 television season.[60]
On April 7, 2022, Fox renewed the series for a second season.[61] On August 25, 2022, it was reported that Kwok was promoted to showrunner, alongside Carter, for the second season.[62] On February 1, 2023, Fox renewed the series for a third season, and Jeannine Renshaw joined as an executive producer and co-showrunner.[63] The series was renewed for a 12-episode fourth season on May 12, 2024, with a new showrunner to be announced.[64] On July 10, 2024, Daniel Cerone joined the series as an executive producer and the new showrunner for the fourth season.[65] On June 6, 2025, the series was canceled after four seasons.[66]
Casting
In March 2020, Shannyn Sossamon, Adan Canto, Ginger Gonzaga, and Vincent Piazza were cast in main roles for the pilot.[67][68][69] However, Sossamon exited the project after the pilot's initial table read.[70] On April 6, 2020, Élodie Yung was cast to replace Sossamon in the lead role. It was announced that the ethnicity of Yung's character would be changed to match Yung's Cambodian background, but that aspects of Filipino culture would still be integrated.[71] On July 2, 2020, Fox extended the cast options for the pilot through September 30, with the previous option having expired on June 30.[72] Due to the pandemic, cast options were extended further on October 2, 2020.[73] Upon the series order announcement, it was publicized that Martha Millan had replaced Gonzaga in the series and that Piazza had dropped out. In addition, twins Sebastien and Valentino LaSalle were also cast in a shared starring role.[59] On July 13, 2021, Oliver Hudson was cast to replace Piazza.[74] On September 21, 2021, Shiva Negar and Jay Mohr joined the cast in recurring roles.[75] On December 14, 2021, Liza Weil and Eva De Dominici were cast in recurring capacities.[76][77] In August 2022, De Dominici was promoted to a series regular, while Chelsea Frei was cast in a recurring role and Naveen Andrews joined as a series regular for the second season.[4][7][5] On September 27, 2022, K.C. Collins joined the cast in a recurring role for the second season.[8] In December 2023, Kate del Castillo, Santiago Cabrera, and Clayton Cardenas were cast as new series regulars for the third season.[6][78] The same month, Jacqueline Obradors and Jason Manuel Olazabal joined the cast in recurring roles for the third season.[10] Canto died on January 8, 2024, at the age of 42, from appendix cancer.[1] On January 31, 2024, Brandon Jay McLaren and JB Tadena were cast in recurring capacities for the third season.[9] On November 11, 2024, Yancey Arias joined the cast in a recurring role, while Khalen Roman Sanchez came onboard as a new series regular in a recasting, replacing the LaSalle twins for the fourth season.[2] On November 25, 2024, Daniel Bonjour and Alain Uy were cast in recurring capacities for the fourth season.[11] On March 18, 2025, Patricia De León and Robert Cicchini joined the cast in recurring roles, while Lea Salonga joined as a guest star for the fourth season.[12]
Filming
The pilot originally started filming on March 10, 2020, in New Mexico,[70] but production was suspended three days later due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[79] By July 2020, Fox had committed to filming the pilot alongside the network's five other pilots ordered for the 2020–21 television season, with production set to resume that summer.[72] However, filming was delayed again to October 5, 2020, and again to February 2021.[80][81]
Broadcast
The first season of The Cleaning Lady premiered on January 3, 2022, and concluded on March 14, 2022, on Fox.[82][83] The second season debuted on September 19, 2022, and concluded on December 12, 2022.[84][85] The third season premiered on March 5, 2024, and concluded on May 21, 2024.[86] The fourth season premiered on March 25, 2025.[87] The series is available to stream on Max.[88]
Reception
Critical response
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 60% approval rating based on 15 critic reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Elodie Yung is winning as a resourceful protagonist in over her head, but The Cleaning Lady needs to polish its clichés into something more substantial if it wants to truly sparkle."[89]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 53 out of 100 based on 9 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[90]
Ratings
Overall
Viewership and ratings per season of The Cleaning Lady
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