Now that The Cleaning Lady Season 2 finale has aired, TV Fanatic chatted with the showrunners, Melissa Carter and Miranda Kwok, to discuss the biggest twists and the potential for Season 3.
With so much to discuss, we spoke with Carter and Kwok about the devastating consequences of Thony’s choices, which woman Arman really loves, the potential of JD & Fiona, and a potential Season 3 renewal.
Check out the interview below:
Hello Miranda and Melissa. It’s an honor to talk to you both. I’m a huge fan. So, the Cleaning Lady Season 2 finale ended with a bang. This season seemed a lot darker, especially for Thony as she tried to find medication for Luca.
Was that your intent to make her darker, even if she alienated some allies in the process?
Melissa: We wanted to show that you can’t get involved with crime without it affecting even if the reasons are good. Her motivation is to do anything to save Luca but be enmeshed in that world, and there will be consequences. She will take actions that hurt or harm or, in Garrett’s case, possibly kill others.
So, it’s not something that you can skip through and not see the effects of, which I think all great shows like Breaking Bad and Ozark, and Sopranos show that if you’re going to be in the world of crime, there’s going to be harsh and surprising and things that you can’t control.
Thony is a person that, as a surgeon, is in control and thinks she can be in control, and ultimately, she can’t. She can’t control everything. So that’s why we made her journey a bit darker this season.
Miranda: There’s a part of her that never wanted to go into crime, to begin with. But then, she justified every move because she needed to save her son, but she entered too far into the world.
She crossed a few too many more lines. Sometimes, you make one wrong decision, and then you keep making other decisions that are not so great to try to fix them.
She went down this path, and at first, there was a certain arrogance. There’s a certain hubris that she figures she is the most intelligent person in every room, and she could play all the chess moves, and then she realizes at the end that she’s not able to control everything and that there are very severe consequences.
This isn’t a game; it hasn’t been a game for a long time, yet she keeps getting deeper into it. That struggle and that journey will continue because she was on a darker path; therefore, there were more severe consequences.
Was there a specific reason that Garrett was the one that had to die?
Melissa: It was not an easy decision. It was a very difficult one. Ultimately, they wanted a big cliffhanger when we looked at the decision because it’s network television. They want something that will draw audiences back in, but we wanted the death to mean something.
In this relationship and journey that Thony and Garrett had been on, you saw that they were becoming friends. He did help her family, and he helped Chris. He did many things to help Thony over the season and hoped she would get out of crime.
This last move removed the magical genie element of their relationship with Fiona deported. There’s no longer someone to help her on the side of the law. There’s no longer someone who can pull strings and support, so she is on her own at the end of the season. That’s one of the primary reasons we wanted to do it.
Yes. And on that note, Fiona ended up paying the price for some of Thony’s mistakes, and apparently, JD’s warnings about Tony were correct. How is the family going to pull together for that?
Miranda: It’s going to be a challenge. Again, we wanted to show the consequences of crime and making decisions that do not support those around you. Thony made mistakes, and Fiona suffered the consequences.
We also wanted to delve into what that means for the family and what it means to have a family with mixed status since Jaz was born here, JD’s American, and Fiona’s not.
There may have been a time in which he could have helped. Still, we also wanted to show that there’s a stereotype and an assumption that undocumented immigrants will do anything to stay. They will marry illegitimate legitimately, and Fiona never wanted to be that person. She wanted to marry only if they were in love.
She didn’t even share that with JD when she was pregnant with Jaz, and they had a missed opportunity where they didn’t express how they felt about each other. And by the time JD was back in her life and was able to help and willing to help. It’s too late.
It’s always a challenge for people in undocumented families. Although JD is American, it doesn’t mean he will be an instant solution for them.
That makes sense. And what would you say Robert’s purpose was in The Cleaning Lady Season 2, and did he fulfill it?
Melissa: I think he fulfilled it. First, we wanted to upend the power dynamics between Nadia and Arman after season one, where Arman fell in love with Thony. There was infidelity there, even though Tony and Arman didn’t sleep together, he was romantically attracted to her, and Nadia felt this betrayal.
We had someone come in from Nadia’s past who upended all of the relationships. They were married. They never divorced, which means Armand and Nadia were never married.
It was fun to have Kamdar come in as essentially a sociopath who is flashy, who is Mr. Vegas, who has all this money and power, and who likes to play and manipulate other people.
Even though Nadia is entirely loyal and loves Arman, he deeply hurt her. You have Kamdar coming in and taking Arman down one peg after another until he’s brought down to the studs.
It was an interesting journey for her to come through it and ultimately pick the side of Arman by being loyal to him, but it tested their relationship in a fun way.
Miranda: Often, you want your villain to challenge your characters in different ways and test their morality. Kamdar is somebody who amassed money for power, and he had so much power that he thought he was untouchable and protected all over the city.
In a way, Thony bought into that, especially if you look at Episode 10, where Armand and Nadia are saying no, we need to get rid of him now before he kills us. Now Thony’s bought into the theory that he’s the one with the money and the resources to get her what she needs, which is medicine for her son.
Had she trusted Arman, who had delivered for her for no reason because of his compassion, things would have been okay. Instead, she saved Kamdar’s life, and everything started going wrong in Episodes 11 and 12.
Yes, I was screaming at Thony a lot during The Cleaning Lady Season 2 Episode 10, telling her to stop.
Are we ever going to see Arman choose between Tony and Nadia because right now, he still has a Bonnie and Clyde thing with both of them? I thought they were both very hot and sexy at different parts of the end of the finale.
Miranda: This is true. Yes. Arman truly loves both women for different reasons and in different ways. Thony and Armand have this deep, interesting connection beyond any typical relationship.
He also has this very loving fiery, passionate relationship with his wife, but she doesn’t see him the way Thony sees him. She doesn’t see his heart and his soul the way Thony does.
Where it’s fulfilling in one aspect, it’s not in another. It’s difficult for someone like Arman because he loves both women; he is drawn to both women, so he will be stuck trying to navigate that in Season 3.
Melissa: We wanted to throw a lot of obstacles in their path. We ended season one where you felt like Thony and Arman were going to be together, like that last scene of them holding hands in the prison, and you think, well, that’s it.
But then you put them through these arduous journeys where Thony loses Marco, but it was an accident, and now Chris is at fault. At the same time, it’s subtle when Arman has all the power and can do things for Thony. That was when he felt sexy and like a hero.
He felt desired by her, but when he was stripped of everything when he didn’t have power and didn’t have his dignity, and he’d been beaten to a pulp and almost left for dead, it changed the dynamics of this season. There wasn’t a lot of romance between the two, which sets up excellent possibilities for Season 3.
He was brought down and had to claw his way back up to power. He was stripped of everything because of Kamdar and lost his prototypical father figure with Hayek. All these reasons stripped him of his manliness, power, and identity.
Now it will be fun to reset the board in Season 3 and watch him reclaim that seat of power and see how he will do it.
You’re both talking about Season 3. Does that mean we’re going to get a season 3 renewal?
Melissa: We always have to talk about it.
Miranda: We don’t know yet. We hadn’t heard anything yet, so we were crossing our fingers. It was great to see Arman come back, claw his way out, prove himself again, and prove his worth to Thony, even though she doubted him and what he could do in Episode 10.
We need to have a Season 3. We ended on a significant Cliffhanger.
Miranda: Yes, we need to get Fiona back. We can’t end like this.
Melissa: You let them know, Laura.
If we get a Season 3, will the FBI be involved or not since Garrett is dead?
Miranda: There will be some force on the law side of things to try to keep Thony in check and what she’s doing. That is definitely up for discussion, and we’ll see where those discussions lead because we need a nemesis for Thony on either side. Indeed, Russo is not happy with the situation.
So, will Liza Weil stick around? I like her.
Miranda: I know we do too. So yes.
If you have missed any of the action of Season 2, you could watch The Cleaning Lady online via TV Fanatic.
Laura Nowak is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.
