The Cleaning Lady Review: Legacy (Season 1 Episode 3)

The Cleaning Lady returns with a new installment, and it’s just alright. 

We’re only three episodes into the new series with The Cleaning Lady Season 1 Episode 3, “Legacy,” and I fear the show may have already plateaued.

We’re still getting to know our characters, but some things that happen feel a bit baseless. 

Thony’s reactions are exaggerated, unlike the calm and collected version of her we met in weeks prior. This makes sense if you think she has reached a breaking point — but she asks for more work, indicating that she knows what she’s in for. 

Garrett Miller Is Never Seeing Heaven

Almost every time we learn something new about Garrett Miller, I question why we need to know, and then I conclude that he is an evil man. 

Garrett’s only three episodes in, and he’s threatened to deport Thony and her sister multiple times now. It isn’t entirely unusual, especially for bureau members on television, but can he tone it down a little bit?

Given this is all Garrett has on Thony shows how much he doesn’t see her as a person but simply as an undocumented immigrant. He needs to use her because he’s screwed up in the past and can’t lose this case.

Men projecting their problems onto the women in their lives isn’t anything new or revolutionary, but the way he goes about it seems particularly vile.

Threatening a child because Garrett previously slept with an informant isn’t something that makes you love to hate the character. It’s something that makes you want to fast forward his scenes when he’s on-screen, especially when he has the audacity to blackmail Thony into helping him get more information on Arman. 

The saving grace amidst all of the Garrett scenes is the brief moment we see between him and Katherine Russo, played by the iconic and legendary Liza Weil. 

More Katherine Russo and less Garrett Miller, please!

Teenagers Will Be Teenagers

Chris’ anger with his mother is justified; however, it’s still frustrating to see how few teenagers realize how hurtful their words come across. 

Despite Thony and Fiona being close, living together, and working together initially, there’s a gap in their relationship that is becoming more noticeable. 

Is it because of Thony’s work with Arman, or is it something else? “Legacy” would have been the perfect time to give us a meaningful scene between Thony and Fiona, especially about their respective difficulties. Instead, we get a very brief scene where Thony continues to lie to her. 

Fiona would like to talk to someone about Chris and their issues, but with Thony seemingly never around, they don’t get a chance to do that. I fear it’s putting a strain on their relationship far too early in. 

Grounded Astronaut 

Luca is denied entry into the trial needed to keep him alive because his test results don’t quite fit, and unfortunately, that’s something unpreventable. 

However, it worsens as the episode goes on. By the end, Luca is disqualified from the trial because he needs a liver transplant — very heartbreaking, but again, not entirely uncommon. 

The problem comes where we’ve already had this happen. Of course, no child is safe from bad luck or bad health, but if this story is built on Thony working for Arman to help pay for Luca’s treatments and he doesn’t have treatments, what happens then?

Arman keeps Thony around for multiple reasons, one being that she witnesses too much, but there’s no real reason he can’t kill her and find another cleaning lady if necessary. 

Even though the stakes of Luca staying alive are now higher, the stakes of Thony working with Arman have become slightly lower. The FBI already knows they work together; they just don’t know in what capacity. 

So why, at this point, does Thony need Arman? Hopefully, we will find out soon. 

Stray Thoughts 

• Thony’s reaction to Arman almost killing a senator is incredulous fear, which is strange because she knows he’s constantly associated with killers. So why is it only just now sinking in when she’s cleaned up several bodies already?
• “Legacy” spends way too much time on a wedding that, in the end, really doesn’t matter. 
• Finding out that Garrett slept with a previous informant is somehow more tame than whatever I thought he was in trouble for. He is truly terrible.

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The Cleaning Lady airs Mondays at 9/8c on FOX.

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