The Cleaning Lady Bosses Explain Season 2 Finale's Major Casualties: 'We Put This Off As Long As We Could'
The following post contains spoilers for The Cleaning Lady's Season 2 finale. Proceed with caution!
The Cleaning Lady closed out Season 2 with a bang. Several of them, in fact. Literal ones!
Monday's two-hour season ender delivered the not-entirely-surprising demise of Robert Kamdar, as well as the entirely surprising death of Agent Garrett Miller, the latter of whom took a bullet to the abdomen during a shootout between the FBI and Kamdar's men. (Kamdar, meanwhile, was fatally shot by Nadia.)
Elsewhere in the finale, Thony and Fiona's dangerous-and-definitely-illegal methods of getting Luca his crucial liver medication resulted in Fiona's deportation — and because Kamdar had already been killed by the time the FBI arrived to nab him, Agent Russo was unable to help Thony get Fiona back in the States. The finale's closing moments found Thony asking for Arman's help in retrieving Fiona, and they planned to use their drug trafficking connections to get Thony's sister-in-law back.
Below, co-showrunners Melissa Carter and Miranda Kwok break down those two big fatalities and tease what's to come if the Fox drama earns a Season 3 pickup. Keep scrolling for their insights, then grade the sophomore finale via our poll!
TVLINE | I want to start with Kamdar's death. It felt inevitable that a villain who loomed as largely as he did would have to die by the end of the season — but did you consider keeping him alive at all?
CARTER | We intended to have Kamdar die even before we cast Naveen Andrews in the role. We wanted a character who would upset the status quo in a fresh way. We started talking about this character last season in that we knew he would be from Nadia's past, and that his money and power would challenge Arman... This was a man Nadia never intended to draw back into her life, but when she desperately needed the money to bribe a judge to get Arman out of prison, she had no choice. This was literally making a deal with the devil. This new dynamic put a wedge between Arman and Nadia, but ultimately gives her what she's always wanted, her own bit of power and the physical representation of that — La Habana. In order for Nadia and Arman to come back out on top, Kamdar had to die.
KWOK | While the plan was always to kill Kamdar from the beginning, because we loved Naveen and his performance so much, there were a few moments when we discussed whether we could let Kamdar live and get away. But we wanted to end his story this season and didn't want to have a lingering question of whether he would come back, nor did we want a continued FBI pursuit of Kamdar. We also discussed that different people might kill him, such as Arman or Garrett, but Nadia was always a forerunner, and after everything he did to them — and to her — we wanted a real moment of empowerment for Nadia. We also wanted a surprising turn with Kamdar's death, which we think we accomplished with Thony saving Kamdar's life.
TVLINE | Miller's death, on the other hand, came as a big shock. Tell me about that choice: Why did it feel best for the story?
CARTER | This was a really difficult decision to make, but a death we knew that would shock our audience and affect Thony the most. As writers, we really wanted Agent Miller's death to mean something. Kamdar's death felt like revenge and vindication for our main characters, but Garrett's death was meant to feel like a gut punch. After Garrett helped protect Thony's family regarding Marco's homicide, the audience knew that he would no longer be a threat to Thony. Season 1, Miller was a nemesis. He was firmly on the side of the "good guys" and the law, challenging Thony to get out of crime, and if she didn't, he threatened to arrest or deport her. But over the course of the two seasons, his own moral compass is challenged by Thony. He starts to see that things aren't so black and white or good and bad. But once he befriends Thony, he is no longer a threat.
We always said that Thony walks this tightrope between crime and the law, and those two representations are Arman and Garrett. By killing Garrett, we wanted to strip Thony of one of the lifelines she has. After he dies, she no longer has the law on her side, which means when Fiona is deported, she is without Garrett's protection, and now will have to get Fiona back by using her criminal connections, pushing her further to the dark side. This is, after all, a crime show. There are consequences to decisions made in this world, and no one is ever truly safe.
KWOK | We discussed many different outcomes, but story-wise, we wanted Thony to have real consequences for her actions. While Thony didn't want to get into crime to begin with, she made tough choices for her son, and this season she crossed the moral line in so many ways and it resulted in Thony going down a much darker path. But with her hubris, she always thought she could stay ahead of the game and maneuver the pieces on the chess board better than anyone else. But with the death of Garrett and Fiona's deportation, she has to face those consequences and realize all the mistakes she made.
TVLINE | What was Oliver Hudson's reaction to Miller getting killed off?
CARTER | The difficult part was that it was right for the storytelling, but incredibly hard to kill one of our favorite actors on the show. Oliver is so giving, friendly and beloved by the cast and crew [that] when the script went out, we had crew members begging us to write a different ending. But Oliver Hudson is a complete pro. When he signed on for this character, he knew that it might only be for a season or two. He called me at the end of Season 1 and asked what was left for Garrett Miller to do now that his character and Thony essentially had gone through the cycle of being foes, then friends, and back again. So this is something that he was creatively prepared for, but it was still the toughest decision we had to make on the show. Long before any of the roles were cast, back when Miranda and I pitched the pilot to Fox, they suggested killing his character off at the end of Season 1. But after falling in love with Oliver, we put this off as long as we could.
TVLINE | How would you describe the relationship between Arman and Nadia, and the relationship between Arman and Thony, in the wake of the finale? They've now survived these awful few months together, but trust seems broken on many levels.
CARTER | Nadia has turned the tables on Arman. The fact that she was still legally married to Robert Kamdar and now holds the title to La Habana, the sportsbook and all the wealth and power changes their dynamic. If Arman is going to stay with Nadia, he is going to have to earn back her trust. She will now enjoy this power, and you can see it on her face in the finale when she points out that La Habana is hers, not theirs. And after Arman's emotional infidelity with Thony, I think the audience will enjoy Nadia holding that over on Arman. We've set up so many great questions: Will Nadia and Arman get married now that she is a widow? Will Arman really have to cut off ties from Thony? Not likely! So they are at a really interesting intersection of their relationship.
Thony and Arman will now work together to get Fiona back in the States, and it won't be easy. They had a lot more conflict this season, and they both have things to be angry about with the other. But that sexual chemistry and romantic attraction they have for each other is very much there, so there is a lot to explore in Season 3.
KWOK | One of the most defining moments of this love triangle this season was when Nadia asked Arman, "Do you love [Thony]?" And his response was, "No... I don't know... But what I do know is that I love you." Arman absolutely does love Nadia, and before Thony came into their lives, they were a ride-or-die couple and we've seen just how loyal Nadia is to Arman, despite everything he put her through. But when Thony came into the picture, even Arman can't quite grasp the kind of emotional ties that he has for Thony. They have a connection that's beyond love — something they don't even understand, and no words can really do justice to describe their relationship. And it's honestly heartbreaking for Nadia. I really feel for her. Which is why we loved being able to change the power dynamic between Arman and Nadia. It's not that Arman doesn't love her. He does. But Thony keeps getting in the way of their relationship and it can never be the same. And now that Nadia holds all the money and has become completely empowered over the last season, their relationship will change. I think their trust could be mended, if Thony stopped getting in between them. But we know that's not going to happen.
And I do think that Thony and Arman will find ways to come back together again and trust each other again. They were so close at the end of Season 1 [that] we needed to slow down their relationship a bit, find reasons to keep them apart, and now their relationship has become more complicated and loaded with missteps and broken trust — but I think that's a good thing. How they will come back together again after everything they survived this season will only make them stronger now.