The Cleaning Lady Sets Season 4 In Motion With A Major Death — Who Was The Premiere's Victim?
Fans of Fox's The Cleaning Lady waited 10 months for the show to return for its fourth season — and just 10 minutes into Tuesday's premiere, they were suddenly saying goodbye to a major character.
Agent Katherine Russo, who has been played by How to Get Away With Murder's Liza Weil since The Cleaning Lady's first season, perished early in the Season 4 opener, burned alive in her car — yeesh — by members of the Sin Cara cartel for her role in getting queenpin Ramona Sanchez imprisoned.
In some ways, Russo's death had been telegraphed. When Fox provided an official Season 4 synopsis in February, the character was notably not mentioned in descriptions of upcoming episodes. Then, at the start of Tuesday's hour, Russo revealed that she would help Thony and her entire family secure U.S. citizenship by way of S visas, since Thony was instrumental in taking down Ramona last season. Thony, Fiona, Chris and Luca (now played by newcomer Khalen Roman Sanchez) were elated and hopeful as they were interviewed at the local immigration office — and it all just seemed too sunny for a show like this, no?
Sure enough, as Russo pulled up outside the immigration building to sign the family's applications, she was barricaded in her vehicle by Ramona's henchmen, who burned Russo with a Molotov cocktail before her car fully exploded. Thony watched all of this happen, of course, because her trauma supply was apparently running low.
But Russo's demise, unfortunate and untimely as it was, ultimately set Thony's Season 4 arc in motion. After initially planning to escape to Cambodia with Luca, Thony decided to stay put in Las Vegas and stand her ground against Ramona. By the end of the episode, Thony had reignited her maybe-more-than-platonic rapport with Jorge Sanchez — the new leader of Sin Cara, though some members are still more loyal to Ramona — and talked her way into a new job as the cartel's on-call doctor, which will a) ensure her family's safety from here on out (at least, we hope so), and b) allow her to work at a real hospital while she cares for cartel members on the side. As evidenced by a tense phone call with Ramona at the end of the episode, Thony no longer seems scared of anything or anyone... though we'll admit, we're now a little scared of her.
What did you think of The Cleaning Lady's return? Were you surprised by Agent Russo's demise? Grade the season premiere in our poll below, then drop a comment with your full reactions.