Well, that certainly went about as terrible as it could have.

The De La Rosa’s had a rough go of it during The Cleaning Lady Season 3 Episode 3 with Thony starting up a new cleaning venture courtesy of Ramona and Fiona and Chris trying to make their way back home.

As we’ve come to expect from The Cleaning Lady, this was a difficult but necessary hour, packed full of suspense and all the things that make the series one of the most hypnotizing on television.

Thony made a deal with the devil when she offered to clean for Ramona in exchange for helping bring Fiona and Chris home. She was desperate, and it felt like the only option, but she now sees how in her head she may be.

Arman, Ramona, and Jorge may be blood, but they’re all very different people.

As the relationship between Arman and Thony deepened, she cleaned less and less, and the two found themselves working together more than Arman being her boss.

Ramona and Jorge are making it extremely clear that she is their subordinate, and it’s much more a dictatorship than a democracy, no matter how Thony may want to make her own way.

But they’re learning that Thony won’t just do whatever she’s told all the time, even if defying orders is overall bad for her interests.

As soon as she realized a baby had been born in one of the trucks that was bringing people into the city, there was no stopping her from helping. And without Thony, Soledad may have died before the doctor Ramona said they would have come got there.

I love a complex television character, and that’s precisely what Thony De La Rosa is.

She’s driven by this desire to protect her son and the people she cares about, and it’s skewed her moral compass in ways she probably never could have imagined.

She’s so far from the woman we met during The Cleaning Lady Season 1 Episode 1, but there are times when you get glimpses of that woman who will step in to help someone, even if it means putting herself in danger.

Sometimes I forget Thony is a doctor because her skills aren’t always used, but if someone needs medical attention, she will always help.

And that’s why it’s never right to say Thony is a villain because she’s not. But she’s decidedly placed herself in a very gray area where she straddles that morality line.

Look at the entire interaction with Susan. While initially reluctant to help, she eventually got with the program, and she should have. How could you live with yourself knowing you didn’t help someone in obvious medical distress?

Was it the right thing for her to go to CPS and report Thony? It was, unfortunately, right? Maybe it’s not what you or I would have done, but technically, Susan was doing what was right based on the situation.

Susan: I'm sorry, but I have to report to CPS that I caught you practicing without a license again.
Thony: Wow. You helped stop those contractions by putting your hands on top of her womb. If you report me, you have to report yourself. We saved that woman's life together.

• Permalink: Wow. You helped stop those contractions by putting your hands on top of her womb. If you...

Thony should not be practicing medicine without a license. But Thony turned things right back around on Susan, not even feeling any type of way about threatening someone when she needed to.

Because, in her mind, it’s justifiable when she’s doing it for Luca. Or for Fiona. Or for Chris and Jazz.

There’s a lot Thony and Ramona have in common, and it’s more than just an affection for Arman.

I’m slowly coming to enjoy the scenes where they size one another up because Ramona is such a fun new addition to the series. She’s cutting flowers or looking at prints, all while getting ready to threaten someone within an inch of their life.

Both women are strong-willed, and they will do whatever it takes to protect what is theirs. Their interests align for now, but Ramona keeps making it explicitly clear that her patience with Thony will only reach so far.

And Jorge has no patience with Thony but is beholden to his sister.

Ramona and Jorge aren’t on the same page about everything, but as Thony keeps pushing and defying orders, she’s bringing them together, at least as it concerns her.

Speaking of Jorge, what is his deal with Arman?

There’s something very genuine in how she speaks about her nephew, whereas there’s something very off in how Jorge does.

Defying Ramona’s orders feels like something he doesn’t typically do, so his doing it to look for Arman raised both Ramona’s and my hackles. What would he have done if he found him?

I shudder to think.

Arman’s parents haven’t been around since The Cleaning Lady Season 3 Episode 1, but I hope they come back because I’d like to see the dynamic between the siblings, and perhaps it would shade him what happened between Arman and Jorge.

It feels a lot deeper than just Eduardo disowning that side of the family.

Thony finding the van that took Arman at the Sanchez warehouse was shady, but it did seem like Jorge was telling the truth about not knowing that van was at the airport. But all this begs the question, who really did take Arman?

Nadia has been on a mission to find Arman, and after Thony shot her down, turning to Russo was her only option, but she failed to put everything into perspective.

Arman burned many bridges with the FBI, and it was probably naïve to think that she’d be able to get a deal for both of them.

When Russo approached Nadia, the angle she took was to screw over Arman! Let’s bring down the bad man lying to you nonstop and spending time with another woman.

Nowhere in her pitch did she promise anything for Arman. In fact, she was pretty clear that while she wanted to find him, it wasn’t necessarily so she could help him.

I feel for Nadia because she’s on the outside looking in right now and doesn’t have anyone she feels she can trust. She doesn’t understand what Thony’s doing but knows she’s not a part of it.

And you couldn’t even blame her for going to Russo because, from her perspective, Thony’s working with a man who threatened her, Arman’s uncle at that. And she’s none the wiser.

Nadia and Thony need to team back up again, but understandably, Thony wouldn’t want to get her any more involved than necessary. It’s all so complicated, and Nadia, especially right now, feels like she’s on this lonely island with nowhere to turn.

Elsewhere, Fiona and Chris were making the long journey home, filled with incredible fear and bravery.

Chris truly is his mother’s son, and he was trying to help wherever he could. It was sweet to see him, amid this genuinely terrifying situation, find something to smile about when it came to Camilla.

The whole journey was fraught with tension, and every time I kept thinking, any minute they’d be dropped off at the Sin Cara warehouse to reunite with Thony, it wouldn’t play out that way.

Now, they’re stranded in the desert with basically just the clothes on their back and no way to contact someone.

It’s not clear how close they are to Las Vegas, and now Camilla is without a mother, and it’s just a devastating situation all around. But it’s an important story to be told, and The Cleaning Lady never shies away from the realities of our world.

Extra Clean Notes

• Jeremy seems like a nice person, which means I’m already suspicious of him.

• Susan was wild to not even wait until the ambulance was out of the parking lot to tell Thony she would report her to CPS!

Any guesses on who took Arman?

It was another action-packed hour, and we still have many questions that need some answering. Luckily, the season just started, and there’s plenty of time to get those answers.

Make sure to leave a comment down below with all your thoughts about the hour! 

Whitney Evans is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. She is a lover of all things TV. Follow her on X.