Critic Reviews
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Kwok’s script does a good job of centering this narrative without hitting us over the head with claims of diversity and representation, the balance integral to its success. It’s a unique character inhabiting a unique world: the perfect ingredients for an exciting story.
-
Miranda Kwok and showrunner Melissa Carter have adapted an original Argentine series into a drama with decently complex cultural politics. ... Here's a TV series that's pro-immigrant, pro-feminist, pro-stem cell research, anti-racist, and very cheesy. The Cleaning Lady mixes so many different things together, which is how you make a mess. It's also how you make a melting pot.
-
The show touches on so many topics that can make for really compelling drama, but there seems to be a penchant for the show to default to action scenes and “scary cartel” tropes more often than not. ... We’re OK with a more action-oriented, good guy-bad guy show because Yung and the rest of the cast do a good job with the material they’re given.
-
While much of the mob action in the series’ background lacks verve and pop, Yung sells the significant portions of the show she is asked to carry, in particular the actorly red meat of fear for a child in peril.
-
[Her boss] strangely does not immediately kill her when she gives him guff.
-
Preposterous but occasionally gripping melodrama. [17 - 30 Jan 2022, p.9]
-
The show itself feels oddly sedate. Too restrained to be properly soapy and too silly to be convincingly gritty, The Cleaning Lady winds up in that inhospitable middle ground of shows that are not so much hateable as just plain forgettable. ... [Millan is] the only character who comes across like a living, breathing human being rather than a screenwriter’s outline of one.
-
“The Cleaning Lady” has good intentions, but is far too derivative to form a compelling series. Yung is a star, as is Millan, but the two women are smothered by the soapy (pun intended) issues of a criminal underworld that feels like Mafia 101.
-
The concept here isn’t bad but the execution is another story as the writers pull out all the stops to manipulate the emotions of their viewers in ways that alternate between annoying and exploitative.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 3 out of 8
-
Mixed: 0 out of 8
-
Negative: 5 out of 8
-
Jan 11, 2022This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.
-
Mar 23, 2022A bit slow, the cleaning lady is a fascinating premise with mediocre execution. I will be watching to see how it develops.
-
Jan 30, 2022