Élodie Yung leads the crime drama as a Cambodian doctor and mother who is forced to work as an undocumented cleaning lady in the U.S. — and then as a cleaner for the mob.
Élodie Yung, Adan Canto, Martha Millan, Oliver Hudson, Sebastien LaSalle, Valentino LaSalle, Faith Bryant, Sean LewBoth the show’s strengths and its shortcomings are evident in protagonist Thony, played by Élodie Yung. It’s hard to root against her: Competent and compassionate, she is an exemplary employee, mother and friend. Yung plays steely as well as she does soft or scared, and her chemistry with Adan Canto and Martha Millan breathe some life into flatly written relationships.
Meanwhile, both the criminal and medical aspects of the storyline — that is, the meat of the show — register as oddly perfunctory. The mob plot beats feel borrowed from a hundred other mob dramas before it. Here comes the hotheaded failson shooting people he’s not supposed to; there goes the slinky Lady Macbeth figure whispering dangerous words into Arman’s ear.
With the exception of Thony and her family , it’s difficult to tell precisely what we’re meant to think of most of these characters. Generously, it’s possible to see this as a purposeful choice to make them seem more complex; Garrett the FBI agent is probably more intriguing as a suspicious sleazeball than the outright villain he has the potential to become.
As all the talk of Fiona in the previous paragraph may have suggested, Millan’s performance is instrumental in making this side of the series click. Sidelined from the gloom of the criminal and medical storylines, she gets to demonstrate playfulness and warmth; freed from the burden of playing a heroic lead, she’s allowed to be flawed and uncertain in ways that Thony is not.
If the show’s various through lines are tied together by a single theme, it’s this one articulated by Arman after hearing of Thony’s woes: “There’s nothing I hate more than people in power screwing over people in need.” The idea resonates not just with Thony’s explicit disenfranchisement but with characters like Arman, who’s frustrated working for a boss who still sees him as “the help.
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