French actress Élodie Yung had certainly made a name for herself here in the U.S. in the years before portraying the brooding badass Elektra in Netflix's Daredevil and The Defenders, with such projects as G.I. Joe: Retaliation and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. But she truly hit household-name status for Marvel fans and streaming audiences opposite Charlie Cox's blind superhero. Since then, Yung's main TV presence came in a Season 1 episode of David Fincher and Tim Miller's bonkers sci-fi series LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS. Now, fans can get their first look at her brand new TV drama, Fox's The Cleaning Lady.
Largely flying under the radar ahead of the big reveal today at Fox's Upfront presentation, Élodie Yung's new show The Cleaning Lady will bring the actress to network television in a big and dramatic way alongside co-stars Adan Canto (Designated Survivor), Martha Millan (The OA) and up-and-coming actors Valentino and Sebastien LaSalle. In the new series, Yung portrays a smart and cunning Cambodian doctor who traveled to the U.S. illegally with her extremely sick son in order to seek out medical help. As seen in the trailer, that help does not come easily, but this is not a character who will easily and passively take no for an answer, even as her medical skills are wasted in the States.
After getting caught in the midst of some potentially deadly and then legitimately deadly situations, Élodie Yung's character makes the dangerous decision to become a cleaning lady for a group of organized criminals. Not only that, but she goes into it with the goal of carving her name into the criminal underground. And I'm not just basing this on her excellence as Elektra, but my money is on Yung to take the throne. It just might take quite a few drops of blood, sweat and tears before that happens, both hers and everyone else's.
In some ways, The Cleaning Lady sounds a big like it belongs in Breaking Bad territory, but with the added layer of not being focused on white dudes as the main characters. Élodie Yung's doctor, while talented, doesn't have the advantages that Walter White had, and her skills aren't exactly viewed as on par with "perfect meth creation," so this definitely won't follow the exact same character paths. (Though if her son starts demanding to be called Floyd instead of his real name, that's a sign.)
The Cleaning Lady comes from writer and executive producer Miranda Kwok, of The 100 fame, with Queen Sugar and Stargirl writer/producer Melissa Carter serving as the showrunner and fellow EP. Director Michael Offer, arguably best known for his work on Homeland and Longmire is also an executive producer as well as the man behind the camera for this new Fox series.
While The Cleaning Lady doesn't yet have a release date locked down on Fox, expect to see it in the network's fall schedule. Here's hoping Élodie Yung's former Daredevil co-star Vincent D'Onofrio shows up on this new show one day as a Kingpin-esque big bad. And then while we're hoping, let's go ahead and wish Daredevil back into existence somewhere.
