I’m so excited to be back with “Good Girls” for season two! When the finale aired we weren’t sure if we’d ever get more and now we have! To be honest I’m currently making my peace with the fact that this will most likely be the end of the series. It doesn’t seem like a hugely successful show despite it being nearly exactly what I want out of my viewing experience. So let’s just sit back and enjoy the ride and hope we get some cannon #Brio and a satisfying season end!
Episode Synopsis:
Beth (Christina Hendricks) must live with the fallout after her plan to get Rio (Manny Montana) arrested fails. Meanwhile, the women’s crimes finally catch up with them when evidence surfaces that puts them on a collision course with Agent Turner.
Stan knows that Ruby’s been doing the crime, Annie and Gregg are having an ill-advised fling, and Beth is trying to decide between working for Rio and the life of her husband, *looks at smudged writing on hand* Dune? JK! I obviously love Matthew Lillard and Dean is at least a nice note of realism in Beth’s increasingly intense story. At the same time, the chemistry between Christina Hendricks and Manny Montana continues to render everything around them hazy.
As you can imagine, Beth is unable to shoot Dean, even though he’s a terrible husband, father and man. Unfortunately for Dean (but fortunately for us) Rio has no such issues and shoots him square in the chest! We’re treated to a montage of the ladies waiting in the hospital waiting room to find out what’s happened to Dean. Beth starts laughing hysterically at the situation which offends a couple in the waiting room. She can’t believe that she had the opportunity to shoot Rio, who ostensibly deserves it, and she couldn’t do it. Before she’s able to follow that thought train for too much longer the doctor comes in and says Dean will be fine which seems to shock all three ladies who just assumed he’d die.
In any case Beth has only a few days to get her house in order before Dean will be sent home. Adding to her stress is Agent Turner, who I did not remember at all from season one. He’s trying to put the screws to Beth to get her to confess to robbing the grocery store and eventually working with a dangerous gang. All he does instead is let slip that they found a pen cap with lipstick on it and that they’ll need a sample of her DNA. This revelation leads to the main plot of the episode.
The girls, worried that Beth will be arrested and sent to prison if they match her DNA with the pen cap from the grocery store, decide to stake out and steal the sample from the evidence truck. At the same time Stan is really laying into Ruby about her part in everything and insisting that she has to turn herself in and turn on Annie and Beth in order not to miss dozens of the kids birthdays. Both plots are thwarted. First Annie and Beth can’t find the pen cap in the evidence truck (while Ruby stalls the driver with the best scene ever set in a Starbucks) so they decide to just unplug the whole refrigerated case to destroy the samples. Unfortunately, they find rape kits that will be ruined in the process and they have to let the sample get to the lab.
Luckily, Stan changes his tune and steals the pen cap from evidence after Ruby tells him that “their kids have birthdays too” meaning she can’t just hang Beth and Annie out to dry even if it would be better for her. This is definitely my favorite part of the show. These three women are so ride or die for each other. Their husbands or partners don’t understand the deep bond they have with each other or why they would risk everything to help each other. It’s a deeply and broadly felt feminine story that’s being told and acted to perfection.
I’m loathe to move on to Boomer from the aforementioned perfection of the female relationships on the show, but he seems to be kicking into high gear. First he maniacally collects more “evidence” from the grocery store to taunt Agent Turner with, then he manages to fully team up with Turner, and finally he blackmails Mary Pat into getting engaged to him so he can’t testify against her! Now I didn’t love Mary Pat in season one, despite loving Allison Tolman in everything, but girlfriend doesn’t deserve that! She seems pretty put out by it and we don’t see her officially accept but it sounds like an extremely terrible situation to be in.
Rounding out the episode are a couple more revelations and one minor repeated comment which is sure to come back up. Gregg’s new wife Nancy is pregnant which throws a wrench into his nascent plans to leave her and get back with Annie. We find out Rio also has a son which feels both absurd and amazing and he approaches the girls with directions to murder Boomer to keep the heat off all of them. With all of that it’s sure to be a packed season no matter what, but my biggest question at the end of this episode isn’t what’s in the bag Rio gave to Beth (it’s surely some means of murder) but rather, who actually stole that fucking stop sign? And who’s going to get hit by a car first?
Just the same as in season one I’m super interested to see where the season is going and what we’re building towards and this felt like a very good season opener. Lots of piece moving in a way that feels sure to further the main plot and a nice refresher to help those of us who haven’t been in this world since this time last year. I can’t wait to see what happens next!
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Featured photo credit: Justin Lubin/NBC
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Kristin was a military brat growing up but now she lives in Orlando with her husband Will and their dog Egon. She and her best friend Wil (not the husband!) have written a novel together and recently started the podcast “So…I’m Watching This Show” where they discuss movies, TV shows and pop culture in general. Most nights you can find her drinking wine and live tweeting way too many things.