[Header Image: Christina Hendricks as Beth Boland and Manny Montana as Rio | NBC]
Oh, man, what an episode. I’m honestly still a little in shock. Generally speaking Good Girls is one of my favourite shows of all time, partly because every episode is so good and it never seems to let me down. That being said, I’m never actually prepared for how good this show is.
Tonight’s episode sees Beth, Annie, and Ruby trying to follow through with Rio’s orders to clean up their mess. At first we see them make plans and later gather to confront Boomer. It’s kind of unsurprising that Beth would be unable to shoot him. She couldn’t do it to Rio which yes, is partly to do with the fact that there is clearly something between them even if they can’t define it, but it’s also because she’s a good person and clearly this is her line. Annie says she could have shot Boomer but honestly, unless she’s in the moment, I really don’t think there’s anyway to confirm that. However, even if she could, I get it. Boomer has been making her life a misery long before they robbed the grocery store. Regardless, Boomer doesn’t get killed this episode which I know we’re all disappointed at but at least the payoff is going to be so good when it finally happens.
Beth instead tries to pay him off which Boomer seemingly accepts, asking for $20,000, but by the end of the episode we discover that he has gone back on the deal. Which, are we really surprised? Once a snake, always a snake. Instead he puts the money towards his wedding with Mary Pat and even gets an employee to beat him up so he can convince Turner that he was attacked by a group and needs protecting until the court case. It is a big blow for the women, however, because they took a lot of steps to get there. They did everything the could to get even the smallest amount of cash. At one point, during a gender reveal party for Nancy and Gregg, Annie decides to steal a Tesla. Dean, while not liking Beths’ involvement with Rio, does give her advice on where to sell a car for parts and even explains why you can’t do that to a Tesla. In the end, they manage to swap the car for another one and they get the money for Boomer.
They do only give him half but as I said before, he doesn’t follow through, and they’re down $10,000. It doesn’t help also that Rio has been around the entire time. He first jumps into Beth’s car when she’s about to pick up Kenny and then he later shows up at Kenny’s swim meet. The first time he prompts her to do it that night and the second time, she gives the gun back. She’s already made the deal with Boomer but she lies to Rio and describes how she killed him but he knows. He simply checks the gun to confirm her lies. With all the pressure building up, it doesn’t help that Boomer goes back on their deal.
You can see everything chipping away at Beth as the episode goes on. She’s got the pressure of having to deal with Boomer, the potential consequences if she doesn’t, her guilt over Dean, and the fact that now she’s not working for Rio, they’re behind on the mortgage again and Dean’s medical bills need to be paid. It gets to the point that by the end of the episode she goes and fixes the stop sign, realising that although everything else in her life is spiralling out of control, this is something she can fix. And when she finds Rio waiting for her outside, she approaches and with no filter, being completely and utterly honest, she admits how exhausted she is and how, no matter the consequences, she can’t kill Boomer. It seems like this honesty takes Rio a little by surprise and throughout the episodes so far he has most likely noticed every flaw in her but also her potential, and at the end of the episode he decides to teach her rather than kill her.
To be honest, I don’t think he ever expected her to kill Boomer. I’m sure he was curious to see if she would but I’m guessing he had already considered the fact that she probably wouldn’t and has a back-up plan. Regardless, I’m super stoked to see what these two get up to in future episode. Things have changed drastically. They’ve both been through a lot, together and separately, and now there’s different stakes involved and not just money laundering so I can only imagine that things are going to get even more interesting.
While all three women are heading towards the same goal of cleaning up their mess, Annie and Ruby also have things going on in their personal lives that they have to deal with.
Ruby is trying to sort things out with Stan who is still sleeping on the couch and can hardly look at her, they even go to their priest for some advice. It takes a while but after some serious thinking and a talk with Beth, Ruby decides to stand up for herself. She doesn’t apologise for doing what she did because it saved Sara’s life. She’s genuinely proud of the actions she took as well as the risk that came along with. “I’m that bitch. Nice to meet ya.” was by far one of the best lines in this episode but possibly the whole show.
It seemed to work too because by the end of the episode Stan finally climbs back into their bed. While I’m sure things aren’t 100% sorted or dealt with yet, it’s still a step forward and I really don’t like to see the two of them at odds. It was really upsetting to see how hurt Stan was and having to watch Ruby cry over the fact that she had caused him to feel that way. I do have everything crossed that things will be worked out for sure by the end of the season but we’ll have to see.
Last week’s episode revealed that Nancy was pregnant and now comes the fallout of that. Annie is doing everything in her power to avoid being around her or Gregg and she seems pretty adamant that she is not going to continue her affair with him. To be fair to Gregg, he did stick to his word and break up with Nancy so he could be with Annie but then, like an idiot, he rushes straight over to Annie’s to celebrate. It’s pretty damning. He’s there with alcohol after telling Nancy there was someone else, she’s bound to put two and two together and realise Annie is the other woman. However, they could still lie and Gregg could pretend that Annie is the first person he thought to go to to discuss everything that had happened and to figure out if he’s making the right decision in leaving Nancy.
I do hope, however, that if that is the case, Annie will tell the truth. You can tell she’s feeling miserable about missing out on a second chance with Gregg but she’s also riddled with guilt over it all. This episode seems to be the first time she’s really gotten to know Nancy and had any kind of significant interaction with her so fingers crossed she doesn’t keep covering up the affair and is honest with Nancy.
It’s a shame regardless because it’s not just the three of them that are going to get hurt but also Sadie if she finds out.
Overall, this episode was so good. That entire last scene had me holding my breath the entire time. So far the writers have done such a great job at continuing the events of season 1 while also adding new things to the mix to make this season feel different and good in its own right.
Some other things:
- I always knew Rio was capable of being soft but that final scene was softer than I ever expected.
- Mary Pat slowly realising more and more what a horrible person Boomer is and, as we see from next week’s promo, she is willing to do anything to get him out of her life.
- I really don’t like Dean but Matthew Lillard is such a fantastic actor and he was so great in this episode.
- Beth admitting that she’s probably never loved Dean the way Ruby and Stan each other.
wonderoes 