[Header Image: Christina Hendricks as Beth Boland, Mae Whitman as Annie Marks, and Retta as Ruby Hill | NBC]
This episode of Good Girls was something else. I’m not kidding when I say I spent most, if not all, of it with my hand clasped over my mouth. The majority of this episode was shocking and a little bit like a punch to the gut but as always there were comedic and light moments sprinkled throughout. There were even those occasions where the situation itself wasn’t funny but it’s impossible not to laugh.
We start the episode with Beth, Annie, and Ruby waiting outside the grocery store for Boomer to come out. Beth is the one waiting to finally kill him and it looks like she’s much more confident with a gun, well at least she definitely seems to know her way around one now. We see her check it to make sure it’s loaded and ready to fire. After Tyler comes out instead of Boomer, Beth takes the magazine out of the gun and makes sure to eject the one in the chamber. Everything she does with the gun suggests that she has had some training since the last episode, most likely with Rio considering he wanted to teach her. While I do wish we had seen that training I’m sure there are going to be other opportunities in upcoming episodes and it really wouldn’t have fitted in with everything else happening in this episode.
At this point we know that Boomer is most likely in some kind of protective custody considering he went to see Agent Turner and claimed he was attacked by a group of men working for Rio. We get that confirmation when Beth meets with Rio at the park. Their entire exchange was just perfect. The fact that they were sitting apart and trying to be subtle, pretending like they weren’t actually communicating. The fact that Beth automatically assumed that she would no longer need to get rid of Boomer if she couldn’t get to him but Rio once again reminding her that she needs to step up. There was a moment after the “boss bitch” quote where it looked like he was about to smile and throughout the scene we continued to see Beth looking stunned and little unsure about anything when it comes to Rio. Ever since season 2 episode 1 she’s clearly been slowly reevaluating her perception of him and it’s been great to see her try to figure that out.
While their interactions were great, we also got to see more of Marcus. Although it wasn’t very much, my heart still melted as I watched him and Rio interact. You can tell he’s a good Dad and that he genuinely cares about Marcus which admittedly isn’t much of a surprise. While he might be this dangerous criminal there’s nothing to say he can’t have a soft side and often with characters like this, they do. There’s always at least one person that character will melt around and isn’t their usual, dangerous self around. For Rio that is clearly Marcus. I do hope we get more of him, even just to hear about him through Rio would be great because it’s clearly one of many steps into discovering more about Rio this season.
Armed with this new information, another attempt to kill Boomer is planned. Thanks to Mary Pat, they’re able to figure out where he’s staying and they go to his motel room. This time Annie and Beth go back and forth over who should be the one to kill him but eventually they both agree that this time it should be Annie. Only it turns out that he’s not there which forces the girls to have to let themselves into his motel room to wait. While they’re there they discuss the price of the room and it’s hard not to laugh at them talking about something so trivial while waiting to kill someone but then you remember that Boomer isn’t there because he’s with Mary Pat.
We all know that Boomer is a horrible person but knowing he was drunk made the whole thing ten times worse. While we didn’t necessarily get any kind of verbal confirmation it’s pretty clear that he most likely raped Mary Pat but even if he did pass out before things got too far, it’s still a horrible ordeal to go through and we don’t know for sure what happened on the lead up. Regardless, Mary Pat is naturally traumatised and after one of her sons comes to get her, she decides to gather up her kids and leave. For a split second it seemed like she might get caught again but even though Boomer tries to get to her, she manages to lock herself in the car. My prediction for the episode was that Beth was going to shoot him and Mary Pat would finish him off, I was not expecting for the latter to run him over instead.
The whole thing leading up to this moment was incredibly intense. From the moment Boomer showed up at Mary Pat’s door, I was freaking out. We all know what he’s capable of and that he’ll do anything to get what he wants. The slow build up was nerve-racking and it didn’t stop, even when he was passed out. Her hitting him with the car was this odd moment where that tension seemed to still and then, when she’s explaining what happened to Beth, Annie, and Ruby, that tension slowly disintegrates and is replaced by bits of humour as she explains the notion of cutting up Boomer’s dead body and cramming him into the meat locker which turns out to be a really tiny freezer. It was definitely one of those moments where you know the situation itself is far from comedic but you can’t help but laugh at it anyway.
This does, unfortunately, put the girls in a bit of a predicament. While Boomer being dead was their goal, they didn’t exactly plan for it happening like that nor did they plan for his body to be chopped up. It’s not too surprising that Beth instantly went to getting rid of the body themselves but they’ve got things to deal with before they can get to that point, including actually figuring out what the plan is.
With Beth, she is called into the school to speak with the Principle (and Dean) about Kenny’s behaviour. He’s been the most vocal of the Boland kids when it comes to wanting his parents back together and we also had that scene in season 2 episode 1 where he uses all of the money to buy a ton of ice-cream for himself so it wasn’t overly surprising to hear that he ate a giant cake all to himself. It was, however, upsetting. Dean also points out that him getting shot and Beth being all shady and running around at odd hours probably isn’t helping matters either. While he’s a little harsh, he’s not exactly wrong and Beth clearly knows it. By the end of the episode, we have that scene where she lays down in bed with Kenny and despite their money troubles, she does everything she can to get him help. From the amount of times she’s mentioned it, we know that Beth adores her children and would do anything to keep them safe so I’m sure we’re going to see a lot more involving Kenny.
For Annie, we see her go to Nancy because she needs someone to look after Sadie while she deals with the whole Boomer situation. While I’m glad we didn’t focus too much on the whole Annie, Nancy, and Gregg scenario from last week, I am happy that we touched back on it a little. We get that confirmation that the three of them are all on the same page but that Sadie still doesn’t know which I’m glad about. She’s the one that’s going to hurt the most so any delay in that is fine by me. That being said, I am wondering where Gregg is. I’m assuming that Annie didn’t go to him because she’s trying to stay away from him, knowing that what they did was wrong and that they can’t be together, but it seems like Nancy isn’t with him either. It’s all definitely something that needs to come up later and I’m sure they’ll try to figure out what is best for both Sadie and the new baby.
And it’s with Ruby that things slowly shift back to disposing of Boomer’s body. While preparing dinner, she overhears Sara practicing her work for school about landfills and it gives Ruby the idea of how they can easily get rid of the body.
While the whole situation is affecting all three of the women, you can see it more visibly through Ruby. From the moment they see the size of the meat locker she’s clearly panicking. While the plan is her idea, she waits in the car while Annie and Beth try to carry Boomer’s body to the dumpster. In the end they do have to convince Ruby to help them but I did adore seeing the three of them work together. It was oddly beautiful to see them talking about anything and everything to keep Ruby’s mind off of what they were actually doing and to give them all the push to keep walking.
Even though I knew the phone was going to ring (it made an appearance in one of the trailers for season 2), I still wasn’t ready for it. Every time they seem to be close to pulling something huge off, something will go wrong. Luckily this one isn’t too bad. They were able to get the phone now as opposed to it being found later. However, it did all lead to a moment that was surprisingly emotional.
When they are presumably far enough away from where they dumped his body, they check his phone to find that it was Marion who had been calling him. Despite Beth telling her not to, Annie plays the various messages that Marion left that cycle through her wondering where Boomer is when he doesn’t show up for dinner and being confident she’ll hear from him again which we know she won’t. With a lot of tears and looks of guilt, Beth grabs the phone and throws into the water. While I’ll never feel sorry for Boomer and I don’t really think much of Marion either way, it was nice to see that all three women were clearly affected by the death and their involvement in it. I can only imagine what it would have been like if one of them had actually killed him.
Separately, we see Beth go home and lie down with Kenny like I mentioned earlier. He apologises for the cake and she reassures him. Annie speaks to Sadie, asking what’s the worst thing she’s ever done (it was cheating on an English test) and makes Sadie promise to never ever do anything worse than that. While for Ruby, she comes home, pretending she had gotten home late from a shift at work, and it seems like she might tell Stan all that they did. Luckily, she only mentions that she got out a temporary loan and forged his signature to do it. It seems like revealing that truth was a temporary relief for the guilt of keeping a much bigger secret.
However, there’s more surprises in store before the end of the episode. Firstly, we see Rio playing tennis at what looks like a Country Club with his attorney. They discuss the fact that Boomer never showed up and Rio looks nothing but happy and even a little smug. It seems like his attorney is on retainer and while there’s still attorney-client privileges, he clearly doesn’t tell her everything unless he has to. She does, however, seem to be aware of the types of things he gets up to and there’s a sense that they’ve worked together for a long time. I don’t know what was more shocking to me, seeing Rio in something other than black (or dark colours) or the fact that he plays Tennis on what seems to be a regular basis.
But it’s the final surprise that leaves us on a cliffhanger in preparation for next week’s episode. While organising things and going through the mail, Beth finds an envelope that simply states: “Elizabeth.” We all know it’s from Rio considering he’s the only one who calls her that. It clearly throws her because it takes her forever to answer any of Dean’s questions and her focus is clearly entirely on the envelope. When she’s finally left alone she opens it up to find a key and a message that says: “For the Boss Bitch.” referencing her earlier conversation with Rio in the park. It was such a small little thing but it was nice to have their two interactions connected like that and it was confirmation that the job is officially done, she has cleaned up her mess.
The episode then ends with her going to a storage locker, the camera on her as she sees the contents inside but we’re left waiting for next week to see where things go from there. However, at the start of this season 2 trailer there is a shot of what looks like the inside of the storage locker which, if it is, tells us what she’s found. However, with all of that being said, I loved this episode. It felt really different to the previous two but it was just as entertaining. This one was more shocking and gut-wrenching for sure but there was still comedy sprinkled throughout. I did also love spending so much time with Beth, Annie, and Ruby and watching them deal with this horrible situation.
wonderoes 