[Header Image: Christina Hendricks as Beth Boland | NBC]
Firstly, let’s take a moment to appreciate (and scream about) the fact that Good Girls has already been renewed for season 3. While I’m not too surprised that it got renewed, I am surprised that it happened now. I was really expecting to have to wait until the end of the season but we finally have this fantastic news which means we get to enjoy the rest of season 2 knowing full well that we get more!
Anyway, with that being said, this episode primarily saw Beth trying to balance her business life and her family life and it’s safe to say that it isn’t working out. Good Girls is amazing at a lot of things but it is particularly good at intriguing montages. This time around we see one of Beth’s average routine. She gets up ridiculously early, leaves cute little post-it notes for her children, and then goes off to deal with the day. When she leaves in the morning it’s dark and when she returns it’s to a quiet house, it’s dark once again. She does this day in and day out. It’s even gotten to the point where she has a planner for her “business” side of things.
While it seems like she has the routine down, we do see that her getting up that early every morning and doing those long days is exhausting for her. On top of that, things aren’t so great at home. Dean is frustrated that she isn’t around much anymore and he has to do everything, which is hilarious considering for the last decade or so Beth was probably in his exact same position and it continues to add to the idea that Dean grossly underestimated what she did for him and the family. However, it’s not just Dean that’s feeling negative. Her kids miss her and it doesn’t help that Beth misses the chance to see Jane perform because she’s outside talking to Rio about business. Beth is really struggling to find that balance and at one point is forced to take her kids to drop off one of Rio’s cars at a drug dealer’s house.
That in and of itself wasn’t completely eventful but then Jane went and left her blanket (which she calls her “dubby”) in the car. This causes a bit of a meltdown and Beth does everything she can to find it before realising where it is. After the exhaustion of trying to balance business and family and ultimately failing, I’m actually not too surprised that she went back for the blanket. It was all intense to the pointing of being oddly hilarious. It really felt like a highlight to Beth’s breaking point and it only went from bad to worse after that.
Despite talking herself, Annie, and Ruby out of a bad situation with the drug dealers, Jane goes missing. Now, we know it had nothing to do with what happened but Beth doesn’t know that at this point. She’s distraught and goes to the one person she thinks might be able to help: Rio.
The Rio and Beth scene is super interesting. Beth is still an amateur who is learning as she goes so it does make sense that she would make mistakes, especially when we’ve seen how much she’s struggling with balancing work and family, however, her screw up was (or could have been) pretty severe. That in mind, it’s no surprise that Rio laid into her and told her a thing or two. He was right about everything he said but I do think it’s possible for Beth to find some kind of balance. She just has to learn so she doesn’t make the same mistakes because if she does, she might not be so lucky next time. Right now, I’m just wondering if Rio will outright teach her or if he’ll wait for her to figure it out on her own. Regardless, that scene between the two of them was a big one. Towards the start of the episode they were bickering but that seemed to be tame and of no real threat but this talk, after Jane goes missing, is much more serious.
To his credit, Rio does reassure her that the drug dealers wouldn’t have taken Jane and by the end, we get one of the best scenes of the entire episode (and a personal favourite of mine in terms of Rio and his relationship with Beth), when she gets a package with ‘Elizabeth’ handwritten on it (same writing as the letter she received in 2×03). Inside is Jane’s blanket and it would appear that Rio, despite calling her out, went and got the blanket for her. Whatever you want to call it, there is clearly a connection between these two and the fact that he did something like that, really shows it.
But Beth isn’t the first to see the package, Dean is. He knows instantly who it’s from and it just adds to his hatred. At the end of last week’s episode, we saw Dean attempt to get information towards potentially having Rio killed. As he grows more and more frustrated this episode, he also becomes more determined and even desperate.
He manages to get the contact information for someone who might be able to do the job and as things continuously go wrong, he seems to think about it more and more. At one point he even tries to rope Stan into the whole situation but luckily that doesn’t seem to have taken hold. Already we can see how blinded he is by jealously and hatred but it’s also becoming even clearer how twisted his marriage is. He claims it’s because he loves Beth and can’t live without her but it looks more and more like ownership. It’s like a “if I can’t have her, no one can” type of situation. I think he would be upset if she went off with anyone. Dean wanting to kill Rio is down to being shot and with the latter being a criminal, if neither of those things were true, Dean wouldn’t jump to murder but he still wouldn’t want Rio and Beth to be together. Dean simply hides behind who Rio is and the fact he got shot.
Speaking of Stan, things aren’t looking great for him and Ruby. She has been recording her conversations with Beth and Annie but has so far come up with nothing. On top of that, an investigation has been opened into the missing pen cap. With the pressure piling on, and Stan being so worried and stressed out, Ruby starts to up her game. She plans to take photos and get more information, leading to her finding Beth’s planner.
From her conversation with Jane, we know that Ruby thinks the world of Beth (not that we doubted that) and we can see how torn she is. Despite this, she does takes Beth’s planner and we see her studying it at the end. However, she makes a phone call but in the promo for next week, we see Ruby talking to Beth (with the planner laid out in front of them) and there’s another scene where Ruby asks Turner if he’ll go easy on her (which we’re assuming means Beth). I want to believe that she calls Beth first but we won’t know for sure until next week. However, it does appear that the truth of what’s been happening does come out so things are only going to get more intense with this whole situation.
I don’t blame Ruby, I really don’t. She’s in an impossible situation but this show and these three women are notorious for turning a bad situation around. I’m sure something will be figured out but in the meantime it’s horrible to see Ruby deal with all of this.
Some other things:
- Things still aren’t looking too great for Annie and Sadie and the former is thrown into a state of panic after Jane goes missing when she can’t get ahold of Sadie. While it doesn’t look like they’re going to be back to their old ways any time soon, Sadie could clearly see the concern in Annie’s face and it seemed to have an effect. I do hope they figure it all out soon and I’m curious to see how things will change once they do.
- There’s a new manager at Fine & Frugal and I don’t trust him at all. It just seems a bit too convenient. I want to trust him because it would be nice for Annie but I can’t help but think there’s going to be a twist.
- I mentioned it briefly but Beth and Rio bickering towards the start of the episode was hilarious and it was like watching an old, married couple fighting.
- In the montage from the start we also saw that Beth has been collecting a lot of money and she, Annie, and Ruby have opted to bury it in several locations in her back garden.
- Annie talking about her car running on fumes when she comes to pick up Beth and the kids was hilarious. Annie is such a disaster but we love her.
- Beth lying on the floor after she realises what happened to Jane’s blanket and Ruby just sitting there with her – “Why is everyone on the floor?” “I just found her that way.”
wonderoes 