[Header Image: Manny Montana as Rio | NBC]
Another season of Good Girls is officially over and now starts the long wait for season 3. Thank goodness we do have another season though because while ‘King’ was definitely an interesting watch, it would have been a pretty painful end for the show. Not everything that we’ve seen so far was concluded and it certainly opened the doors for even more possibilities moving forward.
At the end of episode 12, we saw the return of Boomer and that continues on in this episode with the girls sitting down to talk to him. They want Boomer to turn himself into the police and they don’t care at all that he might be killed by Rio and his boys. However, Boomer has a card to play by knowing about Jeff’s body and while he probably doesn’t know much at all, they can’t exactly risk the FBI getting wind of it. Throughout they try to broker a deal with him and nothing pans out which leads to Beth deciding to confess to Boomer’s murder just so they can finally get it all over and done with. It’s not too surprising that Beth was the one to take the fall. She’s the one that Turner is after and could also serve as a way to get Stan out of the firing line as well, something we know she feels guilty about as evidenced by her showing up drunk to Ruby’s in 2×09.
While she does get arrested and taken down to the station, Marion manages to convince Boomer to hand himself in just in time. Not only does that mean Beth is set free but it also makes Turner look bad. Now, I’m not entirely sure if there were reasons outside of the writers’ control in terms of why it took so long to bring Boomer back but if there wasn’t, we can assume we’re going to see him again in season 3 and if we do, he needs to be dealt with. Killing him probably won’t happen considering the writers just did a fake death but there’s so many things that Boomer could and should go to prison off. At the very least, if we don’t see him going to prison in season 3, we certainly need to hear about it. With things probably looking bad for Turner, I wouldn’t be surprised if he charged Boomer out of spite and to make himself look successful to the higher ups.
As well as Boomer, there’s also Mary Pat. She lied to Turner and essentially wasted police time when she knew full well that Beth didn’t kill Boomer and he was in fact still alive. Arguably accusing Beth of a crime is perverting the course of justice but considering there wasn’t actually a crime (because Boomer is alive), they might not bother trying to charge her with it. If they find Jeff’s body then maybe they could charge her with cashing in his disabilities cheques but I don’t see that happening. I doubt we’ll see Mary Pat next season and my bet is that as soon as Beth, Annie, and Ruby let her go last episode, she left town to get as far away as possible.
It seems like things are going to be completely dropped with Stan and the whole pen cap situation which has been a long time coming. We also know that at the end of the episode, Ruby is planning to get back into crime with Beth and Annie but after everything’s that happened, it’ll be interesting to see how she balances that with Stan. She has been completely honest with him since he found out about the Fine & Frugal robberies but based on their interactions this episode, I don’t think Stan will stomach any more of it. Will there be more lies or will they continue to find a middle ground? I’m also curious to know if Stan will go back to being a cop. If the charges are completely dropped then there’s no reason why he can’t but after seeing how shady Turner was and knowing his wife has been involved in crime, I wonder if he’ll still want to be a cop or if he’ll go down a different path.
Speaking of cops, Annie still has Noah around but he does mention that he’s going to be leaving Detroit which further adds to the idea that the FBI investigation may be shutting down entirely. He wants to stick with Annie but she makes it pretty clear that he should leave and she’s not going to be coming with him or even visiting. I do wonder if we’ll see Noah again next season but really, there would be no need. With Annie getting back into crime, I highly doubt she’s going to want to keep Noah around and that’s not even taking into consideration that he lied to her so much. I also don’t see Noah being able to put his job aside entirely in order to turn a blind eye to what Annie is getting up to. Hopefully he does leave but if he doesn’t, let’s cross everything that these two don’t end up in a relationship. If that ever happens it needs to build to that point over a long period of time because it’s all been tainted at this point. Instead, let’s hope that next season focuses on Annie and Sadie being a family along with their continued journey into helping Sadie transition. The two of them deserve a bit of happiness and we most certainly need more moments like their adorable, late night dance party.
For Beth, there’s still drama involved for her. Although she isn’t charged with Boomer’s murder, she ends up being thrust into another tricky situation. Earlier in the episode, she tries to contact Rio in order to get his help with the Boomer situation but he doesn’t bite. That’s unsurprising really and completely in check with Rio as a character. However, by the end of the episode, Rio has taken a beaten up Turner to his apartment and also kidnaps Beth to bring her there before telling her she needs to kill Turner. Now, I would say that this finale needed to be longer, maybe another 20 minutes or so. And I say this because the pacing was a little off and some things felt incredibly rushed yet I can’t really pinpoint anything that could have been taken out or shown in a different episode. If that extra time had been there then they could have taken out the kidnapping element. It didn’t make sense and felt like something Rio would do in early to mid season 1 but not something he would do now. It was clearly added in to amp up the tension of that final confrontation but with added time, it could have built up to that without the kidnapping. Him calling her a ‘bitch’ also felt like early to mid season 1 Rio and it was kind of surprising that he seemed to loose his cool (albeit briefly). However, with those two little bits, I’m willing to wait for season 3 to see if we get more of an insight into why Rio acted the way he did and to know where his head has been at for most of the season, at least since 2×09 when Beth decided that she was out.
It really is a shame that things weren’t expanded on even more but considering the end of season 1 bled into the start of season 2, there’s still a chance that things will be expanded on later. Regardless, the acting in the finale was phenomenal, especially between Manny Montana and Christina Hendricks. They both did an amazing job. Despite the question marks behind some of the behaviour right now, there were so many elements to enjoy. The fact that Beth looked shocked the first two times she pulled the trigger. It was clear she didn’t plan it and it seems the first shot was just because the walls were closing in (i.e. the pressure was ramping up) and the second was because Rio tried to step towards her. He did teach her out to use a gun after all and I’m guessing he told her to shoot until her target was down, in this case, that was Rio which explains why she took a third shot. Also the fact that she seemed completely out of it as she walked home and then disassociated in the park suggests that she’s not quite ready to move on from what happened, no matter what she seems to think. And with Rio, he was so incredibly ballsy in those confrontation scenes. He was definitely acting like a King and it was impressive to see him laugh at Turner despite bleeding out. I think it’s pretty clear at this point that Rio is coming back next season but Rio would have been laying there, thinking it could all be over any second, and he still has to laugh. It was definitely in character and I can’t wait to see how he handles being under Turner’s thumb next season.
By the very end of the episode we know that Beth, Annie, and Ruby are planning to get back into crime. It seems that they’re only waiting for Turner to leave. By the time he comes to visit Beth, some time has clearly passed because he doesn’t look as beaten up as he did. Presumably Beth thinks that Rio is dead because I’m sure she would be acting differently if he was still alive and now there’s just Turner. He mentions he’s leaving and even insinuates that he’s not going to come after her for Jeff’s body which means she has time to get rid of it permanently. When she talks to Annie and Ruby, she says, “he’s gone, we’re free.” Now this could be in reference to Rio and Turner but it just adds to the fact that they were waiting for Turner to leave so everything could be over and done with. While it looks pretty clear cut that the FBI investigation into them is over with, I’m wondering if it’s just downsized (and is publicly shut down) instead or if Turner will go off the books. He’s already blackmailed Rio into owing him and he’s put Beth into a false sense of security by acting like he’s not going after her anymore so I can see him working secretly to still get her. Rio did call it by saying Turner wouldn’t let up and I have to agree, he was far too obsessed with Beth to just give up and he’s technically closer than he’s ever been now that he has Rio backed into a corner. Although, something to note, Rio has a camera in that apartment so I wonder if that’ll come into play somehow.
At the end of the day, there were definitely flaws in this episode. Especially with certain character actions and the overall pacing but as I’ve mentioned previously, there’s a chance that certain things will be explored further in season 3. Ideally things are going to need to be effectively expanded on as soon as possible and they certainly shouldn’t be dragged out too much (at least for the most part, I can see the whole Turner/Beth/Rio situation being dragged out but also it’ll most likely change a little over time). As of right now, season 3 is yet to come but if the writers’ can’t pull it off effectively, there’s a chance that some of the issues in the season 2 finale are going to look way worse. At this point, there’s still room for things to change, and it really is just a case of sitting back and waiting to see what happens next.
wonderoes 