'Good Girls' Season 3 Episode 2 Review: Beth tackles monster-in-law as Annie unloads during therapy with Josh
Spoiler alert for Season 3, Episode 2: 'Not Just Cards'
After spending an entire premiere episode teasing us with the questions of 'will he, 'won't he' surrounding Rio's return from being supposedly dead, the second episode of 'Good Girls' season 3 dives straight into the personal lives of Beth, Ruby, and Annie. The narrative shows them struggle through prickly thorns for people in their lives while trying to define a new status quo now that Agent Turner is dead for sure.
The biggest problem this week that the girls encounter is seemingly how to bypass all their one laundering outputs now that they have been banned from Costco, or so one would think before we are truly presented with the horrors of Beth's (Christina Hendricks) current family life; and no, it's not just Rio's inevitable return. The added entry into Beth's life is an impossible-to-please mother in law, Judith, who manages to find faults with pretty much everything Beth does - from her rouge to her decision regarding what artifacts to keep in her home.
Even though credited to appear in just one episode this season, Jessica Walter does an incredible job of portraying the mother-in-law not to be messed with - something that bears a clear resemblance with the likes of Meryl Streep's Mary Louise from 'Big Little Lies'.
Beth herself is no less of a scheming mastermind when it comes to her new hustle running the money laundering business as and when she wants. When her husband Dean manages to piss off the newly moved neighbors by cracking a prison joke, as those people turn out to be actually prison-returned, Beth takes the opportunity to introduce herself to them with lemonade - initiating the foundation of a much-needed collaboration to run her business successfully, with people who have prior experience evading the law.
But this calls for a much-needed alarm because Beth might not be prepared for what the collaboration might demand in the long run, so as she, Ruby (Retta), and Annie (Mae Whitman) spend their breakfasts cheering about the fact that their business is entirely their own now, we spend those minutes worrying.
The other personal struggle arising in the girls' lies is from Annie's end as she is met with an uncomfortable 'celebratory' dinner with Greg and his wife, Nancy. The couple has been attending couples' therapy to work on their marriage following what Nancy calls Greg's little 'slip up' with Annie, whom he also shares a child named Sadie with.
Nancy doesn't shy away from updating Annie with the little developments of their therapy session, including the therapist's insights on how Annie is 'broken' and using Greg because she is 'lost' which manages to get a subtle rise from Annie, but so far, quite avoidable because both youth and wits are on Annie's side.
When not fake mourning at Agent Turner's memorial, Annie chooses to vent it all out of her system to the same therapist who is seeing Greg and Nancy, or so she thinks, as she ends up going on a rant to the therapist's son - Josh - thus sparking off a possible romantic liaison in future episodes to come, only validated by her returning to him for therapy sessions. Meanwhile, Ruby's personal trouble lies with her and Stanley's dilemma over how best to handle all that fake currency now that their easiest go to cover up is not feasible anymore.
That, and of course, her little bathroom problem, but nothing that the only functional couple on the show can't work out.
Yet, a little birdie in the shape of Rio's (Manny Montana) giant return tells us this peace and relatively controllable crisis are going to quantify and explode very soon. Rio returns and walks straight into Jackie's home, to the jubilant arms of his little son who couldn't be more thrilled to see his father back.
Very much on the lines of the entire fandom, if you ask us, but that doesn't lessen our worries surrounding the titular good girls gone bad and the storm he is supposed to uproot their lives with.
'Good Girls' Season 3 airs on Sundays at 10 pm only on NBC.
