'Good Girls' Season 3 Episode 4 Review: With Beth revealing her expertise, will Rio let her off easier?
Spoiler alert for 'Good Girls' Season 3 Episode 4 'The Eye in the Survivor'
Over the last three weeks, the trials and tribulations of our beloved 'Good Girls' in Season 3 have escalated and how! Rio is back and hounding Beth Boland's life worse than ever and with her faking a pregnancy a lot more is at stake now that she is on borrowed time practically. We thought there wasn't a way she could get out of the whole mess alive! Little sister Annie Marks tries to offer her some bizarre but equally considerable ideas to go ahead with the fake pregnancy in Episode 4 and the way things wrap up proves why Beth is more than fit to be the girl boss of the money laundering business the trio has ventured upon. And for all we know, her expertise might be what saves them from Rio's wrath.
The episode opens with yet another panic attack on Beth's part, not a full-fledged one, but definitely legitimate as her new business partner, who's also an accomplice of Rio's, stays stationed outside her home 24x7. As Beth navigates this new routine of being watched by one of Rio's men on a regular basis, her husband Dean Boland, who learned of the ongoing crisis at the end of the previous episode, brings out the big guns. Literally. Dean straight up walks to a gun store and owns up to the retail guy that he's looking for a gun to kill a man who's wrecking his and his family's life. To Beth's complete shock and utter surprise, Dean comes home with a giant shotgun and very casually informs her that he is quite honestly terrified.
This episode offers a striking change in Dean's stance as he goes from clueless self-proclaimed sperm bank to protective family man extraordinaire. Gone are the days of tiptoeing around his wife, waiting for a smidge of affection from her end while she secretly dances with the devil in her tryst with Rio. Dean doesn't wait for chance and opportunity anymore as we see him slightly more aggressive than his usual passive nature, as he takes charge and kisses Beth out of the blue - almost as if asserting his presence in her life. It could be insecurity or a newfound sense of machismo, but to see Dean finally be more than just a legally bound side piece for Beth is refreshing.
That, however, doesn't help Beth's case as right at the end of the episode we see Rio ambush her as she is closing up her business for the night. Having learned Beth's skilled expertise in printing fake notes, Rio finally hints at a possible solution to Beth's predicament. Earlier in the episode, Beth catches up with Rio and tells him she lost the baby. This comes after a brainstorming session with her girls and Annie suggesting she buy a baby from Canada to continue lying, but big sis knows better. She decides to end things with a bigger lie and tells Rio during their little catch up at the pub that she lost the baby.
In return, Beth asks for the money she would have to gather in order to pay off the price for her life and Rio presents a whopping sum of $100,000 which Beth would apparently need to get her off the hook. So when Rio walks in at the end of the episode with one of Beth's skillfully crafted fake note, we all know what's to come. He asks her to show him how she goes about the whole process and suddenly, there's a faint glimmer of hope that Rio might be able to find it in himself to forgive Beth for all she's done.
The real question that remains is that of authority: with Rio and Agent Turner out of the picture, Beth and her girls' biggest relief was being able to run the business on their own, the way they want it, but now that Rio's back, he might take over the reins from Beth and ask her to be a subordinate. While this does offer the possibility of Rio going easy on Beth, there's a high chance he will make her beg and grovel even though her life risk might be minimized. Only time will tell.
In other news, while Ruby Hill and her husband try to wrap their minds around the impact of her business on their family as Annie goes on doing her usual bit as what looks like a prop for questionable romantic liaisons. Sure, Annie is hilarious and comes up with some pretty epic, albeit bizarre ideas for their business, but so far she has always either been a shadow in Beth's pivotal storyline or a protective figure for Ben's storyline any time she is not jumping from one messy relationship to another. So now with her having tried to 'sexually seduce' her therapist, that arc continues on its dreary lane, offering the character nothing more than self-hatred consuming make-out sessions as we try to figure out her real purpose on the show. And for a character with so much potential, to use her as a prop to make Beth look better seems far from justified.
'Good Girls' Season 3 airs on Sundays at 10 PM only on NBC.