'Good Girls' Season 3 Premiere Review: A new status quo sees Beth take control as the dark comedy takes a turn
Contains spoilers for Season 3 premiere
Hit NBC crime dramedy 'Good Girls' just returned with an iconic premiere for Season 3 that is somehow blissfully fitting, if not all that gripping.
There's a significant shift in the tone of the dark comedy. The titular girls — Beth Boland (Christina Hendricks), Ruby (Retta), and Annie (Mae Whitman) see their focus shifting from the "just one heist" humble beginnings to celebrate a newly Rio-free environment.
Now Beth can't gush about her newfound freedom from the shackles of a toxic ex on both personal and professional levels. However, as Beth delivers the jubilant news of the girls being able to do whatever they want, whenever they want, the lingering possibility of their tyrant returning hovers like a gloomy cloud.
This sets a solid precedent for the season that seemingly aims at debunking the myth about the three leads, that is the title. This season it's all about our good girls' steep rise to the league of criminals and the premiere tries to uphold the thrill of that.
Evolving from petty grocery store robbery investigations to serious fake currency business, as the girls navigate their new climb up the ladder of success, we see them bury some bones and leave behind nightmares from the past — namely their "every day" antagonists — Mary Pat (Allison Tolman) and Boomer (David Hornsby).
And to replace the chill and anticipation that the two brought into the girls' lies, and thus by extension, the viewers', the season premiere puts up the struggles of the working class as a pivotal antagonizing figure in the girls' lives.
Now they are forced to battle the fight for survival — more often nasty than honorable — to put food on the table and a roof above their heads. And in that, the Jenna Bans brainchild's Season 3 premiere doesn't disappoint.
Amid Beth and her husband Dean's hustle to remain financially sorted, we see them dissolve into their work. From fancy work dinners in khakis and polo shirts to complaining about the constraints of a 9 to 5 job, the girls go through a lot.
There's battling the dilemma of choosing to be faithful over the temptations of a workplace romance, and of course — creepy surveillance that somehow doesn't seem to leave your side.
However, even in all of that, what the premiere really offers is more stints of kidnapping and breaking and entering that are still as hilarious, as they are dangerous to fathom.
There are multiple lives being lived alongside the obvious multiple jobs and even all of these multiple incomes combined together aren't able to promise Beth the happily ever after which she thought was rushing in with Rio's downfall.
The plight of women never being able to have it all is paralleled by running gags about the Boland family fish's fate to remind us that in this cesspool of constantly trying to provide and sustain, there's little that planning can help.
At the same time, the premiere also aims at establishing the newly founded status quo which somehow doesn't really seem concrete enough to last throughout the rest of the season.
For now, Beth takes the wheel, but for how long is a question that viewers might find themselves plagued with as the camera struts along without shots that are showy, trying to encompass the full length of the despair that reigns on the show usually.
This gives it the signature black comedy its due nod of darkness sporadically and suddenly, in equal parts.
Dead fish jokes escalating to dead friends is pretty much the only character development we see in these initial stages of a season that is supposed to be a gigantic curveball in the long run.
That and the fact that Retta is a gift that keeps on giving as the phenomenal Ruby are just what might keep one hooked on for more episodes to come.
'Good Girls' Season 3 premieres on Sunday, February 16, at 10 pm only on NBC.