Good Girls - Remix - Review: 'You Choose'

No your eyes are not deceiving you, this a review for the season one finale. Good Girls has been on a break for a painfully long time, so I thought it would be a nice to remind everyone where we left off before Beth, Ruby and Annie return to our screens and continue to be the bosses they are! Because let's be honest, peak TV can make us forget things no matter how much one may love a show, so sit back, relax and let me jog your memory before the season premiere on March 3rd.

Taking Control

Throughout the first season we watched as Ruby, Beth and Annie went from clumsy criminals just trying to take care of their families making all the wrong choices, to three women getting in deep with a criminal industry they knew nothing about. Beth especially, formed a bizarre and somewhat interesting connection to Rio and soon became a woman who was draw to the danger of the hustle he was offering. Beth also was contending with her cheating and lying husband Dean who had squandered their savings and put their financial security in serious jeopardy. Through these trials, something awakened in Beth and now she is attracted to making her money outside legal means. So when the three decide to turn the tables on Rio when he becomes even more dangerous due to his former employee Eddie (the guy that bled all over Beth's daughter's bedroom) talking to the feds, the three set out to get out from under Rio's thumb for good and get him out of the equation.

After some debate that included murder for hire, they settle on framing him and did just that by robbing the very store Annie works at..... again. Through an elaborate sequence of events that show how they've polished their game, the girls get the money and pin it all on Rio. Annie does almost get found out by the store security guard but she talks him up the police and makes him the hero, and that is all it takes. Rio is caught, but it cannot be that easy. By episode's end, he has been released and has invited himself to the Boland table with a battered Dean. Rio waxes poetic to Beth about being the boss and surprisingly turns his gun to her and tells her to choose whom she'll shot, Dean or him, and we fade to black.

The Personal Front

While the girls weren't committing several felonies, they also had lives that were crumbling in various ways. For Annie, she had dealt with the aching realization that maybe she needed to be more open to Gregg's input when it came to what their daughter Sadie needs. Sadie had been bullied at school for the way she dressed and Gregg and his wife Nancy had long requested she be enrolled in private school. By the end of this season, Sadie is finally enrolled in private school and guess what? She is accepted and treated like she deserves in that school, much to Annie's surprise. Now although Gregg was right in that regard, it doesn't mean he's making the right choices elsewhere. Annie and Gregg fall back into old patterns again, and by season's end we find them drinking in the park together reliving their teen years in a very unhealthy way for not only them but Sadie and Nancy.

Annie also had to deal with Boomer er Leslie, her disgusting boss who is onto the crimes she's committing. He harasses her relentlessly and even forms a relationship with Mary Pat, the woman who blackmailed Annie, Ruby and Beth once she figured out their secret shopper 'business' was a farce. Boomer targets her and they begin a relationship because he wants to catch Annie in a trap. What he didn't bank on was Mary Pat finding his tape recorder in her bible, and she is nobody's fool. She goes to Beth who tells her everything about our resident scumbag. Mary Pat confronts Boomer and they are on the rocks. Things just do not go well for him towards the end of this season, and it is satisfying.

On the Ruby front, there was a kidney for Sara but Stan and Ruby need 80k out of pocket before they'll do the surgery. This storyline is so important in today's climate, families are forced to figure out how to find the money necessary to save their child because insurance companies have become so greedy. Stan and Ruby are like any average American who want to do what is best for their child to literally save her life, but bureaucratic red tape stands in their way. Ruby finds the money from 'corporate' (AKA the robbery mentioned above) and Sara gets what she needs. Her marriage suffers a devastating blow though when Stan, who had been on the fed task force investigating Rio's operation finally puts all the pieces together about where his wife has gotten all this money. He confronts Ruby and she initially denies it, but tearfully comes clean and tells him it was for their family. We leave Ruby standing alone and staring down the possibility that she could lose the love of her life and quite possibly her family.

Circling back to Beth, she is restless as the taste of crime has been like a drug for her. She even floats an elaborate story about how she went back to Mike, the Canadian craft store worker where they ran to get Rio's fake wrapping paper money earlier in the season, and offered to take the mantle over from Rio now that he was down. It was all a lie and good story to which Annie and Ruby laughed off, but Beth wanted to make it fact. She also learned that Dean was lying about his cancer after he got into a car accident. Beth is at a major crossroads, especially with how the season ended with a gun in her hand. What will she choose? She couldn't possibly shoot Dean right? She and Rio are such an odd and intriguing dance, you know it is wrong to enjoy their off the charts chemistry because of his domineering treatment of her, but she seems to feel exhilarated and open to the rush of those moments. It is certainly an unhealthy dynamic, but I for one cannot turn away, so in that regard and the fact that Rio is scene stealer, I hope there is a way he comes out intact.

So now you're hopefully remembering what went down as we head into season two. I have so many questions, what will Beth choose and how will she get out of it? Will she become even more drawn to the criminal life at the determent to Ruby and Annie? Speaking of Annie, what will happen with her and Gregg? And Ruby..... how does her marriage recover? So many juicy things to look forward to!