NBC’s favourite mums are back on the screen
REVIEWED BYAshwini Vethakan
With many shows abruptly shelved or cancelled due to the pandemic, we can breathe easy knowing that some of our favourite characters will be returning to the screen this year. NBC’s Good Girls got the green light and is scheduled to run soon.
For those of you who haven’t checked it out yet, this is for you!
The comedy-drama follows the journey of three suburban women who take to a life of crime, seeking to right the wrongs in their own lives. Does that ring a bell?
Let’s fill you in… it’s the same plot as Diane Keaton’s 2008 comedy Mad Money except that this show was more successful.
Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks stars as Beth, a housewife who has just discovered her husband’s infidelities with his secretary. Retta plays Ruby, a hardworking wife and mother struggling to make ends meet whilst also trying to save money for her daughter’s kidney transplant. Mae Whitman’s Annie (Beth’s younger sister) makes up this trio; she is a single mother trying to give her teenage daughter the best life possible.
In short, three different women facing their own individual dilemmas.
While Ruby and Annie are struggling financially, Beth represents the ‘perfect American family’ – complete with a white picket fence and cheating husband. Still, they have clearly defined desires and needs; but most importantly, they have a catalyst for needing a large sum of money as soon as possible.
Beth has to save her massive suburban home after her philandering husband forgets to pay the mortgage – repeatedly. Ruby needs to pay for her daughter’s expensive medication and Annie is fighting for custody of her teenage daughter from her rich ex-husband.
What starts as a joke while sitting around in the kitchen – about robbing the store where Annie works in to make the much needed extra cash – ends up with the ladies realising that if you’re desperate enough, you could find yourself doing something you never thought you’d do.
Like every good crime show however, there’s that first pitfall where our protagonists discover that they have bitten off way more than they can chew.
In robbing the store, they’ve unwittingly stolen thousands of fake notes from a local criminal and the resident bad boy Rio, played by Manny Montana – who, to be honest, is the only great actor with the worst one-liners.
The ladies then have to make a choice: help Rio recover the money they stole and used or have their loved ones find them dead in a ditch.
Hendricks takes on the role of mother hen between the three and soon strikes a deal to help keep them alive while earning a little pocket money to boot. So while it’s clear the show’s creatives were shooting for a more serious tone, the series is anything but.
The attempts to have the series bounce between comedy and drama makes the plot feel uneven in the early episodes; but once you’ve passed them, a great story beckons. Three seasons in and you discover that these ladies will do whatever it takes to protect their families.
And that’s what makes it such a great show. Good Girls succeeds in cleverly reversing gendered expectations, and provides us with entertaining and complex female protagonists (mothers no less) who are neither good nor bad – they’re simply perfectly human. This shouldn’t be refreshing given the times we live in… but it is!
You can check out the first three seasons on Netflix and gear up for the new season!