Good Girls is an NBC crime drama that debuted in February of 2018 and garnered a loyal fanbase. However, the network canceled the series in 2021 after four seasons.
The show follows the adventures of three Michigan mothers, played by Christina Hendricks, Retta, and Mae Whitman, who resort to robbing a supermarket to solve their financial problems. The successful heist leads them to pursue a life of crime and alters their destinies dramatically.
The series concluded on NBC, but it has attracted a new viewership on Netflix, where the fourth and final season was released last week. Netflix did not renew the show for a fifth season, however, and as fans are finishing the series, they are curious about the implications of the Good Girls series finale.
1. Was it really a happy ending?
After Beth’s shooting, the scene shifts to Nevada, which implies a time jump. Beth survived the attack, Ruby and Stan are working on their new nail salon business with their daughter Sara’s help, and Annie is living happily with Ben and Kevin in their RV.
The apparent happy ending soon reveals its flaws. The group faces challenges in their new lives, and Beth realizes that the escape plan is doomed to fail for three reasons. First, the issues that pushed them to crime, such as Sara’s kidney condition and Ruby’s lack of funds for treatment, persist after the move. Second, the new location brings new troubles, such as Ben’s transphobia from his lacrosse team. Third, and most crucially, Beth discovers that she enjoys her criminal life and does not want to quit.
This can be seen in the series. For instance, in one scene in Nevada, Beth is at a supermarket when a robber threatens the store with a gun. Beth uses her experience to intimidate the novice criminal.
When he asks her, “Do you wanna die?” she replies, “Kinda.” This moment shows Beth’s realization that she prefers her life of crime despite the risks.
Beth persuades Ruby and Annie to go back to their roots and rob a store, which goes horribly wrong when a customer shoots Beth in the chest. As she loses consciousness, she discovers that her Nevada life was all a fantasy.
2. The Fate of Annie and Ruby
The episode moves toward its end after Beth wakes up in Michigan, with Mick’s bullet only injuring her shoulder. The episode hints at the direction Good Girls could have taken with another season.
The group soon realizes that Mick’s attack, ordered by Nick, was not intended to kill Beth. He left behind the gun he used to shoot her, a gun that appeared on the show before. It was the one that killed Lucy, the innocent counterfeiter, in Season 3.
Beth and Nick expect the cops to find Beth’s prints on the gun and charge her for Lucy’s murder, but Annie solved that issue earlier in the season when she persuaded Mick to spare Beth because she’s “a really good mom.”
It is implied that Annie put her prints on the gun instead. The FBI agents conclude that the shooting was a case of “sibling rivalry,” suggesting that they think Annie shot Beth because her prints were on the gun. A few scenes later, Annie is arrested.
As the police take Annie away, Ruby faces a dilemma. Stan has already bought a house for them in Nevada, and he intends to go there with Sara. The last we see of her; Ruby is looking at an empty suitcase wondering whether she will leave Beth or lose her family.
3. How Beth Takes Control
Beth gets the most satisfying ending among the three main characters. The final scene of the series shows her meeting with Rio on a park bench after giving up her Nevada plan.
She is now on the city council and has escaped Nick’s scheme to frame her for Lucy’s murder, putting her in a position of real power. Beth, smiling smugly, tells Rio, “You work for me now.” Rio replies, “You got it, boss.”
These endings leave many questions unresolved — Will Annie accept the blame for a crime she didn’t do? What will Ruby choose to do? How will Beth and Rio’s relationship evolve now that she’s the boss? — but they also suit the series.
Good Girls started as a show about women who take drastic measures to improve their situations and protect their families, but it became a story about how easy it is to lose control.
Beth, Ruby, and Annie struggled to control their situations, but they were always swept up in the criminal world. They had to do new crimes to hide the old ones. The money they earned hardly stayed with them for long before it was taken or had to be used to solve another problem. Although they fantasized at times about the end of their ordeal, no end actually existed.
We’ll never find out how the women’s stories end, but maybe that’s okay, as their stories never really will have a neat ending. Maybe an open-ended finale was always the best way for Good Girls to end.
4. About Good Girls
Good Girls is an American crime comedy-drama television series created by Jenna Bans that premiered on NBC on February 26, 2018.
The series is executive produced by Bans, Dean Parisot, and Jeannine Renshaw for Universal Television. In June 2021, the series was canceled after four seasons.
The series follows three suburban Michigan mothers, two of whom are sisters, who are having a hard time trying to make ends meet. They are tired of having everything taken away from them so they decide to pull off an unlikely heist by robbing a supermarket, only to discover that they are in for more than they expected.
Their successful robbery attracts the attention of the store manager after he recognizes one of the women, but for a different reason altogether than just the money.
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