Good Girls Review: Thelma & Louise (Season 2 Episode 8)
Okay, let me be up front here, Good Girls Season 2 Episode 8, “Thelma & Louise,” is named after one of my favorite movies. Like it’s namesake, it’s filled with women being each other’s ride or dies. Specifically, this episode shines a spotlight on Ruby and Beth’s relationship.
The flashbacks on “Thelma and Louise” are very evocative, showing pivotal moments in Ruby and Beth’s relationship as they grew up. It really helps the audience to get a vision of how far back these women go. (Twenty-five years is a long time!)
Even the slight nod to the beginning of Beth and Dean’s relationship was a nice touch and acts as a bookend towards the end of the episode.
At the same time, as we watch the friendship start I was slightly worried that it would come to an end.
It’s a relief to see that the phone call Ruby made at the end of Good Girls Season 2 Episode 7, “The Dubby,” was not to Agent Turner, but to Beth. The opening scene laid a lot out on the table and it’s hard to fault Beth or Ruby for their actions by the end of the episode.
Beth feels betrayed, Jane was missing, and her best friend was searching for evidence she could use against her. Ruby’s between a rock and a hard place with Agent Turner squeezing Stan for his involvement with the pen cap.
It’s dilemmas like this that make the relationships on Good Girls work so well. There’s no easy answer when it comes to if Ruby should have chosen her best friend or her husband, and the fallout is pretty severe. Yet, in the end, they have each other’s back.
Ruby lays it out perfectly when she talks about her hypothetical Beyonce tickets and how if she only had two and both Beth and Stan wanted to go she’d give the tickets to them and stay home. In this scenario, Beth even understands that Ruby should give the ticket to Stan. It’s a very subtle way of parsing out some understanding between the two characters.
While Beth and Ruby were fighting this episode, Dean was ready to carry out his plan to kill Rio. Which ends up with him getting hosed and all of Beth’s money getting stolen from the backyard hideout.
The moment that Beth walks in, sees Dean tied up, and runs to the backyard instead is very telling about her character and exactly were here priorities are. Spoiler alert: it isn’t with Dean, and it hasn’t been for a while.
I’ve talked a lot about Dean in these reviews, and “Thelma & Louise” really spelled the end of a relationship that had been long dead.
There’s a lot against Dean. There’s how he treated Beth during Good Girls Season 2 Episode 4, “Pick Your Poison,” the fact that he cheated on her with multiple women, plus I still can’t get over the fact that he tried to fake a cancer diagnosis. (When are they going to bring that up?)
It’s very clear after “The Dubby” that Dean has always needed Beth more than she needed him. He says so himself, and the scene afterward, when he confronts her about her actions, show Dean defeated.
It’s heartbreaking to see Beth realize that Dean’s left her and took the kids. It’s a complete 180-degree turn in their relationship, but not entirely unexpected. Beth’s been heading down a course that will likely lead her into more dangerous territory as she takes on higher stakes.
We already saw how taking her kids on a job ended in “The Dubby,” and I don’t think anyone wants a repeat performance since that could have ended up so much worse.
Unrelated to Beth is Annie and her relationship with Noah. The fact that Noah wants to know more about her is a good change of pace for Annie. We haven’t seen her in a relationship that is really on solid footing and it could be great for her.
The lies she tells him are entertaining, although not believable from the audience’s perspective. She does however get on the right track and seems poised to tell Noah something real in the future.
But, we cannot have nice things, ladies and gentlemen, because Noah is actually an undercover agent. (Yea, that stings a little! Okay, a lot.)
Noah’s relationship with Annie is a gamechanger, although definitely a terrifying one. Noah has been introduced as a sleeper agent into the girl’s midst and with the softest and most pliable target.
Annie is the most haphazard of the three and she’s likely the one who would give something up. She does, however, also have the most street smarts, so I wouldn’t bet against her just yet.
“Thelma & Louise” sets up a solid arc for the last two episodes on a shaky house of cards that could come tumbling down. A lot of things are off-balance and that could make for a wild ride between Turner’s investigation, Beth trying to recoup her loses, and Noah’s involvement with Annie.
It’s starting to look like it may be a question of who will fold first.
Stray Thoughts:
- The home birth scene was a good way to bring Annie and Nancy’s feud full circle. There wasn’t really a need to do that, but on an episode named after a film that is about two women who each other’s backs, it was a light-handed way to drive the theme home.
- Sadie telling his mom that he’s a boy was another touching moment. Sadie’s always had a gender non-conforming aspect to their character and this moment felt like it came about naturally. Seeing Annie being so accepting is also refreshing.
What did you think of this episode of Good Girls? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Good Girls airs Sundays at 10/9c on NBC.
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Lauren Busser
Lauren Busser is an Associate Editor at Tell-Tale TV. She is a writer of fiction and nonfiction whose work has appeared in Bitch Media, Popshot Quarterly, Brain Mill Press Voices, and The Hartford Courant.