Good Girls Gone PTA
I discovered this show late. I don’t watch network television. I cut the cord years ago and I don’t know the world of shows that air weekly where you have to sit through commercials. I also thought this show would get canceled by the second season so I didn’t want to invest my time. Fast forward to two weeks ago when I start seeing TikTok videos of Manny Montana. I couldn’t place the show but then I saw scenes of him with Christina Hendricks and I knew exactly what show it was. Good Girls on NBC. The way people were talking about it felt like it had completed its course so I thought I would give it a try.
“Get in the car, Elizabeth.” I didn’t know that was him. I heard that line used in videos over the past few years and I never placed it. Seeing the scene in a TikTok clip I was moved. Yes, I was moved by a smooth voice from Long Beach. I’m from Vallejo, children. My immunity should be stronger, but two weeks ago it wasn’t because I binged the entire show.
Rio and Elizabeth were a joy to watch. I didn’t care for the show when it first came out because I thought it would be a cookie-cutter show where a suburban mom meets her first gang leader and then tries to save him. Eye roll. To my pleasant surprise this was more of the Ozark variety of suburbanites. We see you laundering money and we will throw in our vast knowledge of navigating suburbia and all its riches to help you hide and clean your money — for a small 20% cut of the profits. Elizabeth wiped the slate of her second and third mortgage and her husband’ horrible business ventures in a single month of money laundering. That was beautiful.
Summary of the Show
Halfway through watching the series I stumbled upon a Tumblr where a writer did meta analysis on everything from wardrobe, to language, to the scenes the characters were placed when certain aspects of their lives were revealed. That Tumblr account helped me get even more invested in the show. Where Foxmagpie and I disagree is on the foundation of the show.
The reason why the show wasn’t given a fifth season is because Manny Montana didn’t sign on. When a supporting character doesn’t sign on to come back and the show is canceled, it means he is the show. It may not have been the reason for the show during its first season, but it evolved to be a show about Elizabeth and Rio. Every money scheme they came up with, watch closely, was always just an excuse for them to be around each other.
There are Tumblr’s like Foxmagpie’s and other sites that go into detail on the show, but I’m going to sum it up really quick so we can get to the parts I like. Soccer mom robs a grocery store with her two friends that turns out to be a money front for a Detroit drug dealer. They’re immediately attracted to each other, but they don’t say anything because of the whole train tracks thing. The reason why that’s a weak excuse is because Rio isn’t just a drug dealer, he’s the foundation for a city-wide system that’s connected to corrupt politicians and judges. Also, she may be a soccer mom, but she is JOAN HOLLOWAY. These two are so hot together on camera. I don’t think they got along on the set of the show, but I’d love to watch a movie with them together.
Fantasy in Denim and Sneakers
The voice. The way he holds himself. We’re drawn to Rio because he’s a boss. Also, Manny Montana played him so well. I hate when actors play someone from the darker elements of society and they’re loud and crazy; Manny played Rio chill and that really is how you picture someone in that position being. There’s never a doubt as to why Elizabeth is drawn to him.
There are scenes that will draw viewers ( *cough* 2x04, 2x09, 4x06 *cough*) but it’s the entire arc of the show that makes it work. It’s that they got along not only as friends, but more importantly to me, as business partners. I can think the waiter is good looking, and living in Los Angeles, there’s a high probability he is. I don’t know if it’s age or just my particular personality, but if I trust you enough to enter into an illegal endeavor that can land us to prison or dead, you’re so special. Elizabeth sized up Rio in the first season and realized it would be a good idea to launder money with him.
She didn’t come to this decision lightly either. She realized the system was broken and she decided to go for her cut in her own way that didn’t outright get people hurt and it was just white-collar crime. The show doesn’t go into detail on how Rio makes his money and that’s probably a good thing. Drugs are left ambiguous so we’re allowed the disbelief to think maybe it’s just off brand pharma from Canada that are being sold to people that don’t have health insurance. That’s to say we don’t get deep into the lore of the breaking bad.
Rio is definitely a fantasy. He shows up and takes care of her problems and all of the problems he introduces are ones that take her out of the monotony of her everyday life. They didn’t get a season 5, but I believe that if the show had come back for that final season, it would have been about them settling down together. I think they just might veer away from a life of crime and go legit with the skills that they both have.
They didn’t specify where in Michigan the show took place, but I think it was a Gross Pointe type of suburbia. That lifestyle is similar to some of the suburbs of Los Angeles. In between finishing this article I drove from my library to one across town to pick up a box of core novels. I wondered if I would be able to do it. Could I gather the PTA members together to pull off a laundering scheme that would both be lucrative and untraceable to our every day lives. Then I remembered that my town is built on fantasy and everything else that comes with it and odds are there are hundreds of Rio’s and Beth’s out here among the palm trees doing that very thing already.
What are we left with, you ask? How do we get that heart-attack inducing mortgage on a little Malibu cottage to live in for about a year before we die? I don’t have the answers to that, but I know that the journey there should be fun. Television has been good lately and I hope to see Manny Montana in more shows to come.
Was that a nice, tidy little ending? Okay, you can stop reading now because this is just me saying Manny Montana is fine. I never watched Graceland so I didn’t understand just how attractive he is. I also like guys like Rio. I can’t explain it either, but it’s that quiet manner. The knowledge that behind that silence is someone highly intelligent that just gets you and trusts you to wash half a million of their money every two weeks with a little kick back. I saw him interviewed by Angie Martinez and I already know in that chair I would have asked him the wildest questions. How have I never run into you in Long Beach? How are you tall, skinny, but still stacked at the same time? You say you’re a goofy guy by nature, does that mean you were channeling your friend Clayton Cardenas while you were playing Rio? Why are you so fine? That’s what was going through my head while I was watching Good Girls. The plot, the dialogue, the cast, all of it was stellar, but at the end of the day, you had that fine ass man from Long Beach breathing up all the good air whenever he was on screen.
