One of the reasons I love blogging is that it gives me a chance to play with outfits I like but would never wear (for yes, there are some, even for me). Just like watching TV gives me a glimpse of exciting but dangerous things I'd never do. Enter today's Goth club kid ensemble and NBC's Good Girls.
If you've seen Good Girls (or even a commercial), then you know that the dark dramedy, which is in its fourth season, is about three ordinary women who turn to crime when faced with financial hardships. Set in a suburb of Detroit, it straddles the no woman's land between the mean city streets and the cul-de-sac. Ringleader Beth Boland (Christina Hendricks) is a domestic diva and mother of four married to her high school sweetheart (Matthew Lillard of Scream fame). Yet when she finds out that her dear Dean's serial philandering and financial mismanagement have landed them face to face with foreclosure, she's forced to expand her repertoire from baking to burglary. Beth convinces her sister Annie (Mae Whitman), a wisecracking supermarket cashier, and their lifelong friend Ruby (Retta), a happily married but struggling waitress, to join her in her crime spree crusade. But no sooner do they commit their first felony than they learn that they've trespassed upon the turf of career criminal Rio (Manny Montana). Like it or not, "gang friend," as Ruby calls him, soon becomes a fixture in their lives. Yet as Beth plunges deeper into Detroit's underworld, she discovers that illicit entrepreneurship is the road to not only financial freedom but the kind of fulfillment that she can't get from the PTA.
Good Girls isn't all back door deals and social commentary, though. It's also funny. Annie slings some first-class zingers, and the situations in which the "girls" find themselves are often so ludicrous that you can't help but laugh. Even the background music is French noir cute reminiscent of A Simple Favor. Finally, there are more than a few Cloud Nine references, which are an Easter egg of a reminder that the dearly departed Superstore is a fellow Midwestern star in the NBC universe.
Layered and nuanced, Good Girls is masterfully crafted to make you think twice about everything. Like this unabashedly badass outfit, it starts off as starkly black and white but eventually reveals shades of gray. And it's the gray that urges you to question the difference between right and wrong, to wonder what you would do if you too were caught in a catastrophic cashflow catch-22. Just as it's the gray that makes this sensational story not only entertaining but familiar, becoming the silver lining we seek.
Still, whenever Rio pops out from the shadows, I can't help but think that baking -- which I usually loathe -- looks pretty good.