Saturday, June 26, 2021

Good Girls is Cancelled: GOOD! A Few Thoughts




SPOILERS for Good Girls and Star Wars movies!


Read at Your Own Risk!



                                                                Good Girls is Cancelled

                                                                             Good!

I’ve opined a bit about Good Girls in my Patreon. But now I feel compelled to make a public post because it’s been a minute since I’ve posted any musings about shows and movies in this blog!

 Spoilers  Spoilers Spoilers

Over the past year, like all of you, I’ve been confined to home and watching way more TV than I do in “real life.” I’ve binge-watched dozens of shows and movies and documentaries. Yes, I’m part of the serial killers and cults watchers or as SNL calls it, “murder shows”. I think I’ve seen almost all the shows as well as conspiracy theories and con artists on most of the streaming services. 

Then I stumbled upon a show called Good Girls on Netflix a couple of months ago. It was rated very highly in the weekly ratings here in Canada, in the top ten, so I clicked and was hooked.

That first season blew my socks off. I was invested. I loved the concept of moms clumsily robbing a supermarket, where ONE OF THEM WORKS. Each of the three main characters had a good reason, a compelling reason, to rob a store for money. After all, it’s the States and one of the characters had a child with a health issue and apparently, if you live in the States, you need buckets of cash just to survive, unlike here in Canada, where those same procedures would be covered under the health care act that everyone pays into. (And, no, our taxes actually aren’t higher than the States when you really look at what paying your taxes gets you with regard to social services and such.) If the States health care system wasn’t such a mess, that one character would never have had to rob anyone!


                                    

Anyway, the three housewives rob the store and then get sucked into a gang situation as the store was controlled by the mob, or so it seemed at the time. However, that storyline has disappeared, and that’s the issue with Good Girls.

Disappearing storylines and disappearing characters.

And lack of motivation.

And lack of character growth.

I watched the first two seasons on Netflix. Then was able to stream the third season and catch up with the fourth. When I had first stumbled upon the show, I didn’t realize it was still going on.



I watched the terrible fourth-season mid-season double episode the other day. Good Girls filming had been disrupted cos of the pandemic, so they were late with the fourth season. They aired a couple of episodes then took a break for something like five weeks. It was back on Thursday for a couple of hours. I had a bit of hope that maybe they had pulled up their socks with all that time to see how the show was sinking because of the lazy writing. It. Was. Terrible. 

I think the TV executives had been waiting for the mid-season show to make a decision about cancelling the show as it’s been sitting on the chopping block for a couple of months and then saw that horrible episode and it was easy to decide.

                                    


Even huge fans of the show on Reddit mostly admit the show jumped the shark.

Most of us who understand how stories work agree when that happened.

                                       


Okay, so the first season was good. Really good. I posted on Patreon that this was my new favourite show. It’s done by the same people who did Desperate Housewives, a show I loved and stopped my life for every week for years. Yes, DH was uneven, especially in later seasons, but it was riveting and always something new and different. Some of the plot lines didn't work but they always stretched to find new and interesting situations for those housewives to get into. I was so sad when DH ended.

Good Girls had a bit of that DH feel which I loved. Suburban moms getting into trouble. But Good Girls is Big Trouble not the travails in DH.

The women rob that store. The gang dude comes after them. Scary shit happens, you really feel like life hangs in the balance and that anyone can be murdered at any time for any reason.

Rio was scary. So scary that I actually had nightmares about him coming to kill me. The writing and acting were perfect.

                                 


I binge-watched the first two seasons in a couple of days and it was great. I was involved. I was like, “holy crap, what’s going to happen!”

And then in Season Two last episode, Beth shot Rio and I was cheering, HURRAY!


Jumping the Shark

As much as I liked being scared of Rio, it was perfect. Beth shot him in the face it seemed, and he would die, and then whoever Rio answers to would come after the Girls in Season Three. Someone bigger, badder, and scarier. I was so hooked and ready.

And then the show jumped the shark.

They made Rio live as Season Three began.

And then the show began to drown.

Rio wasn’t scary anymore.

The stakes weren’t high anymore.

The plot was the same old going around in circles. They literally did the exact same plot lines and the women got really stupid and had no reasons to keep doing crimes except they are lazy, greedy, and selfish.

Characters, like Boomer disappeared. The FBI was on their case and suddenly not. Yes, there were payoffs and such but come on. You can’t tell me that lady FBI agent would just drop the case? After all those murders?

So many loose threads.

Rio tried to kill Dean, but everyone’s forgotten about that.

No one ever has consequences for their despicable acts and likely never will.

Season Four is even worse.

The only thing I like about season four is Dean “waking up” with his little cult of MLM buddies who want to go after Beth for screwing with his life. THAT is now the storyline I’m hoping will be resolved.

The best way this show, this series, can end is like Seinfeld did. All the assholes go to jail as we know the writers won’t kill off anyone or they would have by now.

Same Old Issues

This show was so good but then it fell to what I call the Kylo Ren issue. Yes, it always comes back to Star Wars, doesn’t it? I guess cos Star Wars is a simple story, or was, with basic good and evil and consequences. But the Disney versions kind of screwed up.

The same reasons. Fan service. 

 Reylo and Brio

For some reason, some other viewers of GG weren’t as horrified by Rio as I was. They thought he was sexy and cute and rooted for Brio. Even though he’s a criminal, a murderer. He had great potential to be the ultimate evil.

Same with Kylo Ren. I loved Kylo Ren when I first saw him because he had the potential to be even more evil than Darth Vader, he had the unpredictable rage of anything can happen, he had the struggle against his mom and uncle who were Jedis and “good”, depending on your perspective. He was a mass murderer. JJ Abrams himself said that that the trough that Kylo kept Darth Vader’s helmet in contained the ashes of those he had murdered. He blew up planets and razed villages. For no reason but power, the desire to emulate grandaddy Darth Vader, and to rule the galaxy in his own Kim Jung Un dictatorship fantasy.


This scene from The Force Awakens was scary and disturbing. Up until that point, I actually thought Kylo Ren was a robot of some sort or some kind of space alien under that helmet. I thought he was ultimate evil and couldn't wait to see him kick Jedi ass!
 

When this scene happened, I was so scared and excited and wondered what would happen! Back in those days, anything could have happened to any of these characters. Super tension between Kylo and Rey. And hey, that scene told us that Finn had The Force too then Disney dropped the ball about that for a couple of movies. ugh. 


Reylo

Yet, somehow along the way, they make the “good” girl, Rey, fall in love with him. Yes, women in real life often fall for the bad boys. But it was stupid. Rey and Finn should have ended up together. It was set up in the beginning and then ignored. I always felt Kylo was intrigued with Rey because he either knew about her as child, perhaps they played as children, and he likely knew that she had been hidden because of her powers and to keep her away from evil like him and now here she was. I felt his intrigue was with her rumoured powers and that she was a relative; a cousin, a sister...and he wanted to figure out how to take her powers for himself. 

But then there was pandering of Reylo for the fans. By the third movie, Kylo was just a goofy teen in love. There was no big bad. No one bigger than Kylo controlling him as they killed off Snoke. I refuse to acknowledge the stupid Palpatine-clone shoehorn plot. We all know Rey was supposed to be Kylo’s cousin, Luke’s daughter. The movies are a mess. Partly director ego. Partly fan service. All those fans wanting Kylo and Rey to end up together. WHY??????



And what the hell was THIS? Of course, some say it wasn't a romantic kiss, just a "kiss" of some sort cos she was sad for him? And the incest continues on as Kylo comes from Darth Vader who was created by Palpatine who .. didn't he use his own blood for the clone? and Rey is somehow Palpatine's grandchild because, of course, someone somewhere actually slept with Palpatine? So they are related. CHRIST!!!!


Derailed Characters

Kylo never got to be ultimate evil and then the writers threw him away. (But of course, in Star Wars, no one is ever really gone…as Luke says…)

And the same thing happened in Good Girls.

The fans liked Rio and Beth together. Brio as they call it.

Once again, teens love a murderer, a bad boy, and want to see this married mom run off with him. To what end?

If the writers had held their ground in both franchises of making the evil more evil as the shows progress, these could have been amazing vehicles.

Instead, they created unlikely and ridiculous “love stories” that drag the plot and destroy character growth and motivation.

In reading Redditt and other sites, the fans just watch and wait for the next Brio sex scene. They are hoping those two are together by the end. And maybe Beth and Rio should just hop in a car and drive off like Bonnie and Clyde.

                                    

Maybe all three women should hop in the car and drive off Niagara Falls, the Canadian side, Thelma and Lousie-style since they are shitty moms and shittier human beings.

No Character Development Except for Dean

Back to the end of season two. When we had that cliff-hanger where Beth shot Rio, I truly thought he’d be dead. And then a bigger, badder crime lord would appear. And the girls would be in even deeper shit.

But nope.

Somehow Rio survived a shot in the face and has no scars.

They tease us that there might be something more going on with the criminal activities with Rio’s family but who knows?

With only a few episodes left this season, this season that has only recreated plots we’ve seen before, with the exception of Dean’s growth, it’s unlikely we’ll see anything cool happen.

The season has already been filmed so whatever will happen will happen. Maybe if the last few episodes bring the show back to what it used to be, bring back some of the dozens of loose threads they left hanging, perhaps a streaming service might consider the show. But as it stands now, I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to continue this show on their network.

I loved Good Girls. I still liked the first two seasons, the comedy, the tension, the mystery.

But no one has consequences for these horrible things.

The women are complicit in the murder of an innocent girl unless it’s revealed that somehow it was faked that she was killed and she comes back somehow. But that‘s not going to happen.


No One to Root for Except Dean and He's not a Girl!

These are horrible people doing horrible things. And it’s not even entertaining anymore. There’s no one to root for, no one to care about. Except maybe Dean who recognized he was a cheating scumbag  and lost sight of his business for a bit (which is what launched Beth's life of crime) but realizes he loves his wife and will do anything for her to make it up emotionally and financially and he does and did. As she gaslights him further, his new friends recognize her narcissistic bullshit and want to help him out so he won't have to rot in jail for crimes he didn't commit. Will they? Who knows! Maybe they are FBI all along?

We don’t even care about any of the kids because a) we don’t know them and b) they never do anything or interact. Don’t all the kids know each other? Aren’t some of them cousins? Why don’t they ever talk about their weirdo parents and all the craziness going on? Like when the house had no furniture?

I live in Canada and drive to the States all the time. I can’t stand the border crossing episodes, so unrealistic. They would have been in jail long ago. Yes, I know this is fiction but come on!

                                   

This show began as a strong show about women taking control of their lives. Now it's just silly girls doing stupid stuff and mostly to please men. 

                                   

Anyway, I have many more rambling thoughts about this show but that’s it for now.

Let’s rejoice in the cancellation of Good Girls as it’s too far gone to bring it back to good writing and character development and it will free up all these amazing actors to do other shows.

Let's remember those amazing first two seasons and let the last two rest in peace!

 














 

Contest Winners Announced!

The SCREAM app contest is now over!


The winners for the FREE tokens for the SCREAM app have been selected from the emails!

Thank you to everyone who entered the contest!

I announced it on TwitchTV last night. I was on much later than I had intended due to technical issues with my computer.  

And the winners are:


LadyDoom420


thearchivistdd


Congratulations to the winners!








Thursday, June 24, 2021

Contest Ends Noon EST Friday June 25, 2021

 


To enter the contest, please



1.Send me an email at sephgiron @ gmail .com ( email addy formatted properly, of course)

2.Put Scream in the header         

3. Put the handle or name you want me to put on Spin the Wheel

                       

          Deadline: Friday June 25 at NOON


 No purchase necessary to enter!


No, I am NOT collecting the email addresses for the contest! I just want your name for Spin the Wheel!


I will pick the winners on Twitch on Friday afternoon!

I will post the winning names here and on social media plus I will contact you!


Winners get tokens for the new Scream: Thrills and Chills app to read any books on the platform that you desire!




Friday, June 18, 2021

Reading and a Contest on June 21, 2021 at 7 pm est


Just a reminder that on Monday June 21 at 7 pm est, I'll be doing a short horror reading from my work on my Twitch Tv channel. HTTP://www.twitch.tv/sephera666



This reading is part of the National Public Readings program organized by The Writers Union of Canada and sponsored by The Canada Council for the Arts. I thank all three programs for sponsoring my reading on Monday!

Those who come to my reading and post in the TWITCH chatbox during the live event will receive 5 entries into a contest I'm running. You don't have to say anything profound, even just "HELLO" counts!

You need to post because I have no way to see who shows up and who doesn't as I'm running all the tech by myself and won't have those abilities turned on so that I'm not distracted.

Obviously, I'll have to have your email so you may wish to send it to me and tell me whatever your Twitch handle is.

I will be simulcasting the reading as I did with the previous two readings on Facebook and YouTube.

I will NOT be able to see or read Facebook comments so please watch on Twitch itself and comment on there. Facebook comments are NOT entered into the contest.


The platform I use for multi-streaming doesn't include a chatbox for Facebook.

Facebook comments WON'T be part of the contest as I can't see them!

The contest will be a draw to win tokens to read any books you want on the brand new SCREAM: THRILLS AND CHILLS app.

I will post in here in another post how you can enter the contest if you don't come to my reading.

I will announce the winners on June 25. 2021!

It's free and easy to create an account on Twitch and you can cancel it anytime.

I'm giving you lots of notice to create your account and be ready to chat between 7 and 7:30 pm est on Twitch to win FIVE extra chances to win!

I hope to see you all there!






 



J

Sunday, June 6, 2021

Trying New Things!

 


One of the many new things I've been trying lately is getting on board the app train!

          I have two books up on SCREAM: THRILLS AND CHILLS right this very minute. 

                                       


SCREAM is a new production from Crazy Maple Studios.

Download the SCREAM: THRILLS AND CHILLS app from Google Play or Apple.

    To celebrate this Beta launch, I'll be doing a contest for YOU to win coins so watch my social media for details over the next few days!


In other news:

Over the past year, I've been writing a couple of TV pilots and feature films in hope that perhaps one day they'll be made. You can find them over at Coverfly and Stage32.

 I've also sent some pitches around to other apps in hope that I can write an interactive book or game. 

So anything can happen!


In the meantime, mark your calendars, as I'll be doing another live reading on Twitch Tv

Monday June 21 at 7 p.m. on http://www.twitch.tv/sephera666


If you like to read blogs along with opinions on TV shows and movies, give my Patreon a whirl. You can join for as little as $1 a month!