Hey <333 hope your fine? I already ask what your thought about the Beth dance scene but I didn't ask you what your thoughts on the Beth and fitzpatrick scene "Do It!" I'm gonna start to rewatch 3x08 and this is where the real hitman (boring plot) start so^^. Thank you <3
Did you get to it yet??? Thatās such a hard scene. Definitely needs mental gymnastics to make ok.
I personally didnāt hate the whole hitman premise. I didnāt love all of the execution, but Beth hiring a hitman makes sense. Fitz ended up being her conscience (you really have to see the final episode to fully understand this.) I hated the romantic overtone to his interest in her. Why canāt for once a man be interested in a woman simply because sheās fascinating or worthy of interest and admiration? Why does it always have to come down to sexual interest or possession? But setting all that aside, this whole unpopular storyline was Beth grappling with herself and her wants versus her responsibilities.
You have to remember, weāre still coming off all the betrayal and confusion sheās felt about Rio setting her up as his fall guy after she believed she was someone he actually cared about, Rio bullying his way into a business she made, Rio killing someone and threatening to frame her for it. She wants to believe in him. But heās made it so difficult for her to do that. She doesnāt see the subtleties of his own hurt and need for her to validate him. All she sees is someone whoās fixated on hurting her. There is a lot of shame for Beth in still wanting him, despite her belief that he not only doesnāt want her back, but actively wants to hurt her and those she loves. Beth also feels an enormous responsibility to her entire family and friend group. Everyone is depending on her. So for her, there is no other way. Choosing Rio would be choosing herself, and Beth has never chosen herself.
The way Beth goes about making the hit decision is extremely conflicted. You can see it to the bitter end.
She doesnāt want to choose this. Fitz, her conscience, forces her to choose. She has to weigh being who she wants to be against who she has to be for everyone else.
And in this moment, Beth chooses everyone else. Itās presented to us with a musical overlay, speaking to Bethās loneliness, her inability to choose herself, her sacrifice for those she loves.
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Random , but Iām kinda new to your blog so I was wondering what your thoughts on the hit man plot? Did you like it? were there things in that storyline that didnāt work for you? IMO I believe they could have done more, you know? Why were Anne and RUBY, in particular, so OK about it? In season one, the idea of hiring a hitman was mentioned, but Ruby immediately shut it down and I know that a lot has changed since then . I just think itās kinda ooc that the girls never really questioned Beth about it and I feel like that was such a mistake and missed opportunity !!! what do you think? ALSO I donāt think Rio ever figured it out . I really wish he did . he deserved to know :/ ALSO IT WOULD OF BEEN SO MESSY the angst we could of had!!
Hi anon! I have all my thoughts on this compiled under my 'hitman plot' tag if you want to do some deeper reading, but I figured I'd still do a bullet point version, mostly because I'm just in the mood to talk about Good Girls, haha.
Overall
The hitman plot was an interesting concept with mostly mediocre execution
It had more lows than highs, however the highs that it did were so excellent that I think they did overall make me like the inclusion of the plotline more than I like the idea of it being left out entirely
What didn't work for me
Pacing: It felt like it stretched too many episodes for a show that usually bounces from plot to plot within just a few episodes. Good Girls otherwise has an extremely quick pace (sometimes to its own detriment) and so the fact that the hitman plot felt so slow felt particularly painful, I think.
Beth's feelings: Overall, Season 4 did a better job at communicating how Beth was feeling to the audience than Season 3 did, and I think it exacerbated the audience's frustration with the plot. I don't think the show demonstrated how Beth was feeling in the moment well, but I think they did explore how Beth was feeling prior to it, i.e. we know that Beth felt both guilty and a deep numbness when she believed Rio was dead, but it didn't feel like that was grappled with while she was planning to kill him again. The complexity of those feelings and Beth's refusal to engage with them would've been in-character and really interesting, but it became a missed opportunity.
Annie & Ruby's feelings: I agree with you that this was another miss, and the effect of it was probably GG's most egregious error. Annie and Ruby's lack of trying to investigate how Beth was feeling in the aftermath of all this trauma and extreme behavior simply made them look like bad friends, which is NOT what I gathered the show was trying to say or explore. It was a major disconnect.
Rio seeing Beth dance: Look, I just don't buy that Rioāwho has been Actively Avoiding Beth's house ALL seasonārandomly shows up at Beth's place at the exact moment the hit was supposed to happen to confront her about where all her money goes... only to not know what was going on at that point. I think it was a lame fakeout.
Resolution: I actually disagree with you, though, that Rio didn't know. I believe he discovered it when he took out who he thought to be "Dave," and that was why he pointed out to Beth that her "kahuna" wasn't trying to "put [him] away," but to "put [him] down." At that point, I think Rio had enough informationāand Beth's reaction was obvious enoughāthat he could piece it all together. While did I love season 3, I am glad this moment didn't throw us back into the pit of angst, though. While I do kind of like the light touch there was in his reaction, I did think his reaction wasn't as juicy as it could've been. Basically, I think it could've been a sort of dark, fun flirtatious momentāRio holding over her head that he's caught onto the fact that she doesn't want to get rid of him. \
What I would change
Beth's feelings: Literally the number one thing I wanted was Beth openly refusing to be the one behind the gun again. She had easy access to him! It would be free! It should've at least been considered! And of course her refusal would be padded with an excuse, but we would know, and I would love it.
Annie and Ruby: The number one thing I would change is how Annie and Ruby were utilized in it. I think Ruby's resistance to the idea could've been an easy entry point to exploring Beth's feelings and motivations. One of the things I really like about Beth's tangled feelings for Rio is that she straddles this line of genuine fear of what Rio is capable of at the same time that she's drawn to and attracted to that same aspect while she hangs onto this sort of implicit trust in him even when he demonstrates that she shouldn't. The push/pull of the logical side of her that knows he's dangerous warring with the emotional side that doesn't even think twice about the risk of visiting him at 3 am in his bar to confess that there is no baby when said baby is the only reason she doesn't have a bullet in her brain is fascinating, and Beth's hypocrisy, excuses, and lies are what makes her such a complex character. They had moments that shined with this, but I think they simply didn't fulfill the potential here. Adding onto the Annie-and-Ruby of it, though, I think after a few failed attempts of getting Beth to explore her feelings, we should've seen Annie and Ruby talking amongst themselves about what was going on with Beth.
Pacing: I'd do two key things. I'd nix Troy as a stepping stone in the plot, condensing the introduction of Fitzpatrick. I'd also change up the excuses for why progress wasn't being made. The paintball fakeout didn't entirely payoff for me, because I wanted more out of Beth's reaction to making the call, and I honestly just felt the "he's out of town" excuse was extremely lame.
Rio in Beth's house: I think the simple fix would've been showing him robbing her house so the reappearance of him inside of it didn't seem like as big of a deal as it was. But also... I just think he should've had a bigger clue. I think it's weird that when he decided not to murder her that he didn't even consider tracking her.
Resolution: I wouldn't actually change much, but I think I'd have Rio's reaction include some more kind of dark, flirtatious taunting. It's so close to 4.06 that I think it would've really worked in 4.04, and I think Rio kinda throwing back to Beth that he knows she had a hit on him and knows that she canceled it and has an inkling as to why she might've changed her mind, both as a nod to him knowing that she's still got a thing for him and as a nod to him being clued into her working with the Secret Service, would've been really fun.
What I loved
Ending on a positive note! There were some things I really enjoyed!
Beth's conversation with Max: The 3.07 scene where Beth confesses to Max that killing Rio wouldn't make him feel better, only that it would make him feel "nothing" is one of the best scenes of season 3, and one of the best scenes-about-Brio-not-featuring-Brio that there is in the whole series. I really, really love it.
Beth in the polka dot dress during her first meeting with Fitzpatrick: Literally obsessed with the fact that they put her in the same outfit that she wore when she was being her Utmost Self by wearing that modest dress to seduce Rio, acknowledging that she knows he likes her for her, in the same scene where she moves forward with the hitman plot but hesitates with the (teased) quick timeline. The fact that she was wearing it because her husband insisted upon it because he was jealous how she dressed up for Rio? And that she prioritized her drama with Rio over a celebration with her husband in the same moment? *Chef's kiss*
Beth's date with Fitzpatrick: Love love LOVE the contrast of Beth dressing differently than we've EVER seen her dress up for a man, emphasizing the contrast in how she views Fitzpatrick's versus Rio's attraction to her. I also love that it's a callback to 2.04 with the same color scheme and similar pattern, and that in both scenes Beth's pretending that "normal" is something she wants or is capable of being. Basically, I love seeing Beth lie to herself.
Beth duping Rio into handling Dave himself: Perfect, PERFECT execution of Beth's moral slide. She's still not the one behind the trigger, but she's the one making it get pulled on purpose, and it's even more tangled and gnarly because it's her juiciest manipulation of Rio and one that benefits him in such a twisted way. This is the kind of king shit that makes Brio Brio. And the heaviness she feels alone in the bar after? And the smile Rio gives to Beth when she gives her true-not-true "If I ever bake another cookie, I'll die" speech? UGH. God I LOVE THEM.
I am confused. Rio must have guessed that Dave wasnt Dave and wasnt the feds, I mean why would a fed try to kill him like a sniper ? So why kill him right after he realized? Why not keep him alive and ask questions to understand what is Beth playing at ? Also, Beth was taking such a big risk with this as it was obvious Rio would find out who Dave is...
Well, technically, weāre not sure that Rio shot to killāonly that there was a gunshot and then a fade to black. Itās possible that Rio did question Fitzpatrick beyond the point that we saw, but I am hopeful that Fitzpatrick is really dead.
I also donāt know that there is much that Rio needs to question exactly. I think he could put the pieces together fairly easily on his ownāthis person is not Secret Service, not Dave, and he's attempting to snipe Rio whenĀ Beth led him straight to the sniper, and the sniper clearly knew Beth because of how he was talking about her.Ā Rio also knows Beth was doing something suspicious with her money (hence why he took it away in 3.10) and he caught on that something was up when she was very pleased with herself and told him she was "incentivized" (3.09). Plus, Rio knows Beth wants to be out from underneath his thumb ("When does it get to be mine?" / "Next time, empty the clip", 3.11) and that she's angry at him ("This is your fault!", 3.05) and that she's scared of him (which was his intent when he took her to the car wash and refused to tell her what they were doing). In that sense, I don't think Fitzpatrick had any answers that Rio didn't already know. He can even piece together that Beth wanted to call off the hit since she wanted Rio to take care of him, and he can figure out why because she admitted to him that the Secret Service was offering her Witness Protection for turning on Rio.
I'm not sure if Rio felt like it was worth dragging out the interaction with Fitzpatrick (dangerous, as Fitzpatrick had already tried reaching for his own gun) to get confirmation on what was already a pretty solid theory that he can follow up with Beth about.
And yes, it was a big risk! Once again I think Beth had tunnel vision and failed to see her plan working out in any way but how she'd imagined it, which is why she was so caught off guard and why she lied so badly when Rio brought it up. She doesn't really know Rio's MO (nor do we) and I think she was banking on him taking care of it quickly and quietly without much fanfare.
The trailer said āthis seasonā so I donāt think everything we saw in the promo for 4x02 is going to show tonight. I feel like the hitman plot is going to go on for a few more episodes until we actually see Fitz ācompleteā the hit. Kinda wish it was over on tonightās episode tho lol
I thought the hitman plot was going to be over every single episode since 3.09Ā š
1. What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?*
Okay, itās not that I donāt get themāI actually like them, at least in ficābut I canāt come around to wanting Annie and Nancy to become canon. I think itās messy as hell, haha, and think it would just be part of a pattern of Annieās love life being a destructive tornado razing a path through any stability in Annieās life! Sure, maybe eventually the dust would settle, but I donāt think I could handle the angst it could cause Ben for Annie to somehow be involved in the potential breakup of his fatherās marriage... twice.Ā
What I love about Annie and Nancy in fic is that in all instances of it Iāve seen, weāve jumped past the turmoil of it and are just at the happy, smiley place.
10. Most disliked arc? Why?
The hitman. I think they fumbled and didnāt get into Bethās head enough about why she was unwilling to do it herself and whether she recognized if that meant anything. I also think it dragged and relied on too-obvious contrived reasons for it to remain unresolved. On top of that, I think they toyed with Beth having hesitation and regret (closing her eyes during the test, reminiscing over the picnic table) but those moments were way too brief and subtle especially contrasted with the weight of the rest of the scene (where she ultimately said yes, do itĀ and was dancing on his grave). Itās extra disappointing because I think it couldāve been an arc that really teased out and defined Bethās limits, regrets, and feelings about what she did to Rio. It couldāve been an arc where I understood and sympathized with Bethās fear or with her feeling incredibly powerless. Instead, I felt mostly alienated from herāand Iām not sure that was their intention.
22. Popular character you hate?
Iām going to be completely boring on this one, but I donāt hate any of the characters. I think characterization is one of the showās strong suits and I think all of the characters are pretty dynamic and interestingāexcept...
Okay, I do not hateĀ this character by any means, but if I was going to say that thereās one character that doesnāt resonate with me the way she does with the rest of the fandom?
Iād go with Rhea.Ā
I feel like I learned essentially nothing about her and I was extremely disappointed by how much Beth and Rheaās friendship was teased and how little we got to see of it and, by extension, Rhea as a person with either Beth orĀ Rio.Ā
On the flip side, I do see how itās fun to play with her in fic because sheās basically a blank slate.
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Could you expand a little on why you think the hitman plot was not super well handled and why you think Stan and ruby needed realigning (with the donors family ?) Thanks !
I think this is in reference to this post, which is actually @pynkhues analysis, and iirc, sheās planning on doing a whole post about Ruby and Stanās moral (re)alignment in season 3, so Iām going to refrain from talking about that!Ā
But I will talk about why I think the hitman plot wasnāt well done because it was at the top of my gripe list from season 3. My reasons for not liking the hitman plot were:
Unclear character motivations.Ā
Overall failure to create tension.Ā
Pacing.
(Potential) characterization problems.
UNCLEAR CHARACTER MOTIVATIONS
Beth wants Rio dead because he is a threat to her financial independence and security and to her physical safetyāor at least I thinkĀ thatās what she believes.Ā
The season was murky and/or back-and-forth in terms of how afraid (or not) Beth was of Rio. The earlier part of the season showed her being afraid of him many times over:
3.02/3.03: In the bar, Beth was so stunned that she could barely speak. There seemed to be a buzzing in her ear. She was practically petrified and her eyes were glassy.Ā
3.03: She tries to avoid getting in the car with him, and she exudes this same energy in the clinic waiting room and tries to run away again. She closes her eyes in anguish when she thinks the doctorās sonogram is about to reveal her lie.Ā
3.04: She is motivated by the gun when Rio asks her to show him the money and she lets out a visible sigh of relief when Rio confirms that heĀ āneeds her alive.ā
3.05: The Paper Porcupine scene has Beth on the edge of panic to the point that her speech is sloppier and she fails to convince Rio not to kill Lucy.
After this act of violence, though? Well, Beth seems less afraid of Rio. Their scenes are not infused with the same fear:Ā
3.06: She yells at him on the picnic bench and stands up to him, refusing to let him touch Max.
3.07: When the hitman plot starts, she is brash enough to start stealing from him again, knowing he just killed an innocent girl for her potential in being a rotten egg.Ā
3.08: Her tactic to get him to trust her requires her to play a part that relies on their intimacy/past/attraction to each other.Ā
3.09: When Rio hands her a gun, more than anything sheās confused, mistrustful, and disgusted, but sheās not particularly afraid. At the end of the episode, sheās pleased with herself, calling herselfĀ āincentivized.ā
3.10: The fear returns in the car wash scene, where she considersĀ opening the car door and jumping out, but ultimately decides to stay (even when she seems to think that heās pulling a gun out of the glovebox).Ā
3.11: Sheās angry with his proposed business synergy suggestion and is bold enough to ask him when itĀ āgets to be mine.ā
Fear doesnāt seemĀ to be a motive for her wanting to hire Fitzpatrick, and if itās not, I justāwhy is her solution soĀ extreme? Is Beth truly willing to killĀ to preserve independent control over her counterfeiting scheme? That seems like a fairly large leap when the season started out with her guilt over killing Rio, which was confirmedĀ by Beth telling Max that killing Rio wouldnāt make him feel better, it would make him feel ānothing.ā I kept thinking Beth was going to abandon the plan, but she never did, it didnāt seem like that aligned with other information I knew about her.Ā Ā
I actually doĀ think fear is one of her reasons for the hitmanāI think a lot of her recklessness post-3.05 is actually related to PTSDābut I think itās too subtextual, personally, to feel emotionally clear and satisfying. While I donāt want to root on the hitman plot, I do want a sense of what Beth is thinking and feeling, and with a lack of independent scenes that let us into Bethās emotional state once the hitman plot started, I felt like I was missing a clear understanding of Bethās motives.Ā
I feel like I couldāve benefitted from someone addressing the fact that Beth was unwilling to perform the hit herself (she had the opportunity enough timesāand 3.07 showed that she was perfectly willing to be publicly associated with the murder, so if sheās worried about gang retaliation... that doesnāt seem to track?)
I also felt like the dancing scene couldāve benefitted from Beth engaging with those underlying emotions while she looked at the picnic table more.Ā
Overall failure to create tension
I never actually believed that Rio was going to be killed, so the tension wasnāt always successful. It was most obvious in the scene with Max, where I was mostly waiting for the scene to be overĀ rather than for anything to happen (and nothing really did happen in that scene. I think it was one of the more dull scenes in the season). The fact that the paintball splatter was revealed in the scene of the hit in 3.10 also meant that that scene fell flat tooāand because there was a lot of speculation on how things were going to go down with that scene, I felt like I was deflated when it was aĀ ātest,ā particularly because Beth passed.Ā
PacingĀ
The plot dragged out for a while. It was introduced. It failed. I thought it was over. They found a different hitman. Who found another one. Another hit was supposed to happen. It fell throughābecause of a rule that had never been made clear in the first place. Another hit was scheduled. It didnāt happen, because it was just a test. Then, conveniently, the hitman was āunreachableā because there wasnāt room for it in the plot in 3.11, but because they didnāt want to close the lid on the coffin, yet.Ā
One thing that takes me straight out of a story is when I feel like I can see the skeleton of it. Instead of feeling immersed in the story and like everything happens for a clear reason that springs forth from some other natural piece of the story, the decision to make Fitzpatrick randomly disappear in 3.11 felt like a very obvious move to delay the inevitable. After threeĀ fake-outs with scheduled hits that failed, I just got tiredĀ of the story.Ā
(Potential) Characterization Problems
As of yet, we donāt know what Rio does or doesnāt know. Personally, I read it as Rio knowing everything and having actually turned Fitzpatrick back against the girls somehowāor at least paying Fitzpatrick not to successfully execute the hit. But Iām not confident in this reading, and I think thereās a good chance that Rio is merely suspicious.
I think this contradicts the previously established idea that Rio is always one step ahead of everything, and it feels especially egregious that Rioās trust in Beth should theoretically be shattered and yet she can make such sloppy moves against him without him knowing? I mean, going back to that scene in 3.07 with Max, Beth repeatedly egging Max on in the scene feels transparently obvious.Ā
Overall
I think I couldāve liked the plotāitās certainly compelling and through it, we couldāve understood Bethās emotional state and mindset and how she felt about Rio explicitlyābut instead I mostly just felt alienated from Beth.Ā
Hi!! :):) I'd like to know what you think about what Mr. Fitzpatrick said: "Clients they have regrets, they start talking and before you know it I have to dispose of everyone involved" Do you think there is a chance we could see Beth and Rio uniting against him?
I do think that!
Originally, it wasnāt even something that was on my radar, but I think it was @pynkhues that wrote about that possibility and I thought it was really interesting?
I must admit I was kind of apprehensive to have the feds return to being on their trail so quickly. I wanted a little bit of breathing room since Iāve always felt that they introduced the feds too early in S1, anyway. So if the person that Beth and Rio unite against is actually Fitzpatrick rather than Phoebe, Iād find that far more interesting? EspeciallyĀ since they hinted about the Phoebe/Beth dynamic being reminiscent of high school cliques, and Iād like that to be teased out for a minute before the girls (/Rio) realize sheās FBI?
While I think Fitzpatrick was talking about having regrets in the sense that they would talk about their guilt and it would lead a trail back to him, I think it works in the sense that Beth might backtrack and want out of their original dealāmeaning she has too much information on him in a way thatās probably fairly dangerous for him.Ā
Personally, my theory is that Rio knows about the hitman and Fitzpatrick specifically. I also have an inkling that heās flipped Fitzpatrick for his own gain, paying him notĀ to take action against him (I think Fitzpatrickās disappearance in 3.11 is just a little tooĀ convenient, especially after he didnāt fulfill the first hit because heād discovered their romantic entanglement, and it was never explained howĀ he discovered it, norĀ did he ever explicitly state that that was a deal breaker). I donāt know how it will happen, but I think Beth will call off the hit and it will make both Beth and Rio somewhat of rotten eggs for him?
I do think, though, that there will have to be some other shift in their dynamic that pushes Rio to unite with Beth against Fitzpatrick, since after all, the only reason theyāre mixed up with him at all is because Beth was trying to get Rio killed. So Iām excited to see how it all plays out!
I fully believe Rio knew / knows about the hitman. I think he knew the day he showed up in Beth's kitchen to ask her why she was celebrating. I can't wait to see how it all unfolds.
I canāt wait to see how it all unfolds either, anon!Ā
Iām still flip-flopping on whether or not I think Rio knows about the hitman specifically, but I think he definitely knows that sheās up to something, particularly given sheās back on the payroll and is still living in an empty house.Ā
I think Rioās logical enough too (well, sometimes, haha) to know she wants him out of the picture again, and the way he told her in 3.11 that the only way that was going to happen would be to empty the clip - - it feels pretty pointed, yāknow?Ā