#gg concrit

[riosnecktattoo]

i pesonally find the whole 'oh! oh! death to rio! jail for Rio for One Thousand years!' angle that we've been on for so long really bled dry and i'm craving literally anything else.

rival gang when?

#i aint forget about Six Mile #team up or get off the pot #nbc good girls #gg spoilers #gg s4 #i feel like we're never gonna get out of this dry secret service plot cause how can we in any way #i dunno Turner was amazing but feds/ss shuda stopped with him #in my opinion #cause we've done it #it's all weve done #please move on #gg concrit

[yellowhammerga]

Unpopular Opinion:

I didn’t enjoy the two episodes from last night. I didn’t like how they went back on everything they spent the last three seasons building for the girls.

Annie is falling into the same habit she always does where she needs a man. I’m over this homeless man plot I find it very creepy on how he kept trying to blackmail her into letting him stay and after she has shown that she wants to keep this situation platonic he tries to “romance” her with food from the garbage and then attempts to make her jealous.

Beth’s storyline I just have no words. I’m not going to lie I was happy that Dean FINALLY came to the realization that Beth could care less about being a wife and a mother when it comes to her being involved in crime. How Dean called Rio an excuse for Beth to dive deeper in crime I feel the same could be said as her always throwing out she’s a “mother” as an excuse to not get her hands dirty whenever she’s in a criminal situation she put herself in. I’m rooting for Dean to leave her by the end of the next episode. I’ve also kinda gave up on anything BRIO to happen again this season. Rio deserves better.

Nick is trash. I miss Mary Pat & Turner as the villains.

I LOVE THE HILLS! The only excitement I had for these episodes was seeing how Stan will not allow his wife to be a “Yes woman” to Beth’s terrible plans. I just need the writers to allow Ruby to think for herself more and choose herself and her family over their friendship. It’s a double standard how Ruby was crucified for choosing Stan in 2x07 for a second over Beth but Beth is willing to put all of their lives at risk to save Dean and no one has a retort. Where was the same outrage? Ruby sweetie you should know that you should always defend your faithful and loving husband from being slandered by your “best friend”.

I don’t know if I’ll continue to watch the rest of the season. It was a disappointment to me that after the hiatus we received these two episodes. I’m just going to continue to read my GG fics because at least those make sense and the plots appear more aligned with the trajectory the ladies have started since the Pilot episode.

#gg concrit #gg negativity #gg spoilers #nbc good girls #goodgirlsnbc #gg 4x10 #gg 4x11 #the writers need to make it make sense #Dean Boland and his team of women hating men #Boland divorce coming soon #The Hills are my favorites #Annie learned nothing in therapy #Beth I just can’t with her #rio needs to be alone for a while #Nick has got to go

[septiembrre]

My stream shorted out last night halfway through the Rio + Nick scene (just my luck) and I only watched the Good Girls episode in its entirety this morning and I -- I almost don't see the point in the complaining at this point because I know the show is going to do what the show is going to do -- but why doesn't Rio have scars from the bullet wounds?

Rio and Beth have done some nasty things to each other over the course of the show. However, 2x13 is the stand-out worst moment, and it's just... so bizarre to magic that all away. I recognize that the show operates in a playful place with lots of suspension of disbelief, but Rio was left choking in a pool of his own blood and we get a couple of throw-away comments about OT and "three slugs" and that's it?

Wow.

I wish the Good Girls creators realized that pedaling this fantasy that 2x13 is forgivable or something the story can just move past without any sort of restitution is harmful. Forgivable for who? Able to brushed off for who???

#it feels so within grasp #it is so painful that they refuse to opt into it #and when i say painful #i mean it feels like a slap in the face #having strong Hills storyline... doesn't excuse this #it doesn't ~even it out~ #why can't we have both? #i know i've been angling for an apology that will never come #i never expected to see that on screen even while i hoped for it #but y'all #something anything #idk how i should tag this so i'll do both #gg negativity #gg concrit #i hope stan's comments prompt Beth into some sort of self awareness arc #that ends with an apology 😂 #ok ok i knowwww #nbc good girls

[joeyjoeylee]

How would you rank the good girl szns?

Oooh, fun question! I’ll put this under a thingie b/c as I have proven time and again, I am incapable of brevity.

I’d go:

1. Season 2 – This one worked on every level for me up to the last 20 minutes or so of the finale.

Too many reasons to list them all, but off the top of my head: the Girls’ interactions together all season. Dean being shot and bleeding out on his own dining room chair after watching the guy who beat the shit out of him caress his wife’s face. Mary Pat acting out “machete.” Those multiple episodes where I thought Boomer was dead and rotting in the ground. 2.04 & 2.09 - I will never know peace again in my life b/c of these. Annie helping Nancy give birth. Dean being dunked on by middle-aged Krav Maga instructors and child hitmen alike. Rio and Beth at a picnic table in the sunshine. Dean being ignored by a trendy hipster bar waitress with a professionalism problem while his wife got railed in the bathroom. The really deep dive into the Stan/Ruby relationship and how the strongest of strong couples were tested in a way that had nothing to do with infidelity (felt so rare and true).

The biggest reason I think though is one Agent James Turner. Holy crap, I loved him in Season 1 and that grew exponentially in Season 2. Such a rounded and nuanced character, a law enforcement antagonist outside the traditional White Hat mold, so cunning and ruthless and funny. And so well-acted, his chemistry with everyone was amazeballs. I laugh every time I think about him and Mary Pat together. I lived for his palpable Boomer disgust, him and Rio going head-to-head, his loaded conversations with Stan. And seriously, the scenes with him and Beth? I think in some ways those two characters saw each other more clearly through all the bullshit they both put on than anyone else saw them. And then to have them both so fully engaged in trying to top the other? Man, that was the shit.

2. Season 1 – I binged this one in two days straight I think (probably less, lol). Just was captivated by it all, the setup, the music, the characters, Eddie breaking a small child’s finger and stuffing half a hotdog in his face, the styling, etc. The pace was frenetic and I think they burned through a lot of story maybe too quick that they could have spun out and drawn more viewers in – but as a binge-watch, it was impossible to beat. It sent me straight to Tumblr and AO3 and I was hyperfixated from the get-go, which is always a fun and frothy feeling!

3. Season 3 – There were a lot of stand alone moments that I loved in Season 3. Ruby seeing how her choices were playing out with Sara. Annie taking steps to grow up (although thumbs down to Dr. Cohen, boo to him for one thousand years). Brio sitting at dark picnic tables processing their anger/don’t-call-it-a-breakup-but-it-was-a-breakup on their beautiful faces.

And after where the writers decided to go in the Season 2 finale (still baffled by this tho), I understood why the writers had to do a lot of things they did to both keep Rio as a character long term and try to make it make sense as to why he wouldn’t just immediately kill all 3 of these women asap. And I understood how this made the overall mood much darker as they tried to work through that (made more difficult by the whole pandemic thing too, etc).

But for me, I liked it better when it was the Girls v. a third-party antagonist like Boomer or Turner or even Mary Pat, with Rio as their Boss/Reluctant Quasi-Partner Not to Be Trusted Yet Still to Be Hooked Up With. So to have Rio be the Big Bad of the season, this was less bueno for me.

There were also things I found….off, for lack of a better word, tonally, like the sort of amnesia that the Girls seemed to develop that Boomer had once framed Annie for felony drug possession which put her in danger of losing custody of her child, oh not to mention had attempted to violently rape Annie and had raped Mary Pat.

I know a lot of people love Season 3 for the angst, and for them I am happy they were well-fed! And I liked it too, overall. But lower than 1 and 2, my one true love.

4. Season 4 – Somebody always has to be last, and that sadly is Season 4. Still loved the characters and the actors too, natch. Was intrigued and excited by the expansion of Rio’s family/backstory. Loved seeing Dean in jail and then being infantilized riding up and down the street like Jane while his wife openly met with her former/current lover who had not only shot him in his own house but also waved to Dean like a dick. The serotonin from that moment, my God.

For the last season though, the fact that so much time was spent with the Girls not interacting as much or plotlines that made me bored as shit (what was that Homeless Guy stuff, I mean seriously, I can't even keep his name in my head it tranquilized me so much) or characters I didn’t care about (I will always love Travis from Clueless but if I had to see his little bike shorts or his tiny face one more time, I’d kill him myself. I’m glad his wife and dicky child hated and disrespected him, because same.) or main characters' actions that were so ambiguous that I had to contort myself into a pretzel to try to make narrative sense. And like most if not all white men, Bill Krebs needs to stop speaking forever b/c much like the creators of Game of Thrones, every time my eyes drifted across something he’d written in an Instagram DM, I got dumber. Also everything he said was either a lie or drastically overexaggerated or offensive, so that was weekly frustrating as well.

Mostly I loved this season b/c it was the last and because I loved reading all the posts and seeing all the gifs and everyone from the community talking together in real time. So that made me happy, even when I was frustrated with the content itself!

#nbc good girls #gg concrit #are you sorry you asked me this anon b/c I went off on a ramble? #please write me back and tell me your rankings too!

[pynkhues]

To add to the conversation, I didn't care for the moment in Season 4. When Annie returns home after being kidnapped and tells Beth that Rio would never kidnap or harm her, but he did

The writers seemed to want us to forget about the kidnapping and shooting, but how could we? That conversation would have been great for them to have, and I believe it was a missed opportunity. I'm not sure how much Anne knows about what happened that night. In theory, I like the scene, but I don't think it worked out as well as it could have. Because the 2x13 moment still felt like an elephant in the room to me, if that makes sense? I just wish it was taken more seriously. What are your thoughts on this?

(x . x)

That's a really interesting one, anon! I actually think my read of the scene was a little bit different where I interpreted Beth's loaded silence after Annie had said that to her as Beth being reminded of the fact that he had / a reiteration that Beth had been vague on the details with Ruby and Annie about what had happened in the loft.

I also don't think the writers wanted us to forget about the kidnapping and shooting, but I do totally agree that they frequently missed the mark on how they weighted it and balanced it with everything else that was happening. They had these beats of really profound impact – the park bench fight in 3.06 after Rio's had Lucy killed I think is the most affecting and well done, as well as the scene with Beth and Max in the car after the failed hit in 3.07, which I think is a pretty excellent scene too at capturing everything Beth doesn't let herself feel – but I think there were a lot of missteps and misfires in the handling of the aftermath generally.

In a lot of ways, I think it comes back to the fact that the show's burdened by the pace it sets for itself. The best way I can really describe it is that it's a stumbling sprint in a circle. That sort of sounds like an insult, but it's not meant as one, haha, what I mean by that is that the show wants to feel like it's always pushing forwards because the girls have to be. There's no time for introspection, for grieving, for anger, because you've got to get the next job done. It's the embodiment, I think, of the task of motherhood with the stakes dialled to 100.

As a form of pace-setting, I think it often works in the show's favour overall, but there are certain situations, certain arcs, where that pacing doesn't work, and the aftermath of 2.13 is one of them. Something that traumatic for three of your major characters – Beth, Rio and Turner – needed the pace to be slowed down so that the audience could process it alongside them, but instead, the two month time jump set them right back at a new starting line and pushed forwards, without letting the characters or audience take a breath.

I think it's why we wanted the catharsis of moments elsewhere – a moment in 4.12 like you said, or Rio's scars, or a Beth meltdown – which we never got through either writing folly or choice.

I guess in that sense, what I think we needed was an episode before 3.01. We needed to see the direct aftermath of Rio recovering and in particular, I think, Beth struggling (or not struggling!) and the moment she sought out Rhea and Marcus. We needed to see the earlier moments where Annie and Ruby tried to get what happened out of Beth, and the moments they realised she would never tell them everything (like, gosh, imagine how much more poignant the moment of Annie telling Beth Rio would never kidnap her would be if we knew for sure that Beth had never told her?) Basically, I think we needed more context earlier to allow later moments a bit more scope and meaning.

#it's a funny thing though too because i actually really love 3.01 as an episode #but knowing with what a light hand they'd revisit certain things i think means we needed a bit more up front #if that makes sense #it bums me out because like i said #i think the moments they really landed they did an excellent job on #beth telling max you feel nothing after killing someone?? #just - - #ooooooooooooooooooooooof #love it #when gg was on it was really on #which is why it's always a bit frustrating i think when they misstep #gg 4.12 #nbc good girls #welcome to my ama #gg concrit

[snmgsonegi]

#earth love #earth #gg concrit #saveearth #travelblogger #india #nature #save nature #cleanearth #world peace prize awarding council #travel #traveller #im wondering #nature landscape #landscape #follow #likealways

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

author self interview

some of my best friends were doing this thing & said they’d like to see me do the thing, so i am here, doing the thing on the only really active fandom sideblog i have!

fandoms: uh, i think the most notable ones have been harry potter, it (yes, the clown movies), good omens, hsm, and... gossip girl. voila. the first fanfic i ever wrote was an artemis fowl fanfic though. i was like, 12. fandoms i am GOING to get into (hopefully) include the witcher, which im watching for the first time right now, and skulduggery pleasant, which has been recced to me over the years too many times for me to NOT read it.

most popular multi-chapter fic: my hsm fic “boyfriendly” for SURE. i always feel sorry about the people who read that one and go “oh got to check out the rest of this dude’s works” and get hit in the face by my triple digit gg fic count, while the number of hsm fics i have up is... 9. whoops.

favorite story you’ve written so far: listen, all my stories are my babies.... but that said...  the lights that stop me (turn to stone), i think? - more commonly referred to by me as “the blennyfic”. i didn’t even ship blair/jenny at the time, but writing this fic changed that for me. i wanted to write an authentic, honest, SORTED post-canon jenny humphrey, and this story just... ended up going in a certain direction organically, and i just followed it, so that’s something special about it. it was also, at the time of writing, one of the longest commitments i had made in the sense of like - i hadn’t worked as hard or consistently at a single piece of writing in years.  so the fact that i still could.... idk. it’ll always be special to me. 

fic you were nervous to post: hmmm. hard to answer this, i think i’m going to go with it’s not the end (it’s an uncomfortable pause) mostly because i’d spoken about this fic with so many people and shared snippets and blogged about it and there was this quiet thing inside me of like, “what if it does not live up to the hype!” but everyone left really sweet comments on there, and it was validating and set that fear to rest. my partner also read over the whole thing once and said it worked well, and my partner is like. the ONE person who gives me the most blatantly honest, sometimes even harsh, concrit on my writing, so that was validating, too. 

how do you choose your titles: depends on the fic! sometimes, like with “you set my soul alight” it just.. falls into place - in that case, the title is a reference to the song the fic occurs around. sometimes it’s just lyrics or siken quotes. sometimes, like with “as vanilla as a dominatrix” it’s just me offering commentary on what the fic will contain, wink wonk. 

do you outline: for longfic, yes! i ALWAYS forget the details. which isn’t a big deal if i am writing a simple oneshot that i can finish within a week, but the moment something gets bigger and becomes a long term project, i try to outline. let it be known i don’t always succeed. but i DO try.

complete:  not sure what this is asking tbh. 

do you accept prompts: i did for a bit and then the executive dysfuntion hit and i now i am scared to go back, haha. RIP, me. 

upcoming story you’re most excited to write about: already planned the next installment of the nonbinary dan series. also a s4 au that REALLY looks at nate’s parents’ divorce (& involves danhugs for sure.) also the serenessate fic that i am 75% done with but haven’t finished writing yet (whoops.) i am also HOPING to get started writing a blairnessa au.... let’s see how that goes.

stories you’re most excited to read:  whenever part 2 of @mezzoklutz‘s fic “if the choice were mine to make” drops... i will also drop...  catch me fainting like a victorian maiden in an ill-fitting corset. it’s going to be so good!

no pressure tags: anyone & everyone who follows me who is a writer. it doesn’t matter if you’re not in this fandom, even. i was gonna tag people but then got worried about the people i would potentially forget or miss out. so! if you see this and you write, your turn! 

#personal #putting this in #fic progress

[riosnecktattoo]

I'm still just really disturbed by the intentional blocking of having that shot of Rio shoved down and pinned for no reason as Beth watches

#gg spoilers #gg 4x08 #all of it was upsetting #and gross #gg concrit #nbc good girls

[riosnecktattoo]

"He's in our way" shoulda been allowed to have a crime couple epic payoff. Not a 'where were you' at the bar and then a 10 second bench scene anyway I'm still crying ignore me

#gg 4x16 #gg spoilers #everything felt RUSHED #in service of a long dream sequence we did not need #it coulda have been so fast and #i loved the last shot #but #rushed #everything so quick with brio specifically #they had what #20/30 seconds of interaction in the last two eps? #like???? #when u think about it??? #gg concrit

[riosnecktattoo]

one of the things that grinds my gears about that dream sequence is that it's all in Beth's head so it truly only serves Beth as a character. But it's 13 minutes of the episode. A deep dive in to Beth's mind that yes is useful and serves a purpose but 13 minutes? I don't get why that time couldn't have been given to actual real interactions with Annie and Ruby and Rio and Dean and Stan. They had 42 minutes and spent 13 of it inside Beth's head and Beth's head alone while I felt so much coulda been fleshed out with all the other main characters.

#like the weighting of the whole episode was off #is beth the actual lead lead? would ruby and annie get 13 minute dream sequences? #i just feel like the message and internal discovery for beth coulda have been achieved in 3 minutes #not 13 #gg concrit #gg 4x16 #gg spoilers #that's just such a huge swathe of time on one character discovering something i feel like we already knew? and she mostly already knew? #i dunno i just wish that sequence had been way shorter my guys

[riosnecktattoo]

babbling about continuity issues and logic of the 4x16 shooting cause it's all over the gaff fam✌️

im sorry but Beth essentially had a bad graze on the side of her arm, but on the initial shooting scene, there are pints of blood rapidly pumping out of.....the centre of her torso?

We can also clearly see that her left arm is fine in the initial wide shot of her body, but then that's where she has the shot wound when she wakes up? And it's just a smudge of blood on her left shoulder? The single square of gauze isn't holding back a flood. And why would it? It's a flesh wound on the edge of her arm.

When she wakes up from.....the shoulder graze........there is not a drop of blood on the floor? Like we were shown?

And why would there be? It was a shoulder graze.

And since it was just a graze, why did she collapse unconscious instantly? And stay unconscious? Why was she out so long that she could have a long dream/long enough for paramedics to be called and show up and administer help before she woke up from........the shoulder graze.

The more I think about the dream stuff, the less it makes sense to me cause she shouldn't have even been out at all. Like on a rewatch, knowing it's a shoulder graze makes the sequence even more frustrating for me, all I could think was why is she even out?

I mean I've given myself worse injuries than that with my curling iron but I didn't go unconscious for 10+ minutes lmao

I think it feeds in to the trend of intentional misleads that when revealed, no longer make sense but are done for initial shock. Kinda like the setup for the girls thinking they had to make a bomb going off that guys wording but when it's revealed it's for a garden for his mum, his wording no longer makes any sense.

#gg 4x16 #gg concrit #i fundamentally don't understand why a shoulder graze had her instantly unconscious lmao #and kept her unconscious #ive had worse nose-bleeds #i just had to word vomit this cause it's been bothering me 😂 #like i think the dream sequence only makes sense if she was actually near death and lost all that blood #but we are instantly shown that that was not the case #which just undermines the point of those 13 minutes #for me #anyway #carry on ✌️😅

[septiembrre]

It just seems really flat? And cliche? Rio feels like he’s falling way back into the Latin criminal stereotype with a resurging hint of Latin Lover~ and i don’t love that. I just feel like it’s weird that he’s narratively punished when he isn’t an active love interest for Beth

You’ve put my exact jumbled thoughts into words. They also barely acknowledge the fact he’s Latinx. Except those 2 words of spanish he spoke in S3. That’s why I love your fics so much. You’re always showing a more layered version of him 💕

Thank you!!! Looking at the character roles is really helpful to me even if it’s hella fatiguing. I was hopeful that by now there would be a better standard of representation for Latinx characters on-screen across film and tv. 

A digression on the character stereotypes: 

Charles Ramírez Berg published Latino Images in Film: Stereotypes, Subversion and Resistance in 1990 — it’s a foundational text of Latinx-American film theory/critique. In it, he explores his theory that there are six stereotypical roles that any Latinx characters in classic Hollywood and in the 70s and 80s can fit into. 

1. The “Bandito”/The Criminal (the criminalized, dangerous, lawless Latino — in Good Girls this is Rio and Mick)

2. The Harlot (the sexualized, ~spicy Latina, think Salma Hayek in any role she’s ever been in)

3 & 4. The Male Buffoon and the Female Clown (Latinx folks characterized as dumb and comedic relief, think Gael Garcia Bernal in his American roles or like anything with George Lopez. For ladies, I feel like it’s usually a Latina who is gorgeous and dumb)

5. The Latin Lover (this specifically refers to the sexualization of Latinx men and the fetishization of the sexual experience they can provide for white women — Rio in Good Girls) 

6. The Dark Lady (mysterious, traumatized and/or sad women that are visual foils to white female characters — I would argue Rhea could fall into this stereotype). 

I’m not a huge film theory nerd but I do appreciate Ramirez-Berg’s framework. It’s somehow both absurdly salient and also antiquated (it’s literally older than me). More recent Latinx film critique has argued that it’s missing the stereotypes more relevant in film post-90s/post-NAFTA/post-waves of 80s-era immigration: 

7. The Immigrant

8. The Servant/The Maid

Rio very easily falls into the stereotype of the Latinx Criminal. As his storyline progressed through the end of Season 1 onwards to Season 2, his character began to occupy a hybrid-role of Criminal/Latin Lover, too.  I would say as of 4x03, he’s at about 95% Criminal,  5% Lover. Hahahah, I guess I don’t need to break it down into percentages but I would say he still occupies a hybrid-stereotype. 

I think the word “stereotype” is universally understood as bad. But, just a reminder that stereotypes are redundant, problematic, harmful for lots of different reasons across race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other identities -- it lands differently depending on what we’re talking about. However, a common consequence of a stereotype is that it perpetuates power dynamics for the sake of saving time or as a placeholder for on-screen characterization. For Latinx representation a common harm is lack of on-screen commitment to a character’s background — it means that Latinx end up reading as racially ambiguous and lack cultural specificity. 

Despite falling into stereotypes, Rio’s characterization on Good Girls is still net positive for me. Yes, it’s an old fucking line, but I do love that Rio is a crime boss. I also ~mostly? enjoy his toxic relationship with Beth (idk this is more contentious, but I am obviously a huge a shipper!). I think this is because despite the limitations of what is written in the scripts, Manny Montana does an incredible job of bringing nuance to the character. There are pieces of Rio that just read as so subversive to me -- like that he’s wicked smart and that he’s a good dad (sometimes). 

But, at this point in time, having just watched 4x03, I am feeling the fatigue of this ongoing problem of shitty Latinx characterization. Good Girls should do better. I’m holding out hope because there’s the promise that ~soon~ we’re going to meet a whole bunch of Latinx folks on the show??? We’re going to see his family? In this fourth glorious season, we are finally going to build out his character? We will actually learn more about his motivations? WILD.  

I just-- y’all— I am holding out judgment until we see it. I feel like 90% of what I like about Rio has been willed into existence through Manny Montana’s personal headcanons and acting choices. I would love for this show to do more to earn my trust. 

#i guess I'll have to think of a tag for my soliloquies about Rio #Rio #nbc good girls #gg concrit #gg crit #lol i didn't even get into the shooting #but some days we don't feel like talking about that #anyway this is all just food for thought #gg and latinidad