Good Girls: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Good Girls: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman January 19, 2023

Good Girls follows three suburbanites who, eager to be free of the financial pinch that's squeezing them to death, rob a grocery store only to discover that they're landing more than a quick payday. The very basic structure and premise immediately brings to mind the simple and somewhat obscure 2008 film Mad Money, also about a trio of women who find themselves lured into the illegal gain of illicit money in their charge while working at the Federal Reserve. I quite enjoyed that little film, and the story fit well in the feature film parameters and constraints. Here is another take in Good Girls, this time expanded for television through four seasons and 50 episodes. It works, mostly, despite some stretch and convoluted plot twists and developments meant to lengthen the story rather than significantly add to it.

Official synopsis: When three suburban moms get tired pf trying to make ends meet, they decide it's time to stick up for themselves by robbing the local grocery store. From Executive Producer Jenna Bans ("Grey's Anatomy," "Scandal") comes this comedy-infused drama that mixes a little "Thelma & Louise" with a bit of "Breaking Bad". Beth (Christina Hendricks), Ruby (Retta) and Annie (Mae Whitman) are knee-deep in a life of crime and there's no going back! Good Girls: The Complete Series is packed with twists and surprises, the ladies are taking control of their illegal business operations as they struggle to keep it all hidden and evade those desperate to take them down. Expect steamy romances, nail-biting drama and even higher stakes as the Good Girls have fully broken bad.

Though the series may superficially resemble the basic plot narrative for Mad Money, it more fully and properly reflects one of the best TV shows of this century, Breaking Bad. Like Creator Vince Gilligan's TV masterpiece, Good Girls follows ordinary people slowly but fully committing to a life of crime. Here the narrative propellant is money rather than meth, but the essential similarities within the character arcs and basic narrative structure and flow cannot be ignored. And that is not necessarily a bad thing. Good Girls imitates Breaking Bad but never tries to duplicate it, instead taking the broadest plot characteristic and making it into its own. Good Girls, then, follows both the title trio's immediate successes and the various spirals that follow. It may not be quite so richly structured, narratively compelling, and dramatically rewarding as Breaking Bad, but Good Girls flirts with great success in all three areas, and often finds it. It holds to similarities with Breaking Bad without playing as derivative, and indeed often finds its own voice and identity in its own characters, complexities, complications, and cadence.

Of course, one of the biggest differences between the two shows is the gender of the lead characters. While Breaking Bad focuses on two men leading the meth cooking business, Good Girls, as the title suggests, follow three females. That alone allows for a much broader and more divergent spectrum of plot points, character elements, and tonal shifts, but to be sure the show is not bent on or even all that bothered by gender. It's concerned with story and characters first, not disregarding who they are but certainly still using them to full narrative advantage in ways that are both visible and viable not simply in external characteristics but internal ones, too. The show builds and develops in ways that are both expected of gender roles (the way the women deal with the money in their possession) and unexpected (various plot advancements that defy gender roles) within the character distribution, and it delivers satisfying, and sometimes even novel, character beats that were before missing or not well developed in this genre. The end result is a show that is smart and engaging, one that is both entertaining and satisfying, one that is even occasionally funny but also unafraid of full-force drama, too.

The cast is superb, too. There's not a poor performance in the lead roles, certainly, but the trickledown effect impacts the larger cast as well, with the support players feeding off the energy at the top and infectiously contributing to the larger production excellence. The scripts are breezy and smartly written, effortlessly blending action, humor, heart, and all of the underlying current drama with aplomb. The show never wears out its welcome; at four seasons and 50 episodes it feels like the right balance of storytelling, character building, and world exploration, at this length having plenty of time to sink into characters and conditions while not hanging out too long to water it all down with needless filler.

Good Girls: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Universal releases Good Girls to Blu-ray with a good 1080p transfer. The picture is generally satisfying, with mostly clean and clear HD video source material on display which accurately reveals complex facial, clothing, and environmental features with simple and effective ease and efficiency. While not matching the very best the format can offer, viewers should be satisfied overall with the level of content and definition on display, whether front-and-center visuals or various supportive details around various locations throughout the four seasons. Colors are appropriately bold and lively, never to be mistaken for the purest, most intensive, or most organic ever seen on Blu-ray, but there's enough depth and pop and vitality to every color to satisfy the show's robust visual structure. There is no tinkering with extreme temperature of contrast dials and there are no major fluctuation occurrences, either. Black level depth is solid if not unspectacular, and the same may be said of white balance and skin tones, too. The image does show some modest to moderate source noise, and most alarming is some significant compression issues that are in plain evidence right from the outset (see the background at the one-minute mark of the very first episode of the series). They linger here and there for the duration. Still, all things considered, this is a generally satisfying TV series release from Universal.

Good Girls: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Good Girls arrives on Blu-ray with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. This is nothing spectacular, but everything is in good working order. Much of the time, the track is fairly standard and reserved, offering simple audio cues that include commendably balanced and immersive location specific atmosphere that helps to subtly and finely, but surely and firmly, entrench the listener in whatever location may be central to any scene. The track accelerates as needed, too, offering ample front and surround usage and plenty of vigor in intense musical elements or higher impact action. Listeners won't mistake even the biggest audio elements for something from a major Hollywood production, but the track is well capable of, and unafraid to, push into a higher gear as the situation demands. Mostly, however, this is a dialogue intensive show, and the spoken word plays clearly and firmly with natural front-center positioning and solid prioritization over any competing elements.

Good Girls: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplemental content is included on any of the ten discs. Each season ships in its own Amaray case. All of them are tucked into a form-fitting slip box.

Good Girls: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Good Girls is good TV. It's familiar but not derivative. It builds well-rounded characters within an interesting world that blends together relatability and far-flung insanity that makes for compelling television. Add in well performed characters and this is one of the better shows of the past few years. Universal's Blu-ray set is unfortunately featureless, but the video and audio qualities are solid enough. Recommended.