Why ‘Good Girls’ Deserves A Chance To Take Even Bigger Risks In Season 2

The first season of NBC's Good Girls is coming to an end on April 30, but this less than legal adventure is far from winding down. After nine episodes of having to lie, cheat, and steal their way through suburban living, Ruby (Retta), Annie (Mae Whitman), and Beth (Christina Hendricks) are sure to face some new challenges in the Season 1 finale of the show. And that will surely leave fans wondering if there will be a Season 2 of Good Girls.

UPDATE: Deadline reports that NBC has renewed Good Girls for Season 2. No premiere date has been announced yet.

EARLIER: In a way, it's actually kind of nice to imagine that Good Girls doesn't get a Season 2 — but just because the three best friends get all the money they need to solve all of their problems, never get caught by the police, no one comes after them, and they all live happily ever after. However, after having been targeted by their criminal boss Rio (Manny Montana), the local police, and the suspicious Mary Pat (Allison Tolman), it doesn't seem like there will be an easy escape for the women of Good Girls any time soon. But while their continued struggles may not be good news for the show's characters, fans of the series will likely be pleased to continue to see Beth, Ruby, and Annie come through even more dangerous situations and pull off more complicated heists. Because while NBC has yet to make an announcement about the fate of Good Girls, the show still has plenty to say.

In regards to genre, Good Girls defies easy explanation. The show is a hour-long drama inspired by economic despair, but can also be laugh-out-loud funny. It's satirized the men-focused crime dramas of the prestige television era like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, but the characters also make choices that wouldn't be out of place in the shows that Good Girls is subverting. Further, while most crime shows would be interested in pitting its core cast against each other, Good Girls is more interested in seeing how people come together in desperate situations as opposed to telling a story about how desperate situations tear people apart. However, that could change in future seasons.

The trailer for the show's Season 1 finale "Remix" indicates that the group's different philosophies on criminal activity may come into conflict after Beth dramatically announces that she "did something." What's most interesting about this is that Beth isn't just saying this to herself, but is telling this to Ruby and Annie. If Beth did something unforgivable, would her friend and sister continue to work with her? At what point does their bond break apart?

Good Girls is an experiment in playing with genre, tone, and gender roles in television — and there are still a lot of risks this show can take. Crime shows don't usually overlay the stakes of being a criminal with the bonds of female friendship, and by putting the two together, Good Girls breathes new life into a genre that has grown stale with too many shows about mild-mannered yet hyper-masculine figures who are presented as anti-heroes. While classic tv anti-heroes like Walter White and Don Draper used fear, money, and power to control those around them, the women of Good Girls are all on equal footing.

Further, the renewal of Good Girls would continue NBC trend of championing shows that are redefining and reshaping what network television looks like. NBC's Superstore is using the sitcom format to have frank discussions about living on minimum wage, This Is Us is using a puzzle-like structure to redefine the scope of televised family dramas, and The Good Place is combining sci-fi, fantasy, and comedy to profound effect while also serving as a beginner's course on philosophy. Good Girls' redefinition of what it is that pushes people to commit crimes fits in perfectly with the network's roster of other shows.

So though the fate of Good Girls is yet to be determined, this boundary-pushing series doesn't seem close to being done examining the characters at its core.