This hour had filler written all over it.

It seemed busy, but not a whole lot happened on Good Girls Season 3 Episode 9 -- at least not enough to propel the storyline forward too much.

We were also reintroduced to two characters who will seemingly have a lot to do with the rest of the season, but thus far have just been dropped into our laps with nary an introduction.

The juxtaposition of Beth and Phoebe, in the beginning, was clearly showing us contrasting women.

That is all well and good, but we don’t know a thing about Phoebe -- at least not enough to make us care.

Phoebe is being positioned to be the new Turner, and it feels like her addition to the show could pay off in the long run, but right now her scenes with her partner feel extremely disjointed from the rest of the action.

As she gets closer and closer to closing in on the girls, it will be interesting to see how the series plays the police angle this time around.

My biggest complaint about Good Girls Season 3 thus far is that it doesn’t feel wholly different from past seasons. It’s still the ladies trying to one-up Rio and get out from underneath him. We’ve seen this story before.

Heading into the back-half of the season, there needs to be an injection of something spicy to raise the stakes or throw things completely off course. While never boring, it hasn’t felt all that fresh as of late.

The plot to kill Rio did gain some traction, but does anyone think this plan is truly going to go off without a hitch?

Rio should have died at the end of Good Girls Season 2 if that was always the vision for his story. He’s been sorely underutilized this season, and having him taken out by an anonymous sniper would be a terrible ending to his reign on the show.

Beth is pretty laser-focused on getting rid of Rio, and Rio unknowingly pushed her even further when he had her touch that gun.

Whether you like Beth and Rio together romantically or not, you have to admit that their chemistry is off the charts. Their scenes always pop and are highlights of any given episode.

And the scene between them at the bar late night was no exception.

Beth had no idea what Rio was playing at, and you could see the wheels in her head turning as she tried to figure it out.

Rio plays chess, not checkers. And he always has the long game in mind. He’s given Beth a lot of rope over time, but it feels like he’s just grown tired of it.

Rio: That's what he used to take care of your friend by the way.
Beth: Why?
Rio: Incentive.

Permalink: Incentive.

Even though he’s positioned himself as being above her ever since he found about their counterfeiting ring, he needed to something to, well, incentivize her.

The gun does that and more because it forces Beth to be on her very best behavior, which is all Rio seems to want from her at this point.

A Rio-centric episode would be the best thing the series could do because his overall motives and aspirations are such a gray area for the audience. There are many givens about him like he’s smart, greedy, driven, but how did he become that way? Why does he STILL keep Beth around?

These are the questions people want to know. A villain works best when he’s a least partially formed, and not a total enigma.

While Beth’s plotting a man’s death, she’s apparently blind to the state of her marriage.

Rio has infiltrated Dean’s brain, to the point he’s in constant competition with the man for his wife’s attention.

I am not the biggest Dean fan at the moment, but you couldn’t help but feel bad for him when Beth ditched his big night to meet with the world’s biggest sociopath.

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Side note, I know this show thrives on black humor, but the “sniper” was so extreme that it didn’t feel real. Beth just handed over $30,000 to a random man she did not vet, who scheduled his murders like he was talking about scheduling his haircuts.

It was too outlandish, and all the red flags went immediately up.

Getting back to Dean though, if Beth asking him to stay is going to be the turning point in their marriage than okay. But if not, how long can they sustain this marriage of convenience?

Ruby’s household is turning into a bit of a hot mess, with everyone but innocent Harry losing themselves.

I understand where Ruby is coming from, because she’s lost herself in so many ways, and she doesn’t want Stan to feel that way. But on the flipside, Stan’s hit a wall, and he’s fed up.

Neither Stan nor Ruby are bad people overall. But man, they’ve put themselves in positions that have to cause them a lot of self-doubt about who they are as people.

Ruby especially. She did what she felt was necessary to save her daughter’s life, and subsequently, she’s had to continue doing morally questionable things to protect the people who mean most to her.

For Sara, she’s a confused kid, who sees her Mom as being less than perfect, and it’s throwing her for a loop. She only sees one side of the situation, which is the things she would get in trouble for, her mom is doing regularly.

Finding out why Ruby started down this path was important for many reasons, although the delivery was harsher than Ruby would have ever intended it to be.

Sara comes across as very petulant, but it’s often hard for adults to remember the range of emotions that children go through on not just a daily basis, but literally by the hour.

Hopefully, knowing more about her mother and learning the truth will propel their relationship forward.

Odds and Ends

I sincerely hope Ruby’s scooter stays around for the rest of the season.

Annie is still being Annie and this storyline has just gone a weird direction that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Annie should not be getting tutored by her therapist’s girlfriend.