On Good Girls, it's refreshing and relevant to see three women as the anti-heroes

Vulture

The new series starring Retta, Christina Hendricks and Mae Whitman arrives on NBC "with a Time’s Up pin affixed to its suburban mom sweater," says Jen Chaney. In other words, Good Girls was made for this moment, featuring anti-heroines on network TV instead of the usual male anti-heroes. "There have been a lot of 'bad moms' in pop culture lately, but usually they are only 'bad' within a certain context: they drink too much or curse like Boston Red Sox fans on a bender after losing to the Yankees," says Chaney. "Truly reprehensible behavior, especially on TV, has generally been left for dads like Tony Soprano and Don Draper to handle. Good Girls not only flips that gender script, it does so by cleverly subverting the trappings we associate with stereotypical American motherhood. Instead of merely going grocery shopping, these mothers take money from the grocery store. These moms don’t just put their kids’ play guns back in the toy box. They hold onto them and wield them as weapons — albeit completely non-dangerous ones — during a holdup. Sometimes they do it in even more fraught situations."

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• The three actresses are so great, they deserve better than a Breaking Bad knockoff
• It’s a wan attempt to make points — good points — about sexism, inequality, patriarchy and health care
• Good Girls is the perfect show for this moment, and it's about time there's an alternative to "difficult men"
• It's juicy, soapy and doesn't take itself too seriously
• The stars are strong enough that a lot of it’s more effective than it should be
• Retta talks transitioning from comedy to drama
• Creator Jenna Bans came up with the Good Girls idea at the height of the 2016 election