LaMatadita

From her conversation with Ruby, I think she was trying to take sole responsibility before Turner marched in and dragged all 3 women into it.

I think what's upsetting is that they dropped a lot of hints that there was more to him than meets the eye but deliberately avoided making anything explicit so they could hit viewers with a "shocking twist." And the shocking twist was apparently that Rio is an "evil sexist Latino gangbanger stereotype," to paraphrase a Reddit user. He was never a good guy, but he at least seemed nuanced, and now he's just an insulting cliche. Also, I have a LOT of questions, mostly regarding what went down between Rio, Beth, and Turner, because a lot of that did not completely add up for me in comparison to what the writers want viewers to believe. 1. Why did Rio tip Beth off to the presence of the camera? He is not stupid and obviously let her know it was there on purpose. If he was just setting her up to take the fall for killing Turner on camera, why let her know about the camera and risk tipping her off? And why would Rio not be implicated himself just for being there, regardless of who pulled the trigger? 2. That whole phone conversation between Beth and Rio was just weird. I know we were supposed to believe they were both being manipulative, but given how they left things the last time we saw them, it seemed pretty pointless on both their parts. 3. If he was just planning to frame Beth and get off scott free, why put all his shit in storage where she had access to it, AND hint to her that she should look there? 4. Why have Ruby comment on Rio's fancy clothes as if they've never seen him wear them before and have Beth wonder "WHO is he?" right after that, especially considering that fans were already wondering about the weird clothes in his closet a couple of episodes ago? Does any of this actually mean anything? 5. Why avoid showing Rio and Beth in the car when it's obvious fans are going to wonder if they conspired together and set the whole thing up? I don't think that's what actually happened because trusting a woman who has never shot anyone in her life to be able to shoot you nonfatally is the dumbest plan ever, but this was something the writers should have anticipated given the missing time because that often means something important went down that we didn't get to see. 6. Rio was telling Beth to give him the gun when she shot him. He reaches for the gun and says something like "Shut up, bitch, and just give me the-" and then she panics and shoots him. It seemed like he was going to let her have her way and just kill Turner himself, and she shot him before he could. It makes even less sense for him to expect her to give him the gun and then shoot her with it. 7. Edited to add this one: Why did Rio put a bag over her head? Like who the fuck else would be kidnapping her? Why did she need to be surprised to see him? He was trying to unsettle her enough to actually pull the trigger on Turner, I guess, and he miscalculated? I don't like having so many questions--it feels like there was more going on than we were privy to, and I need answers.

I've suspected that they were going to end the season with Beth killing Rio since the finale episode title popped up on YouTube several weeks ago, and I went back and forth about it with every episode. Ultimately, I decided the writers were not stupid enough to kill such a fan favorite (his official YouTube mashup video has over 4.2 million views when none of their other videos have even capped 200,000), especially when the promos for nearly every episode were using that will they/won't they to sucker in viewers. Technically I don't think he's actually dead, but he might as well be. I see no reason for the Beth/Rio story ending this way so quickly other than a) Manny Montana got a better offer and chose to leave the show (and since I don't think Rio is actually dead, that seems unlikely), b) Christina Hendricks indicated pre-season that she was willing to explore Brio but wanted the storyline finished by the end of the season, or c) the writers really did not realize how insanely popular Rio was going to get when they wrote and filmed the season. I don't think anyone other than severely deluded teenagers believed that Beth and Rio would end up together in some traditionally romantic scenario, but they set up some really interesting dynamics and parallels between them, even as recently as 2x11, only to throw it all out the window in the finale. The writers set him up as a bad-boy-lite fantasy who has never even killed anyone onscreen in 2 full seasons (and the one guy he did kill offscreen was a criminal whose death Beth and Annie signed off on), dropped a bunch of hints that he might actually be an interesting character and not pure evil, and then pulled the rug out from under viewers at the end of the season by having him behave like a toxic spurned lover at the last second and end up choking on his own blood. (Obviously, he was pissed about the way Beth treated him, and sending her body parts in the mail was a bit extra, but I didn't really think he was wrong to be upset and certainly didn't see it going this far.) It's not that I don't feel like he was manipulating Beth at times, but not to to the extent that they want me to believe in this episode. For a lot of people, it doesn't feel like Rio wasn't who he seemed to be, it feels like the writers were deliberately coy about Rio so that they could sucker viewers in and then punch them in the face. It wasn't an earned twist, and there were other ways of setting Beth and Rio at odds again without assassinating his character in the finale. They also seem to be about to send her back into the arms of the man who fucked her up so badly in the first place, without any accountability for his actions. And to add insult to injury, Boomer the serial rapist gets to play the hero and get off essentially scott free?! The writers teased and misled viewers all season and then gave most of them exactly what they didn't want, in multiple ways. I liked all of the characters on this show, even the ones who suck (like Dean, Boomer, and Mary Pat), but Beth and Rio, both together and apart, were what kept me interested enough to tune in, and now they've ruined both of them for me. I bet Christina Hendricks is REALLY glad she's not on social media. 😕

I heard the finale was spoiled on social media because of this but don't know the actual details. I've always planned to just read the Reddit episode thread live when it starts on the east coast rather than wait til after the episode like I usually do, since I'm not sure I'll actually be wanting to watch this one. Gonna stick to that plan.

I noticed that they never posted the promo for the finale on the official YouTube channel, which seems really strange. Maybe their social media person messed up? Every other promo is usually posted by Tuesday or Wednesday and then taken down the following week, but this one was never posted at all. Anyway, a couple of basic finale speculations... 1. Someone will die. I'm guessing Boomer or Mary Pat. If it's Mary Pat, I think it would have to be Rio doing the deed, because I don't think Beth would be capable. Even Boomer would probably still have to be killed by Rio, but I could be wrong. 2. We might get some additional backstory on Rio, especially regarding baby mama and whether she's still in the picture. I feel like he's going to do something that will piss Beth off even more, but I also feel like the writers have done too much work to make him stand out as being different from the average thug to just toss it all and portray him as an unrepentant hardcore baddie now. Whatever he does has got to be something that some viewers will understand even if Beth doesn't. 3. I honestly have no idea what to expect for Ruby and Stan. They seem to be at their wit's end, so unless Rio's "grand gesture" is to offer his lawyer to Beth,* who then passes the favor on to Stan, I have no idea how Stan's going to get out of it. I wonder what kind of effect Stan being in jail would have on Ruby next season. *Probably a conflict of interest, but on this show, it's possible! 4. Something won't add up. With all the already-existing plot holes, I'm not convinced that whatever twists the writers try to pull are going to end up making sense in the end.

This drove me crazy. I found it so contrived that they couldn't figure out how to get that money back from those 2 idiots and their slightly smarter... girlfriend? They gave up SO easily, just because the writers needed them to not be able to get the money back in order to move the plot along. It's a good thing I don't watch this show for the plot, which is sloppy and full of holes. I usually enjoy the character relationships and think those elements are done well, so that's definitely what keeps me coming back.

I feel the same way you do, but I also feel like the writers have tried to make Dean more sympathetic this season. Combine that with the possibility of Dean finally embracing the criminal activity, and the additional possibility of things being truly over with Rio... I do worry that they'll just have her bounce back to Dean and have them rekindle something. I'm not terribly opposed to the idea of them becoming platonic life partners/partners in crime, but nothing romantic, because that dude treated her like garbage and has refused to take any responsibility for his role in setting her on her current trajectory in the first place. I was definitely struggling with her attitude towards Rio in this episode. I know she has very little experience with men and is very insecure after being screwed around on, but her extreme emotional reactions and vindictiveness toward Rio every time she thinks he's not completely enamored with her can be hard to take. She seduced him, then threw money at him like a hooker and kicked him out of her house, followed by blocking his number, causing him to first have to track her down in person to warn her about the FBI and then send her body parts to get her attention (which, ew, but I also sort of get it because she would have just ignored anything less extreme, and he knew it). And then she broke into his house! (Which, yes, he has also done to her, but only in the first season. He has not entered her house uninvited at all this season, at least not that I remember.) Not to mention the fact that he has given her advice about this whole situation repeatedly, and she has repeatedly ignored that advice! And she's, what, surprised that he's not jumping at the chance to clean up her mess for her again? She is work, and a lot of it. He may be making her sweat, and he may be petty, but Beth would be just as petty if the tables were turned. I get her, I really do, but she can be a lot to take...

This confused me so much at first, but I think I see what you mean. When she rejected Rio initially, I think she still didn't really see him as a person or care about him outside of how he made her feel. Following him around for a day and then breaking into his home seemed to change that for her, and maybe she felt some regret. I don't think she had Rio in mind when signing those divorce papers, though. I think she signed them because they are at odds about her lifestyle, and she knew the marriage wouldn't be able to hold together under that strain. If he gets on board with her lifestyle, they may stay together for the kids, or even do the house swap thing he suggested but on much more amicable terms. I just hope they don't have her reconnect with him romantically because Beth needs a little time alone to figure herself out, especially since Dean's behavior is what messed her up so badly in the first place. Wow, that went right over my head, lol. I thought it was just a weird tantrum, too, but that makes more sense. I don't think so, unless they did some reshoots. S2 was already written and filmed before they were picked up.

She and Dean have never even kissed in 2 seasons, at least not that I recall, so it's never felt like there was much there. She cares for him and thinks he's a good dad, but she doesn't seem to love him romantically anymore, so for me, Dean was just an obligation that was tied to her kids rather than one corner of a triangle. It felt like it was Rio or nothing. (Maybe I should be rooting for the nothing, but damn, that is some chemistry, and I am a shallow creature at times...) I do hope that the writers realize that their attempts to get viewers to like Dean have been unsuccessful--even most people who don't want her with Rio don't want her back with Dean. I suspect they will have her reject both men romantically/sexually and try to find her own path next season, because part of her problem is that what she seems to want most is to be valued and desired. She didn't get it from Dean, so she looked to Rio, but it doesn't feel like she actually cares about him as a person, she just cares about him, y'know, desiring and valuing her, so I think that's done for the time being. She needs to figure out what she wants out of life and how to get there, and find some real self-esteem and emotional maturity along the way. I don't really buy into the notion that she has to end up alone in order for the show to fit into a feminist narrative--there is nothing wrong with wanting love and companionship--but she's got some growing to do before she's ready. If they're going to turn him back into the clear-cut antagonist that he was in early S1, I definitely think they need to flesh him out in order to keep viewers interested. And to give Manny Montana something to do! If all the heat goes out of Beth's interactions with Rio AND we're not learning anything new about him AND the actor is bored, a lot of viewers will lose interest.

I think the assumption is that in his rush to get outside and stop Mary Pat from leaving, Boomer left his phone in the house. Mary Pat then put the phone in with Jeff's bits to lend some authenticity if the girls found it. Although it could also have led the Feds directly to a body that was not Boomer's, so maybe she's not as mart as she thinks she is? I guess? The whole bit with the phone does make it feel like maybe the writers didn't fully think it through. I don't think the girls had any reason to believe that the body wasn't Boomer's, so the phone just brings up unnecessary questions. Edit: Though it was only 2 episodes later that they had Rio find the body and tell Beth he was going to hold into it and see how things play out, which heavily implies that Rio knew even then that the body was not Boomer's. So maybe not an afterthought so much as just the usual poor planning and plot holes...

I had this exact thought as well. They still send someone just in case. It's these little things that hold the show back. Just too many plot holes and instances where the writers don't seem to do enough research or check each other's work. Surely someone on the writing staff knew this fact? Are we just supposed to assume that she was able to BS well enough to get rid of the cop who showed up? Mary Pat essentially told them the truth about his death, but left out the part in which she did not report it and chopped him into itty bitty pieces. I'm not 100% convinced he's being honest, but if that's the route the writers have chosen to head in, I think they will lose a very large portion of their already small viewership going into S3, whether he lives through the season finale or not. There are a lot of people who are waiting for S2 to be released on Netflix, and many of them are still keeping up with the storylines through the official YouTube highlight videos and through social media, so if that relationship goes too far south to make a turnaround, it will also hurt their Netflix numbers, which is what got them a S3 in the first place. If he's been playing her the whole time and never felt anything, then I think they've also been telling a really boring story and tricking a lot of viewers into thinking it's more interesting than it is. If they want to keep that (rather large) portion of the viewership interested, they need to make sure that he's allowed to be as complicated as she is. They also need to decide how he feels about her and how she feels about him and let the characters exist in that space. I mean, the characters themselves don't necessarily have to be sure, but I think making it clear to the viewers would not be a bad thing. Edit: I know the show is supposed to be about the 3 women, but they also need to up Rio's screen time going into S3 and let him be a fully-realized character whose PoV we're allowed to see. I think the actor has more than earned it, and if they're going to keep stringing that "Brio" relationship along, then I think it's necessary to maintain viewer investment. As for Beth, I am honestly not sure if she actually has feelings for Rio, or if she's just so fucked up by what happened with Dean that she needs him to have feelings for her and can't handle it when it seems like he might not. She responded to him trying to end their business relationship in S1 by getting him arrested and responded to seeing him with another woman by stealing all his pills. Even in the last episode, her first question to him was wanting to know if the woman she saw him with was his ex wife. She never wants to make it clear to him or anyone else how she actually feels about him, but damned if she doesn't want him to want her and only her. The above spoiler only refers to the finale promo that aired after the episode, so if you've seen that, it's not spoiling anything.

This was definitely not a fun episode. I still managed to laugh a couple of times, but shit is definitely getting real for everyone. It's so sad that I can't even be happy for Annie and Noah because they're so screwed. Although I do wonder if Noah will be the one who comes up with a plan to get them out of it. The fact that Rio could barely meet Beth's eyes makes me think he's full of it, but we shall see. I'm not ready to hate him just yet. I am fully expecting Dean to get in on the crime action next season, but if that means Beth is going to reconcile with him, thus creating an actual love triangle with Beth, Dean, and Rio, I will be so annoyed. I've found it pretty refreshing that this show has never really had a love triangle. Fucking Boomer should have stayed fucking dead. I'm curious whether Rio knew that wasn't Boomer, or if he just never unwrapped the head (ew) and assumed it was him.

What would the alternative would have been, though? Realistically, I don't know what other option he had. It's not like he was going to offer her a drink or say, "Now please continue snooping. Have you seen the bathroom?" Just saying, lol.

That's definitely what we were supposed to think at the time, but if Boomer isn't actually dead... Also, all we and the ladies know is what Mary Pat told them happened to her husband, and they clearly believed her, so they didn't check up on her story. I just feel a twist coming, and I don't think I'm gonna like it.

(The editor basically blinked and erased the post that I was about 10 seconds away from finishing, so hopefully I can recreate my mental process!) This possibility has crossed my mind, but I've never really stopped to think it through. We never saw a confirm-able body, though, so Boomer not being dead would certainly be a twist! I'm trying to figure out how Rio fits into all of this and how much he could be aware of. He knew what Boomer looked like, so if the body from the meat locker was put there by him and is what he was hacking pieces of off, then he would know that it wasn't Boomer (unless he had a crony hacking the bits off, which is a believable possibility). It seemed more likely to me that the body in the meat locker was put there by Mary Pat and Rio still has Boomer, but I did wonder how someone like Mary Pat would know about the local grocery store's sketchy unadvertised meat-storing service. If there's only one body that's gone from Mary Pat's home freezer to the dumpster to the landfill to Rio to the meat locker, then Rio has to know Boomer probably isn't dead. It would also explain Rio saying he wanted to hold onto the body and see how things play out, rather than give it to Beth or tell her where he dumped it and risk her moving it and finding out that it's not Boomer. The only way I can see Rio being okay with the idea of Boomer not being dead is if Boomer went to him and made some kind of deal. I guess this could mean that Rio, Boomer, and Mary Pat are all in it together with some kind of plan to screw Beth and pin stuff on her? Thoughts? Anyone have a better theory?

I do think Turner is an asshole, but I feel like his assessment of Beth is based on his own experiences with her rather than Mary Pat's word. There's that whopper of a story she told him about banging Rio on the breakfast dishes in Season 1, there's the scene near the beginning of Season 2 where she basically admits to robbing the store and says she handed him Rio on a silver platter and he bungled it, and then there's the scene in 2x10 with her coming out of the bathroom and being a chirpy little smartass to him. I can see why he would have the opinion of her that he does just based on those experiences. And from a viewer perspective, I think her admission to Ruby and Annie that she gets off on the excitement and her admission to Dean that she can't quit because she's good at it and she likes it are both indications that she's on the verge of genuinely breaking bad. (Personally, I'm all for it. I don't need her to be a "good person" to like her character!) I feel similarly. I don't need it to be healthy or "end game," and I'm fine with it being messy and problematic, as long as it's interesting. In terms of screen time, it's a very small part of the show, but that small part of the show involves the two characters who are most guarded with their emotions, so I think that's part of why it gets so much attention (aside from the chemistry, of course). What I'm afraid of is the writers trying to pull some kind of "Everything you thought you knew about Rio's interactions with Beth is total BS because he's actually a boring sociopath with no capacity for real emotions" move. For me, that would not feel like an earned twist, it would feel like the writers being needlessly deceptive and manipulative of viewers in a sort of gaslighting fashion, like "What you thought you saw is not what you saw, because we say so now!" I think I only worry about this because they've had so many psychological twists and turns between them this season already, so with two episodes to go, I'm not convinced they're done yet.

This may very well be my favorite episode of the season. The biggest revelation for me was definitely the way things went down between Beth and Rio, not the twist with the body at the end. Those psychological twists and turns between them were really well done--slightly insane, but well done--and I loved how my feelings about it kept changing with each new piece of information. I started the episode thinking "Oooh, I don't know about this, mailing body parts to the woman you're into is beyond fucked up. I might be jumping off this ship." But then Beth didn't react with fear at all. She was annoyed and grossed out, but she didn't act like a woman who was being terrorized. She just marched right up to him in the park and was like, "Fine, I'm sick of this shit, what do you want." It also did not seem to dim her attraction to him at all. After watching him go through his day and seeing his apartment--especially that well-organized closet--it became very clear to me that Beth and Rio are, in many essential ways, the same person, and he's known it all along. Beth seems to be starting to understand it now, too. It was absolutely incredible how something as simple as seeing his home revealed so much about why Rio has been so attracted to her. These things were also earned revelations about him, IMO, because they tied in so many things about him from as far back as the beginning of the series--him letting her dog out to pee the first time he broke into her house, him getting bored waiting for her and helping her son with his homework, him looking at her marble back-splash and commenting that citrus can pit marble, the way he's always been unimpressed when she throws her motherhood in his face. Start to finish, this was an incredible episode. I came out of it feeling like my take on Rio has been pretty spot-on since the start of the show, but it's actually Beth that I've been misjudging. Turner really hammered it home with his little speech about how she's a bad person. After this episode, I wouldn't be surprised if she starts mailing body parts herself. Damn girl. Also, it's morbid, but I do wonder if Rio was actually handling those body parts himself, or if he just paid someone to hack bits off and mail them. I can't imagine him messing around with that corpse if he didn't have to, but I had the impression that after she got him arrested, he kept his continued involvement with Beth on the DL because he knew his crew would question his judgment. I think the last time we saw anyone from his crew was toward the end of S1. I'm also curious whether all of the hanging clothes in his closet that didn't really match what we see him wear (more formal and a much lighter color palette) were a deliberate clue about him, or whether it was just the set team being lazy and not wanting to move all of the clothes of the person whose apartment they were filming in. Same for the fact that his only family photos were of him with his son. Did he grow up in the foster system or something? There's been fan speculation that Mary Pat killed her first husband since before she killed Boomer, and then when her kid said something about putting daddy in the freezer a few episodes ago, all that speculation started up again. Between that and the bodies being wrapped the same, that's where my head went. The above only refers to next week's promo, so if you've seen that, it's not spoilery.

I have a metric ton of feelings I am working through about this episode, so I'm not ready to get heavy with my thoughts yet. There was a LOT there in terms of where Beth is at right now, and it was not pretty. I will say that I enjoyed the episode a lot, that it was incredibly dark in some very subtle ways, and that I was surprised at various points by the psychological twists and turns. The twist at the end was definitely not the biggest twist for me. I can also say that I am SO PROUD OF ANNIE for finally doing something smart and tailing Noah, and then also having the good sense to tell the other two (smarter) women. Also, this means that Rio still has Boomer, and Beth now has Mary Pat's first husband buried under her decorative kale, yes?

Right?! I have finale speculations, but I'm waiting to see the next 2 episodes to see if they change my mind...

That's a valid point. It definitely seems like their father died or left at some point, and not being able to handle their mom's mental issues seems like a believable reason why he would have left. Not a sympathetic reason because it would mean he left two children with someone he couldn't handle himself, but a reason nonetheless!

I 100% agree with you! Saying she wanted to get out was just the most expediant language. I also very much agree with this. I almost made a post on another site about how I feel like I don't have a solid grasp of Beth as a parent compared to the other characters. As you said, we've seen a lot of Annie and Ruby's interactions with their children. Hell, we've actually seen Rio parent his child. Twice! But Beth? No. We've seen her take care of them, with the cooking and cleaning and driving them around and tucking them in at night, but I don't feel like we've seen her parent them, as in teach them how to be humans. They just seem like props, and I'm not sure if that's intentional or not, or if the writers would be brave enough to have Beth give full custody to Dean and fully embrace a life of crime, but it needs to be addressed somehow!

*All of the above is just about the episode description and trailer for next week's episode! I think it's just Boomer's body. Rio is making them finish cleaning up their mess, since Beth wants to be "out of the business."

I was rewatching an episode from the first season a couple of days ago, and Annie tells Rio a story about how Beth wanted piano lessons, so their parents spent $3000 on one for her, and then she decided she wanted to play the violin instead. That level of privilege doesn't really match up to what we saw in the recent flashbacks, but I'm going to guess that their father died or left, and their mom didn't take it well and let everything fall apart after that. Either that or Annie was just making shit up to try to appease Rio (if so, Beth played along really well, because she looked embarrassed). I'm curious about how young he was when he got started with the criminal activity, and also whether there's anything in his backstory that would explain why he developed such a soft spot for Beth. I don't think I'd want an entire episode devoted to him or his backstory--I think that would be too much info at once, and I like finding out little things here and there as Beth chips away at him--but a little more info would definitely be welcome. I have a fear (hopefully an irrational one) that they're going to use his backstory as a way to create empathy for him right before killing him off. I really, really hate that TV trope. I've seen a few people float the theory that Noah is Rio's mole. It kind of makes sense because such characters are often ones we already know, and the writers wouldn't have to introduce a new character. If that were the case, though, it would mean Rio knows that Annie opened her big mouth, so combined with Ruby apparently botching their smuggling job, he'd be extra pissed!

I love Beth, but I was annoyed with how she was approaching things in this episode. Girl, you already know you're not gonna be happy just being homemaker wifey because you tried that in the first season and you were miserable! Is she too afraid of Dean now to say, "I will still mother your children, but Wife of the Year Beth is has left the building"? And "real book club" is not a hobby! I understand that Beth is probably not going to stay done with the crime life because then we wouldn't have a show, but I think there would have been a little more interest and tension if Beth had actually approached her attempt to "stay clean" with some emotional intelligence and tried to find a way to fit back into her home life that was a compromise between old Beth and new Beth. There were some funny moments--I was cackling when she was shopping with the PTA moms, and I loved her actually using her "crime chapstick" like it was a fix--but there was no real tension because I knew within the first 5 minutes that Beth was gonna snap.

When I saw him on GG, I knew I recognized his face, so I looked up his profile, and I only knew him from a guest spot on Lucifer and maybe one episode of that show he did with the woman who played Beth on The Walking Dead. I literally remember nothing about his character on that show, so not sure if he was an ex-gang member or what. Watching Graceland now, and his character is a pretty sweet, emotionally vulnerable guy. He's FBI, so his backstory had him undercover as a gang member, but it wasn't shown on the show. He does have to play a tough guy when he's undercover, so there are little glimpses of something Rio-like, but for the most, the characters are very different. He's very careful with his facial expressions, he has a way of owning his dialogue, and even his walk is different. He's a pretty enjoyable character actor, so typecasting him as a thug just seems like a waste. I countered exactly that argument right after the part that you quoted.