Good Girls Bosses Reveal How the Pandemic 'Accidentally' Set Up the Most Exciting Season Yet

Like hundreds of other shows, Good Girls had its season curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The NBC drama had to end Season 3 five episodes early, leaving off on a cliffhanger with Phoebe (Lauren Lapkus), an undercover Secret Service agent, making her intention to embed herself in Beth's (Christina Hendricks), Ruby's (Retta), and Annie's (Mae Whitman) lives very obvious. The creative team behind the show didn't chuck their plans for the rest of Season 3 out of the window when it came time to map out Season 4, but instead used what they were already building to create an even more climactic season than they were expecting. 

"It was actually sort of a happy accident what happened to us, creatively. Nobody obviously wanted to stop down where we had to stop down last season," executive producer and co-showrunner Jenna Bans told TV Guide ahead of the show's Season 4 premiere on Sunday. "As we sort of looked creatively at this season, and mapped out our 16 episodes for this season Bill [Krebs, co-showrunner and executive producer] and I realized that starting with Episode 12 and going sort of straight through what we had planned for last season actually kicked Season 4 off with a bang." 

Season 4 will pick up right where Season 3 left off, with Phoebe desperate to prove to her superiors that the trio is behind the elaborate counterfeit scheme. While the moms have had to tango with federal law enforcement before, this go-round will be different because of how Phoebe relates and obsesses over the case. 

"Phoebe sort of has a different kind of take on that this season, where she kind of remembers a person like that from high school, and is attracted to her and the case in a very personal way, as opposed to more of an agency-criminal way," Krebs explained on the same call. "It's the relationship that we now are going to set up with these agents is kind of a more personal story." 

7 Shows Like Good Girls to Watch If You Like Good Girls

"What's new about these foes that we meet through the Secret Service is that they're really experts on what the women have themselves become experts at, which is making fake money," Bans added. "They really know the ins-and-outs of the trade. They really know the quality of the women's counterfeit, and then they really know sort of how to hold the women over a barrel and test them."

That "barrel" will show up as Beth, Ruby, and Annie find themselves more desperate than ever to distance themselves from Rio (Manny Montana), who refuses to cut them any slack. As they push away from the gang boss, they'll find themselves getting cozier with the Secret Service than anyone might expect, and create a new adventure for each of the women.

"What the audience will find through Season 4, and a storyline we're really excited about, is that Beth actually, and Ruby and Annie, all three of the women, end up working very, very closely with our Secret Service agents and sort of knowing them, and relating to them in a way that they never really did when the feds were after them," Bans revealed. "So it sort of really takes on a different feel and a different arc. They kind of become a part of the process this season whereas before they're trying to run from it." 

Is getting in bed with the Secret Service actually going to help these ladies get back to normal life, or like usual, is it going to create an even bigger mess for them? 

Good Girls Season 4 premiers Sunday, March 7 at 10/9c.