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Sweet/nasty ‘Good Behavior’ rewards the only good parole officer on TV
So far, “Good Behavior” — to quote brainy Hermione of the “Harry Potter” series — seems to have a bit of a “saving-people thing.”
But unlike everyone’s favorite bespectacled boy wizard, “Good Behavior’s” saving-people thing is most definitely a two-way street, on fine display with the Dec. 6 offering “Beautiful Things Deserve Beautiful Things.”
The relationship between parole officer Christian (Terry Kinney) and petty criminal/trainwreck Letty (Michelle Dockery) is interesting because it isn’t romantic — like Letty’s relationship with Javier (Juan Diego Botto) — and it isn’t filled with decades of emotional land mines — like Letty’s relationship with her mother, Estelle, (Lusia Strus) … and by extension, her son Jacob (Nyles Julian Steele).
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Instead, it comes from the entirely pure place of Christian recognizing what kind of person Letty really is and wanting to help her. That level of involvement and caring has in turn caused Letty to come to care about Christian and want to save him from his sad, stifling life — we were so moved in a past episode when one of Letty’s friends asked him if he was the PO Letty liked so much, it was beautiful to see that little hint pay off in such a dramatic, delightful way.
But in true Letty fashion, what’s the best way to show her love? Involve Christian in her latest heist and send him out into the world $100,000 richer. It made for a fun, enjoyable episode, but was also right in line with the way “Good Behavior” has established its characters’ hearts of gold.
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The show might as well be called “Good Intentions,” what with the way everyone goes about showing their best sides — in the most effed up of ways. (Case in point, the way Letty’s abusive mom came to her defense at the high school reunion — by threatening to knock “glittery c***” Tiffany’s [Collette Wolfe] teeth down her throat!)
Now Letty has saved Christian with her thieving ways and they say goodbye with a tight hug and a genuine expression of thanks to each other. After all, as the title of the episode tells us, beautiful things deserve beautiful things — and Christian is arguably the most beautiful thing on the show — is his name a coincidence? — and thus, he definitely deserves to have all the beautiful things.
It seems like a natural point for the show to part ways with the former parole officer, but we hope this isn’t the last we’ve seen of him and that he comes away from all this clean and safe.
Hopefully Christian will get out from under the thumb of his horrible boss, Todd (Drew Matthews), because that needs to happen STAT — and we wouldn’t mind if that confrontation happens to be shown on screen — but we also hope this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Christian.
Letty seems to live in a fairly small world, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that she would encounter Christian again. We just hope it’s sooner rather than later. Maybe he can help Letty get Jacob back — that feels like an organic way to keep him around.
Unless, of course, he’s about to embark on a life of crime with Letty and Javier. It’s unlikely, but would undoubtedly be amazing.
“Good Behavior” airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on TNT.