Main cast: Judy Greer (Maggie Glenn), McKinley Freeman (Nate), Steve Guttenberg (Don), Ellen Wong (Annie Powell Morris), Maria Conchita Alonso (Bea Rodriguez), VJ Foster (Detective Woolsley), Elise Neal (Dr Linda Johnson), Travis Schuldt (Nick), and Veronica Diaz Carranza (Elena)
Director: Tyler MacIntyre

Maggie Glenn at 39 believes at first that the biggest hurdle in her life is meeting the right guy and having a kid of her own before her biological clock ticks to a halt. Unfortunately, her newspaper goes fully digital, and she is now reduced from “culture editor” to “independent contractor”: she’d be paid per story, no more staff benefits, but hey, her boss Don cheerfully tells her that she can work from home.

She wanted to freeze her eggs earlier, and she gets the good news that they can retrieve her eggs, but now she’s no longer capable of paying for the service. Worse, this may be her last chance to freeze her eggs before her ovaries go into hibernation.

What does all this have to do with the actual story of Good Boy? Nothing, actually. Sure, her “more flexible work nature” forces her to get a support dog due to all her anxieties, and since the poster already spoils everything, I guess it’s okay for me to say here that the dog is not the usual canine sort. The people that Maggie holds a grudge against begins to die, and you know. I fail to see the problem here. Can I borrow that dog after Maggie is done with him?

The dog is cute, especially the look of disdain it has to everything and everyone around him in the early parts of the show. They probably had to CGI his happy face later on, heh, because the dog doesn’t look too happy to be there. In fact, he looks bored, or maybe I am projecting, because I’m bored too.

For way too long this episode is about Maggie’s sad, sad life. She meets the worst men on dating apps, she has the worst bosses ever, she has terrible landlords, and she has a weird complex about wanting to have kids so badly that she just stares emptily ahead for a big part of this episode.

I suppose the dog is supposed to be… something I should root for, because he is killing people that make this sad, sad person anxious even a little? If that’s the case, then the show does a 180 later on by having him kill even people that Maggie doesn’t want to see killed, with the end message being that all his previous owners end up in prison because they are accused of the murders he committed for them. What is this, therefore? A PSA against adopting dogs from a shelter, because you never know that one of them may be a monster? I don’t know, as after watching this one, I find myself thinking that I could use one of those monster dogs myself.

Is this show supposed to be a dark comedy? It feels at it like times, as Maggie’s constant sad sack life feels like a farce at times, and the script seems torn between wanting me to laugh at Maggie or sympathize with her. Is this a scary show? Well, most of the kills take place out of plain sight, and what little gore that is shown looks like a first time practical effects guy experimenting with using sausages to resemble ripped out guts only to get the coloring a bit off.

I don’t think this show knows what it wants to be, because tonally it is all over the place. It also lacks a proper build up, and when the ending comes, it’s a “Wait, so that’s it?” kind of ho-hum.

To think Taylor MacIntyre also directed Tragedy Girls. Maybe that fellow needs a better script to make things work.