In the follow up season of Why Women Kill, we find ourselves thrust into 1949 Los Angeles, where Alma Fillcot, our main character, lives with her husband and daughter. That’s right folks, this season is just about one married couple and the events that lead to murder. Alma Fillcot is a frumpy house wife who has larger than life dreams of status and glamour. Unfortunately, for Alma, she is just the wife of a veterinarian and the mother to a bubbly waitress at a small diner. She does, however, have a beautiful garden that she has worked countless hours perfecting. You see, Alma wishes she was part of the very glamourous local garden club. That has been her goal for as long as she can remember and the opportunity has just come. There will be an opening soon and she is desperate to be accepted by all of the other members, especially the president, a one Rita Castillo, but we’ll get back to her in a bit.

So right off the bat we get a twist and without giving too much away for those who haven’t watched it yet, the first person to kill in this season isn’t a woman and he’s been doing it a very long time apparently. Now I can’t say who this killer is or how they play a part in the story without giving away a good portion of the show’s intrigue so you will have to tune in to see for yourself. But let's focus on Alma for a minute. This frump of a woman yearns for a more glamourous life, filled with fancy clothes, shallow friends and lavish parties. She has always wondered what life would be like as a member of the Elysian Park Garden Club and now the opportunity is upon her. There is a spot opened up and she is hell bent on getting the votes she needs to become a member. Sadly, there are a few women who don’t want to see Alma in the club at first, mainly Rita Castillo who is the club president. Rita is a heartless woman who cares about 2 things: money and herself. Alma is so desperate to win the friendship of these ladies that she naively doesn’t see the horrible prank Rita has pulled on her and is completely embarrassed in front of the whole club. In her efforts to impress the ladies of the club, she happens upon a hat box in the attic she has never seen before. Inside this hat box is part of the story that I just can’t reveal for it is a crucial part and would give away too much and my point is to get you to watch the show, not hear about the best parts from me so make sure you check out this show.

So, after Alma finds this mysterious hat box, she is presented with a very serious decision to make, either destroy her family by exposing the truth or she could do the opposite. She could keep the secret, save her family and herself the shame, embarrassment and humiliation. While her and her husband Bert, the vet, are having a rather loud discussion as to what they should do about their predicament, the neighbor, Mrs. Youst, hears the argument and being the nosy neighbor she is, she decides she is going to try and eavesdrop on her ghastly loud neighbors. The argument moves up to the bedroom, where Mrs. Youst can’t hear anymore, so she decides to climb the side of the house to get a better position. Alma and Bert are now pretty enthralled in this discussion now and Bert sees the bedroom window open and quickly shuts it. This is where Mrs. Youst is listening of course and the closing of the window just so happened to happen on her fingers, which is completely obvious as you watch unfold in real time. Mrs. Youst falls to her death, landing on Alma’s gardening shears. Panicked and afraid of the scandal, the lovely couple decide to bury Mrs. Youst in the flower garden. Fearful that she won’t get into the garden club and that her newly uncovered secret would become public, Alma decides that she is going to remain silent and plot a scheme to convince everyone that Mrs. Youst just went away on a trip. One of the people she has to convince is her daughter Dee.

Dee Fillcot is a waitress at a small diner and she is one of the honest people in the whole show. She does start off the show having an affair with another woman’s boyfriend but she knows the score so I don’t hold it against her too much. After all, when you learn who the boyfriend's girlfriend is, if you’re anything like me, then you end up rooting for Dee even more. While in the middle of this affair, Dee learns 2 important things: 1. There are plenty of stand-up guys in the world who will take care of a girl who treats him good. and 2. That she is pregnant. All be it; she doesn’t learn the first from the boyfriend even though he caused the second. Actually, it was the boyfriend’s girlfriend who convinces her that he isn't worth the trouble. There is a point where Dee gets to tell the boyfriend off in front of his girlfriend and it was a great moment in the show but this is before she learns #2 as well. Vern Loomis is the stand-up guy Dee meets. Vern is hired by Rita to tail her lover and make sure he isn’t cheating on her. While he is on the job, he meets Dee when Rita’s lover, Scooter goes to the very diner she works at. This meeting will eventually lead to these 2 becoming very happy but not before so weird and rough times fall upon them, which you will all get to see when you watch this show.

Now Rita Castillo is framed as being the villain in this show and for the most part she is but she isn’t the most disturbed woman in this season, that is for sure. That title definitely belongs to someone else but Rita is pretty nasty herself. We soon find out that Rita is just waiting for her rich husband to die so she can inherit his fortune. The obvious gold digger scenario, played out and used up but here we are. Rita does take advantage of Alma early on and embarrass her in front of the entire club and this ends up being a big turning point in the story for it is at this point that we see that switch in Alma that leads her to make the decision to bury her neighbor in the flower bed instead of reporting it to the police. Rita is also so heartless that she makes her cousin, and partner in crime, work for her as a maid because that’s the only way Carlo, her husband, would allow her to move in to the house. The plan was for Carlo do die in a year or 2 and then they would be rich, unfortunately that plan was extended about 10 years. I would not be a happy person if I were that cousin. Rita is having an affair with Scooter, a pretty boy actor, and Carlo knows all about it. Poor Carlo can’t do anything about it though as a very catastrophic accident has left him temporarily incapacitated.

After Alma is embarrassed by Rita, she formulates a plan to not only get even with Rita but take her position as president of the garden club. This obsession with the club and these ladies that Alma has really starts to corrupt her reality and her character takes a very sociopathic turn, very quickly. By episode 4, we can really start to see Alma’s character devolving and becoming more depraved. She is starting to think that killing the people who stand in her way is okay if it's to protect her image and status with the club. I don’t want to give too much away but let's just say that Alma is a smart cookie and figures a way to frame Rita for murder without committing the murder herself. She does ultimately take matters into her own hands and does whack a few people but not before she takes a few of the ladies down a peg or two through her ruthless manipulation. By the end of the show, Rita looks like a choir girl next to Alma.

So here are my thoughts on Season 2 now that you have the gist of the show. I guess I will start with the style of the show and say that it had a Guy Ritchie, Lock Stock and 2 smoking Barrels feel to me, where the characters are all intertwined but none of them realize it until the end. I did like the time period it was set in, there was great detail in the show and this time period offers some great classic fashion and a noir feel to the scenes. It all felt very classy and elegant. The characters were well done and very well acted. I have to be honest and say that I wasn’t exactly feeling this season from the start for the simple fact that I loved 2 things about season 1 that weren’t here, the 3 different story lines theme and the opening intro to the show. Season 1’s intro was one of the best intros to a show I’ve seen in a long time and they just changed it for the second season. Bad choice. But a great choice was having Jack Davenport narrate the show, made it feel like Karl from season 1 was telling us the story of Alma. As the season went on, I found myself enjoying the show more than I expected. In the end, I would recommend you watch this show, both seasons and I would give this season a 6 out of 10. While I did enjoy the show by the finale, it took me a bit long to get there and I was really looking forward to the same style season as the first. So the 2 major changes I listed early were big changes I just couldn’t forgive in the end. Well, that’s my review of Season 2 of Why Women Kill.