“Ginny & Georgia” has a permanent place in our hearts for the way it explores the emotional journey of its characters. Ginny represented the moral compass of the audience, which struggled with understanding and keeping up with the more complex Georgia. In fact, that is exactly what the series was centered around—a mother-daughter relationship. On the surface, it looks unique, but the real reason for the show’s success is that beneath the garb of an unusual dynamic are the struggles of every mother and daughter ever. We have all had at least one parent remind us of the things they have sacrificed for us. There was probably a time when we were children, when we felt that gratitude and excused each and every one of their faults because of it. It took growing up to realize that they owed us to do those things for our well-being because that is the responsibility you take on when you agree to be a parent. There comes a time in every child’s life when they must learn to see their parents as individuals, which is an emotional task because you have to reconcile that knowledge with the love and anger that we have felt at their control over our lives. Ginny was going through exactly that, except what made her different was basically the way she had lived her entire life. A lot of what is normal in this world is not always right but being a part of a crowd helps us craft an identity of our own, by letting us know who we are.
Ginny had always been the “new girl,” which meant that she never had a friend, nor was she a part of anything. She never had the opportunity to figure out who she was in respect to others, and that made her a permanent outcast. It is easy to say that one must be able to stand out from the crowd, but for that to happen, one must figure out the crowd. “Fitting in” or “standing out” should be a matter of choice and not circumstance because that means a lack of consent over how our identities shape up. We often curate our image for others. Some, like Abby, don’t always speak their mind, and others, like Max, make it a point to make their most inconsequential opinion take center stage in every conversation. We do these things because we want to be liked and accepted. Even a morally upright Ginny in “Ginny & Georgia” Season 1 is willing to take the entire blame for the shoplifting fiasco just so that she can continue being a part of the group. We believe that in some corner of her heart, her attachment to her friends was the outcome of a skewed power dynamic with her mother.
Georgia was probably Ginny’s best friend before, but you cannot be friends with someone if the power balance is off. Ginny needed to have relationships that she could choose for herself, and she got that only after coming to Wellsbury. But the trauma of her lack of control followed her, which is why, whenever she felt that she did not fit in, she resorted to self-harm because she connected it to the circumstances of the rest of her life, which also extended to Kenny’s death. Ginny was acutely aware of her mother’s struggles, and she knew that she had killed Kenny to protect her daughter. Yet, this was another choice that was made for her, and a heavy one at that. It is not easy to accept that you are the reason someone was killed, and you probably cannot put the person who did it at fault. It would have been one thing if Georgia had taken responsibility for it by accepting that it was her choice to take such a drastic measure, but she blamed it on Ginny. In “Ginny & Georgia” Season 2, when Ginny asks her the reason, she says that “she felt like she had no other choice.” There are layers to that statement that make Ginny culpable, at least morally, though we doubt Georgia realized it.
Somewhere, Ginny needed her mother to be a good person. She had accepted that her mother was not good in a socially digestible way, as in the way of a law-abiding citizen, but she was good nonetheless. That is exactly why it is going to be a shock for Ginny when she realizes exactly how skewed Georgia’s moral compass is. We are talking about her killing Cynthia’s husband, Tom. Georgia may try to justify it by saying that it was inevitable. Cynthia had said to her that she was waiting for him to die and that she wanted to prevent her son from experiencing the grief of seeing his father waste away. Cynthia had also greatly helped out Georgia by blacklisting Gil Timmons and preventing him from being able to rent an apartment in Wellsbury. What Georgia did was an act of gratitude, but it cannot be denied that it wasn’t her decision to make. This time, even though her intentions were not wrong, she tried to control Cynthia’s life. Sadly, this was witnessed by Austin.
In “Ginny & Georgia” Season 3, it is only going to be a matter of time before Ginny discovers what her mother has done. Knowing that her mother is capable of killing someone, not just out of necessity but for any reason whatsoever, is permanently going to alter their relationship. Georgia cannot justify what she did, and as much as Ginny has to deal with the lack of control she feels over her life, Georgia must learn to control other people less. But there would be no coming back from this fact for the mother and daughter since we have a sneaky feeling that this revelation might cause her to join hands with the PI, Gabriel. On the romantic front, we have to admit that we actually like Marcus. Unlike other shows revolving around teenagers, the girl is not just faced with a choice between the “hot guy” and the “right guy.” Marcus truly understands Ginny and is there for her, and in “Ginny & Georgia” Season 3, we are going to see Ginny being there for him. But there is always an emotional toll that is paid by the caregiver. Could that push Ginny into the arms of Hunter for some comfort?
Meanwhile, on the family front, we suspect that in the absence of Georgia, Ginny might become Austin’s caregiver. Could something happen that forces her to be in her mother’s shoes, where she has to take control of things that are none of her business to protect her loved ones? Throughout Season 1 and Season 2, Ginny’s character has been mostly reactive to her mother’s actions. In “Ginny & Georgia” Season 3, we might finally see her take charge of things in her and other people’s lives.
