‘Ginny & Georgia’: Netflix’s Weirdest Teen Show Is Finally Good

Few shows have been so obviously indebted to The Algorithm™ as Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia, a teen drama that name-checked its primary inspiration early on in its first season. “We’re like the Gilmore Girls,” Georgia tells her daughter, “but with bigger boobs.”

At every turn, Ginny & Georgia Season 1 revealed another shard of inspiration. The mere presence of Raymond Ablack—known to Degrassi fans as Sav Bhandari—highlighted the DNA this new Netflix series mined from the hyper-dramatic Canadian teen show before it. A carnival episode harkened back to Euphoria, and sometimes, when Ginny’s psyche would take a particularly dour turn, things got very “13 Reasons Why” very fast.

I’ll admit, I went into Season 2 very ready to hate it, after really disliking Season 1. Apparently, however, this kooky Franken-show has grown on me—you know, like a rash, or a fungus or something. Around Episode 4, I began to wonder if the past couple years have melted my brain. (Ginny & Georgia Season 1 premiered in February 2021.) But after a few more episodes, all of which I gobbled up in one marathon, it became clear that many of the elements that didn’t work about Season 1 have actually improved in this new chapter. It’s a New Year’s miracle!

When we first met the sullen teen Ginny (Antonia Gentry) and her mother, Georgia (Brianne Howey), they’d just picked up and moved to the plush Boston suburb of Wellsbury, Massachusetts. As we quickly discovered, constant relocation has been a long-running theme for the family—which also includes Ginny’s younger brother, Austin (Diesel La Torraca). Georgia had a rough start in life—her mother had substance use issues and her stepfather sexually abused her—and her path out of that darkness involved some very dark actions. Ginny spent Season 1 desperately searching for answers about her mother while also struggling with the usual school-related social dramas.

While the general story was easy enough to follow, little else about Season 1 made much sense. In spite of the Gilmore Girls inspiration, Ginny and Georgia barely spoke to one another in Season 1; instead, they mostly spoke about each other in overwrought monologues.

The reason for Austin’s existence in the show felt unclear, as he spent most of the proceedings isolated from the rest of the family, popping up only every so often to remind us that he existed. Ginny’s pain and trauma were clear, but her reasoning was inscrutable: Why did she cling so preciously to friends who framed her for shoplifting and slapped her during arguments? Why, as a biracial girl, did she so consistently push away Bracia (Tameka Griffiths)—the one Black person in her school who’d made an effort to reach out to her? Without a clear sense of who Ginny was or who she wanted to be, the drama surrounding her social life felt contrived.

A lot of that changes in Season 2, which maintains the over-the-top Degrassi/Euphoria/13 Reasons Why elements but adds a dash (just a dash) of internal logic.

Netflix’s ‘Ginny & Georgia’ Isn’t the New ‘Gilmore Girls.’ It’s a Mess

Ginny spends a lot more time with her father, Zion, and his family this season, and once she enters therapy, she begins to examine her identity—as a trauma survivor, and as a young Black woman—more closely. This prompts some interesting conversations with her mother, who, as she painfully observes, both knows how to braid her hair and also continues to stan Scarlett O’Hara. Ginny also begins spending more time with Bracia, who refreshingly receives an arc of her own as we find out that she, like Ginny’s best friend Maxine (Sara Waisglass), is both in the drama club and crushing hard on one of her co-stars.

And while I maintain that “Marcus” is not a hot teen-boy name, and that the show’s take on the Shawn Hunter floppy hair is an affront to pomade aficionados everywhere, I’ll admit that Ginny’s relationship with her designated heartthrob feels a bit more authentic this go-around as well.

More important than any of this, however, is the shift between our titular “G”’s. Partway through Season 2, Ginny and Georgia start talking to one another—really talking. And not only about Ginny’s therapy. At long last, there’s some reciprocity between mother and daughter: Ginny confides in her mother about some of what she’s been dealing with, both throughout her life and in Wellsbury, and Georgia returns that honesty in kind. (Well, some of it.)

Both Ginny and Austin realize this season that, while their mother might share some parts of her story with them, they never quite get the full truth. Partially, as they learn, that’s for their protection. Georgia, a teen mom with no resources to fall back on, has done some undeniably terrible things to keep them safe. All of these actions, in Georgia’s mind, have been crimes of necessity. But that won’t matter much if and when her actions catch up to her, especially if it means being taken out of her kids’ lives before they’re fully in the loop.

As we discover by the end of the season, it’s that fear—the idea that her past will inevitably spoil her present—that keeps Georgia sprinting toward the future, whatever it might be. She and Ginny, like many trauma survivors, are instinctually terrified of happiness—of fully embracing the feeling of safety and peace. The threat of disappointment is too upsetting to contemplate.

But no one can run forever, and as we see by the end of the season, both Ginny and Georgia are pretty tired of running. Ginny, especially, begins to grasp what it’s cost her through therapy, and she shares these insights with her mother.

What will happen when this family finally begins standing still? And what will happen when Austin, who finally feels like a genuine part of the series by the end of this season, finally starts discussing his own experience—including one particularly gruesome crime that he saw his mother commit? That question seems bound to find its answer in Season 3—and unlike last time around, I’ll admit I’m genuinely curious to discover the answer, as knowingly ridiculous as it will inevitably be.

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