Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia is back for Season 3 this week, and after finishing on such a wild Season 2 cliffhanger that saw Georgia thrown in jail for murder – on her wedding night, no less – the new season has a lot of work to do. That’s because, yes, Georgia did commit the crime, but it was a crime of mercy, really… you can’t put a woman in prison for that, can you? Whatever Georgia’s fate, it’s taking a huge toll on her daughter Ginny and her marriage (which is only days old) to Mayor Paul. And while it all sounds chaotic, it is, in the most entertaining way possible.
Opening Shot: A stoic-looking Ginny (Antonia Gentry) walks down the hall of her school in slow motion. In voiceover, she asks, “What happens when everything falls apart? When the carefully constructed house of cards finally crumbles?” We then see her mother, Georgia (Brianne Howey) also walking down a hall in slow motion, being led by a police officer from her jail cell to an interrogation room.
The Gist: The new season of Ginny & Georgia opens on a Monday. Georgia was arrested on Saturday and has been in jail ever since, and Ginny, in an effort to keep her world as normal as possible, attempts to go to school and put on a good face. But Georgia – arrested at her own wedding and accused of murdering her comatose neighbor Tom Fuller – is the only thing anyone at school can talk about.
Ginny’s not able to keep up the normal act for long though, after a couple of classes, she bails on school, gets high with her friend Abby (Katie Douglas) and steals Abby’s lighter with the intention to burn herself. Witnessing your mom arrested for murder is a surefire way to regress into self-harm, and Ginny knows it’s not the right solution so she calls an emergency session with her therapist so she doesn’t backslide into this destructive behavior she’s battled before.
Georgia’s also spiraling because her husband Paul’s (Scott Porter) fancy lawyer has told her she could face life in prison without parole of she’s convicted. The upside is that Paul seems to still be unconditionally on Georgia’s side despite the charges against her. And yet… when he’s back at home, he confides in Ginny’s dad, Zion (who showed up to help out and cook dinner), that he’s not sure Georgia’s innocent.
In a flashback to the night Georgia was arrested, Ginny interrogates Austin because he was the lone witness to the crime and blurted out to Georgia that he wouldn’t tell. Georgia did kill Tom Fuller, but only to end his suffering and his wife Cynthia’s financial strain dealing with his medical bills. In the flashback, Austin admits to Ginny what he saw, and she begs him not to repeat it.
The only good news for the moment is that at her arraignment, Georgia is freed on bail but placed under house arrest. But the good vibes don’t last long when Ginny reveals to her mother that Austin saw everything. It causes Georgia to break down, explaining to Ginny that. the only reason she killed her previous husbands and fled to Wellsbury was to protect her kids. And now, here in this moment, they don’t seem so protected, and she laments that she has failed. “I’m a bad mom,” she says, and it makes Ginny cry, too. “No. You’re my mom, and you did protect us,” she assures her. It’s kind of their signature, Georgia’s cycle of criminal behavior committed in the name of love, and Ginny forced to reckon with it whether she wants to or not.
Our Take: The most frustrating thing about Ginny & Georgia is having to wait two years between seasons and forgetting everything that happened in the season two finale. (Fortunately, this explainer helps.) But now that the show is back, it feels worth the wait. Now, Ginny, Paul, and even Austin are aware of what Georgia is capable of, and it has changed the dynamic of the show so that Georgia’s “It’s us against the world” mantra feels even more apropos, because she’s dragged them all into her mess. (We, the audience, have always been complicit in Ginny’s crimes and have known about them since the beginning, it feels good to share the burden.)
And yet, the mess is so soapy and fun…usually. Obviously, it also veers dark when it gets into Ginny’s self harm, Georgia’s abusive past, and Marcus’s struggle with depression, all of which are still prominent themes this season. And yet somehow it keeps those things from taking over. But now that Paul is aware of Georgia’s history and knows what she’s capable of, and with Ginny hinting at her inability to cope with things, there is a lingering sense of dread that things are going to blow up this season before (or should I say, if) things ever calm down.
Sex and Skin: None, although Max jokes – to her mom! – that she and her crush, Silver, scissored in her bedroom.
Parting Shot: Ginny lies in bed with Georgia and tells her, “It’s us against the world, remember?”
Performance Worth Watching: Sara Waisglass as Max adds a necessary hit of humor and lightness to the show, which is dealing with so much drama these days.
Memorable Dialogue: “Even if she did kill him, he was, like, dying anyway, so. This wouldn’t even be a podcast,” Ginny’s friend Max says about Georgia’s arrest. Oh, the irony!
Our Call: STREAM IT! Thanks to the expertly crafted plots that jump from breezy high school scenes to courtroom drama to uncomfortable and even threatening flashbacks, Ginny & Georgia makes murder fun. Well, I mean, not fun, but…no, actually, I do mean fun.
Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.