WARNING: Spoilers Ginny & Georgia season 2.As of January 5, Ginny & Georgia season 2 is available to stream on Netflix. The long-awaited episodes further develop the characters and their relationships, but similarly to the first season, nothing compares to Ginny and Georgia's mother-daughter bond. The show's central duo continues to have its ups and downs, but Season 2 solidifies that they will always end up back on each other's side.
However, when Georgia is arrested for murder in the finale's final moments, the family's future together becomes uncertain. Ginny & Georgia stars Brianne Howey and Antonia Gentry and was created by Sarah Lampert. In addition to her role as creator, Lampert is also an executive producer. Debra Fisher serves as the project's showrunner and is known for her previous work on Take Two, Twisted, and Law & Order: LA.
Lampert and Fisher chat with Screen Rant about Ginny and Georgia's relationship, the finale's final plot twist, and their hopes for season 3.
Sarah Lampert & Debra Fisher Talk Ginny & Georgia Season 2
Screen Rant: Ginny and Georgia make some great progress in their relationship in Season 2. What did you focus on when you were creating that arc?
Sarah Lampert: In the writers' room, we always have three main characters up on the board that we arc out. One is Ginny, one is Georgia, and one is the Ginny-Georgia relationship. So that's always front of mind—how their relationship is evolving and changing. We go into each season with those tent poles. For Season 1, we really spent all season slowly breaking down, not just Ginny and Georgia, but really all of the relationships. And then in Season 2, we spend a really long time slowly putting them back together and building them back up.
Marcus realized that he doesn't have the capacity to be in a relationship right now. What could things look like for him and Ginny now that they're in this place of friendship?
Sarah Lampert: I'm obsessed with Ginny and Marcus. I love them. I think it was a really important thing to show that, while he was there for her through everything she was struggling with and her mental health, we ended the season with her being there for him, even though they're not dating. I think that it's really important to show that even though we have these really heavy storylines, and we take the characters, and we really honor what they're going through and let them go through it, that we end it in a more hopeful place.
Debra, I know you always say that we don't want it to be like an "issue of the week" show where things are resolved by the end, but we do like to move forward. For Season 2, we really wanted Ginny and Marcus' relationship to have gotten to a place where they're both really there for each other, and it's clear that they both care for each other very much whether or not they're dating. They're a safe space for one another.
Debra Fisher: Yeah, and like what you're saying, we are not an "issue of the week" show. The care that we were able to have with building Ginny and Georgia back up—the same with Ginny and Marcus as well—that time spread across all the episodes really allowed us the time to depict authentically a 16-year-old with mental health issues. We really wanted to show a true grounded representation of what that could look like between two 16-year-olds. With their arc, like Sarah was saying, we wanted to get to a place where it just didn't end on that note. They could work to a place where they could be friends. That was really intentional on our part post their breakup, which is one of the most horrific scenes.
Sarah Lampert: It's one of my favorite scenes. The acting that Felix and Toni did in that scene...it's a next-level acting. I really feel like their performances are just so heart-wrenching because of how nuanced and gut-wrenching and realistic it is. A lot of those stories and experiences this season are based in truth from the writers' room. I think that comes across as well.
Debra Fisher: In that scene, there's so much heart and vulnerability and humanity, and I think that's what so many people can relate to when they watch our show and those universal themes. Whatever age you are, we've all had a breakup with our first love and those characters and actors brought such heart and vulnerability. It was just so amazing to watch. In the writers' room, when we're talking about any story or our themes—everyone's fighting a battle that you can't see, and it's hard to human. That was especially true with Marcus this season.
How is everything that happened with Gil and Georgia going to affect Austin going forward?
Sarah Lampert: Diesel is so good. He is so d*mn good. He'll be tap dancing, he's Australian, he's making jokes backstage, he's pulling pranks. He's like, "High five! Just kidding." And then he runs and chases his mom down the street crying, and you're like, "How did he just turn it on like that?" He's amazing.
Debra Fisher: He's truly like a 40-year-old man in a 10-year-old body.
Sarah Lampert: He's incredible, oh my God. He is such a tour de force. Diesel really blows me away every time because it takes him no time at all to jump into character and jump back out again. It really is impressive. He's seen some sh*t. He has seen some sh*t—Austin. We talk a lot in the writers' room about how Ginny is Georgia's daughter in the sense of how they clash, how they miss each other, how they connect to each other, and what that looks like.
We also talk a lot about how Austin is Georgia's son and what that means. What someone with Zion and Georgia's duality of personality would develop into versus someone with Georgia and Gil's. I think Austin is a tough little cookie. That being said, he's now definitely going to have to deal with the trauma that he just witnessed. Going forward we would definitely have to honor what he just saw and what he's going to have to go through in a Season 3 if we get one.
Debra Fisher: We took such care with Ginny's character in regard to her self harm. We hired a psychologist, Dr. Taji Huang, and worked with Mental Health America, and we intend to do the same thing in success of a Season 3 with Austin. He's literally witnessed his mother murder and shot his father. So these will be things that we will absolutely take care in dealing with in success of a Season 3 for him.
Sarah Lampert: I have two little brothers also, and so whenever we're in the writers' room talking about Austin, I always see my brothers a little bit as we're discussing. So I think that the relationship between Ginny and Austin is one that we built upon further too in Season 2 where she just really tries to be there for him, despite all the craziness. Especially if Georgia is dealing with being arrested in a Season 3, I would really want to see Austin and Ginny bond together more.
Joe confessed his feelings to Georgia and didn't really get the reaction he wanted. Is there still hope for them? Especially considering that she did marry someone else...
Sarah Lampert: I thought Ray did such a wonderful job this season with Joe. He's so funny. He's such a comedic actor, he really is so funny, but this season we really got to see some deep pain in him and really see him try to establish boundaries with Georgia. He really tried to do the healthy thing. She doesn't respond well to boundaries and ignores all of them—from Joe, from Ginny, from everyone—but he tried and that's what matters. With Joe, and purposefully with the flashback, I think we did see that this idea we have of Joe is actually a little bit more complicated than we thought.
Maybe he is a little bit more like Georgia than we thought. In terms of if there's a future for them...I think anything is possible, especially in the world of our show, but I think it really speaks to Georgia as a character for being so multifaceted, that these three different very dynamic love interests—Zion, Paul, and Joe—all are viable options for her, because they all speak to a different part of her. And I think that that's key. So I think it just matters what she's going through at the time and what she's going to need going forward.
Debra Fisher: So a big part of Joe's arc this season, Sara and I found in our office in Season 1. In Season 1, we knew that we were going to have Joe and Cynthia get together. We wanted to open the season with Joe dating...he's trying to move on from Georgia. We have his relationship with Cynthia happening this season and that was all intentional. He and Georgia aren't in the right place to be together right now. But what we did want to sprinkle in, which hopefully we did subtly enough for people to definitely pick up on it, is that they are a lot more alike than people think. And so in success of a Season 3, we'll have the opportunity to explore new versions of their relationship.
Sarah Lampert: I think one of my favorite scenes of the season is the scene where Joe shows up and gives her the sunglasses back and kind of is like, "Am I making this up? Is this just me?" I think they're both missing something. Both characters are missing something honest that's happening between them. And I think what that thing is for Joe...he had a crush on this girl he met back when he was 15 and he has feelings for her now. Whatever initially attracted him to Georgia is still attracting him to Georgia. For him, it's romantic. It was romantic right away, and it's still romantic.
For Georgia, when she first met him in the flashback, she was coming out of a bathroom, a survivor of domestic and sexual abuse, with a motorcycle gang, having just discovered she was pregnant. So she was in a very low place, and she literally just peed on the stick, and she leaves this rest stop bathroom, and she meets Joe, and she sees these kids on this field trip. To her, I think Joe really symbolizes what she wants for herself and what she wants for her kids. He's really a safe spot for her and a non-judgmental place for her, so I don't think it is romantic from her—at least not at this moment. I think they're both wanting something from the other and there's definitely confusion happening. There is love on both sides, it's just, at the moment, different kinds of love.
Lastly, I have to ask about the ending. How might Georgia handle that final twist?
Debra Fisher: That, we must have a Season 3 to tell, because its one of the best.
Sarah Lampert: Here's what I'll say. There have been carefully planted things in Season 2 that will fully make sense in a Season 3 if we get to tell that story.
About Ginny & Georgia Season 2
How do you live with the knowledge that your mother is a murderer? That's what Ginny is going to have to figure out. Burdened with the new understanding that Kenny - her step-dad - didn't die of natural causes, now Ginny must deal with the fact that Georgia not only killed, she killed to protect Ginny. Georgia on the other hand would much prefer that the past be left in the past, after all, she's got a wedding to plan! But the funny thing about Georgia's past is that it never stays buried for long...
Check out our other Ginny & Georgia season 2 interviews here:
Ginny & Georgia season 2 is available to stream on Netflix starting January 5.