The second season of Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia was released in early January and there is a lot to unpack. The unrealistic mother and daughter duo, Ginny (Antonia Gentry) and Georgia (Brianne Howey), return on bad terms and there’s unnecessary chaos. 

This season is definitely better than the last one but there is still room for major improvement. The acting can sometimes be painful to watch. I do think the actors are good at their job but the way they are told to act is very cringy. I liked the plot but it should’ve been executed differently.

At the end of season one, Ginny finds out about her dark mother’s past which includes murdering her ex-husband. This causes Ginny to run away from home with her little brother Austin (Diesel La Torraca). During her stay with her dad (Nathan Miller), we see how Ginny is struggling with her mental health. She reveals to her dad that she has been self-harming, which leads her to therapy.

While it is important to address traumatic events, it needs to be done so appropriately. There is always something new happening in this show that seems to dismiss the previous major event that happened. 

The viewers are not given enough time to process big news with how fast the storyline is. The problems that these characters have aren’t portrayed accurately: Marcus (Felix Mallard) starts drinking at school out of the blue, and Ginny gets upset about her mom being a murderer but moves on five minutes later.

It is also very unrealistic how there rarely seem to be any consequences for bad decisions that characters make, especially Ginny. She rebels multiple times and does crazy things like riding her dad’s motorcycle with her little brother, having her boyfriend sneak through her window multiple nights in a row, skipping school, smoking, etc. Although Paul (Scott Porter) tries to step in and act like a parental figure, he fails because Ginny doesn’t take him seriously since Georgia has never punished Ginny. 

There are some scenes that pull at your heartstrings, such as when Georgia finds out about Ginny self-harming. This is a really big moment for these characters because it relieves the long-lasting tension that had been going on for multiple episodes. Ginny finally feels heard by her mother who has been the biggest reason for all of the trauma and pain in her life.

Last season we saw a glimpse of how Ginny struggles with her identity and having a white mom. Ginny doesn’t feel understood and heard by Georgia because every time Ginny tells her about a problem, Georgia takes it to the extreme and does the opposite of what she wanted. Ginny’s English teacher wants her to suggest a book that describes the experience of a black person and he wants her to teach the class which is very conflicting for her. Georgia finds out about how he treats her and tries to get him fired, which upsets Ginny because that’s not how she wanted to handle the situation. Georgia doesn’t understand her daughter’s boundaries or what it’s like to be in that situation because she is white.

This is very relevant to today because it is important to see how someone like Ginny might feel, and people can relate to her. Unfortunately, this is only talked about for a short amount of time, but hopefully in the future they can go more in-depth and we can see Ginny feel more comfortable in her own skin. It’s important for her to find someone to talk to who she can relate to since that person can’t be Georgia in this situation. I think this was another realistic scene that could’ve been portrayed better.

There is a lot of drama between Ginny and her friends, but she soon realizes that she needs her friends more than ever. She reveals to her therapist that she has always moved around and she now finally has stayed in a town long enough to make friends and doesn’t want to lose them. 

After Ginny and Max (Sara Waisglass) solve their conflict from the previous season, a lot of tension dies down once again. Max’s character is complex, and she brings a lot to the show this season. She is still struggling to get over her ex (Humberly Gonzalez) but eventually finds a new love interest which seems to make her happy. It makes me happy to see some representation of the LQBTQ+ community as many people can connect to her character.

Most of this season revolves around Georgia and Paul getting married. Throughout this time, Georgia struggles with accepting that she deserves her happy ending after all she’s been through and everything she has done. It is very clear, however, that she would never take any of it back because at the end of the day, everything she did was for her kids. It is very clear how much Georgia loves her kids and seeing Ginny act ungrateful makes me dislike her character most of the time.

The last episode ends with the police crashing Georgia’s wedding and arresting her for a murder that only Austin knew about, leaving everyone confused. It seems like Georgia’s happy ending was too good to be true. 

It is unclear what the next season will look like as there are many possibilities but I’m sure it’ll be a rollercoaster.