Ginny & Georgia

Episode Reviews

Feb. 24, 2020 – S1, E1: “Pilot”

After Georgia’s latest husband dies of a heart attack/car crash, she pulls up stakes and moves her little family all the way to a small, affluent town in Massachusetts. She promises her kids, Ginny and Austin, that she’s going to concentrate on them while they’re here—not seek out a new, eligible bachelor. “Mama’s dating life is like [the] desert—nothing as far as the eye can see,” she says. But the next day, it seems Georgia’s already plotting a way to get close to Paul, the town’s mayor and most eligible bachelor. Meanwhile, Ginny—who laments at the beginning of the episode that she’s still a virgin at 15—sleeps with her best friend’s brother and goes on her first real date with a totally different guy. We see a handful of flashbacks to Georgia’s own murky past.

The sex scene between Ginny and her neighbor (who are, remember, both well underage) is fairly explicit. We don’t see anything critical, but we do see Ginny’s bare back and the two having sex underneath the covers. And we hear some very graphic dialogue about what they’re doing under said covers.

Ginny also recalls a graphic sex talk that her mother gave her when she was 7 years old. In the car, Georgia and her 9-year-old son, Austin, sing to an extraordinarily provocative song. When Ginny wonders aloud whether it’s appropriate for Austin, Georgia muses that he probably doesn’t know what it means: The ensuing conversation suggests he knows exactly what it means. We hear references to sex, porn, various body parts and condoms. We also learn that Georgia uses a particular sex toy.

Georgia dresses provocatively throughout the episode, including at her husband’s funeral. (Other attendees remark on the inappropriate levels of cleavage she’s showing.) When her credit card bounces at a clothing store, she picks up a pair of the store’s shoes, tells an unwitting cashier that she’s returning them and asks for in-store credit to “buy” the purse she wants.

Austin’s new classmates are bullying him and, after the first day of school, break his glasses. When she sees the 9-year-old culprit, Georgia leads the boy and Austin behind some bushes, tells Austin to punch the kid in the nose, then squeezes the bloodied (and perhaps broken) nose with a tissue, pretending to staunch the bleeding as they all exit the hiding place. (Georgia tells the boy’s mom that he fell after threatening the kid to not tell the truth.) She also blackmails a restaurant owner.

In a flashback, a 15-year-old Georgia fights with a man (perhaps her father), scrambling out of a trailer as the guy threatens to kill her. She leaves with a big black eye. She later finds herself in a bar and drinks beer with a 17-year-old (with a fake ID), and later the two ride off into the world on his motorcycle.

Marcus—the next-door neighbor Ginny slept with—also smokes marijuana. His mom grounds him for the habit (which he ignores) takes a baggie of it from his sister’s room and later gives it to Georgia, who smokes it that night. Later, Marcus’s mom comes by and suggests to Georgia that they smoke the marijuana that she just confiscated from her son. (They do.) Georgia drinks lots of wine throughout the episode, too. Marcus’ twin sister, Maxine, is a lesbian: She makes a handful of references to her sexual preferences, and her mom says that Maxine came out when she was 9 (because, apparently, she was fascinated by her Barbie doll’s breasts). Characters say the s-word about 10 times. We also hear “a–,” “b–ch,” “b–tard,” “crap,” “d–n,” “h—” and “p—y.”

[Spoiler Warning] In flashback, Georgia’s new husband makes some deeply inappropriate physical moves on his teen stepdaughter under the guise of helping her with her yoga. Georgia sees, and she apparently poisons his coffee. The guy suffers a heart attack while driving and crashes his car, the combination of which kills him.

Jan. 5, 2023 –  S2, E1: “Welcome Back, B–ches!”

As Season 2 begins, Ginny has stolen ex-boyfriend Marcus’ motorcycle and run away from home, taking little brother, Austin, with her. They’ve spent a couple of weeks with Ginny’s biological father, Zion Miller, who’s doing his dead-level best to be a good dad. Meanwhile, Georgia and Paul are engaged and preparing for marriage, but it’s clear that Georgia’s many secrets may yet spoil the party. As Thanksgiving approaches, all of the show’s characters are navigating tense relationships with extended family.

Ginny, for her part, seems convinced that her mother is a murderer. Flashbacks to Season 1 show her being interrogated by private investigator Gabriel Cordova (whom we see on his computer in the present, chatting with, apparently, his gay partner in their home). Ginny is terrified of her mom and has a nightmare about her mom trying to suffocate her with a pillow. But she doesn’t want to tell anyone or turn her mom in, and she’s coping with that dissonance by self-harming. We see her with a lighter apparently burning her abdomen as she counts to four. (She eventually confesses this behavior to her dad in vague terms, apologizes, and says that she wants to stop.) We also see her researching the flower known as wolfsbane, which she learns can cause someone to have a heart attack. Georgia’s own flashbacks and panic attacks recall at least one man who wanted to kill her.

Various Thanksgiving celebrations among several different families feature, alternately, a prayer of thanksgiving and a lot of drinking. Paul’s mom gushes that’s what Thanksgiving is for. Marcus, meanwhile, smokes a joint and opines to his mother, “I’m not in a very thankful mood. We celebrate a holiday that praises our success at genocide. It’s a white celebration of colonization. If that’s not sadistic enough, then we package it up with image of a happy, smiling turkey.” Elsewhere, Ginny is reading the book The Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler, which she tells her mom is about “the demise of America through capitalist fascism.” Georgia says sarcastically and angrily to Ginny, “God in His infinite wisdom put me in charge of your wellbeing, Virginia.”

Marcus sneaks in the window to see Ginny near the end of the episode. She tells him to go at first, but then invites him to spend the night with her. They kiss, then lie down together, with Ginny still in torment over what her mom may have done. In a separate scene, Georgia pulls her top off (we see her bra), then puts another shirt on in front of Paul. We also see the two of them getting ready for bed in their bedroom (and it’s clear that they’re cohabitating though they’re not yet married).

We hear at least seven s-words, about 10 misuses of God’s name and one or two uses each of “d–n,” “b–ch,” “a–,” “a–hole,” “crap” and “good Lord.”

June 5, 2025 – S3, E1: “This Wouldn’t Even Be a Podcast”

As Georgia awaits her arraignment, Ginny struggles with the embarrassment that comes with the whole town knowing that her mother has been arrested.

An adolescent girl admits to “hooking up” with another boy, engaging in “not sex, but other stuff.” Ginny wears a shirt that reveals cleavage. A pillow depicts breasts in abstract art. A lesbian invites another teen over; when her mom asks what they did, she jokingly quips that they stimulated each other. A woman takes a bath, though we don’t see anything. A boy kisses a girl on the cheek. A man and woman kiss. A man introduces himself by his pronouns.

Ginny snaps herself with a rubber band to distract her from the desire to hurt herself worse. Someone asks if murder is “really that bad?”

A young woman says her parents are very religious, and she was only allowed to watch VeggieTales growing up. A professor tells his students that they can refer to him as the “Lord of Light.” A background song sings about being “the devil” and going down to hell.

Teens smoke marijuana. There’s a reference to wine. People skip school. One character insists that people think of her as evil.

We hear the s-word six times. Other language includes: “b–ch,” “d–n,” “d–k” and “h—.” A young woman is called a whore. God’s name is used in vain 14 times.

June 5, 2025 – S3, E7: “That’s Wild”

Ginny panics when she realizes that she’s pregnant; she wants to talk to Georgia for advice. However, Georgia’s legal situation makes arranging that conversation difficult.

A teen girl admits to reading a book containing “fairy smut,” which another describes as pornography. We see a shirtless man, and he and Georgia share a sexual “will-they, won’t-they” moment. A woman wears nothing but a towel. Two teens (male and female) kiss. Someone says that being nerdy is “sexy.” Two young women develop romantic feelings for each other.

We see an abortion take place—Ginny ingests the abortifacient drugs mifepristone and misoprostol to end her baby’s life. Later, she suffers from the cramping pains wrought by the pills. We hear a reference to domestic abuse as well as (potentially) child abuse.

A quote at the start of the episode implies that getting pregnant is equivalent to “losing” at the game of life. Likewise, sad background music plays when Ginny confirms that she hasn’t had a false positive. Further character dialogue encourages doing what’s right for yourself rather than sacrificing for others—it’s advice the show ironically paints in a negative light when a boy “does what’s right for himself” by abandoning the mother of his child after he learns that she is pregnant.

Georgia confesses that her parents were drug addicts. An underage character is accused of drinking wine.

We hear the s-word six times. We also hear “a–,” “h—” and “d–n.” God’s name is used in vain six times, including once with “d–n.” Jesus’ name is likewise used in vain once.