Source: Tudum | Published: December 20, 2022 | By: Mary Sollosi
Let’s recap all the romances, secrets and lies of Season 1, peaches.
The smallest towns always seem to hold the biggest drama. That’s the case on Ginny & Georgia, anyway, in which the arrival of a single mom and her teenage daughter changes the fabric of an idyllic New England town.
Captivating Georgia (Brianne Howey) is hoping to start a new life for herself and her two children when she moves from Texas to Massachusetts. Behind her sweet Southern accent and charming smile, though, she hides a toughness that none of her privileged neighbors could even imagine, and in her past lies a disturbing history that she’s still trying to outrun.
Her 15-year-old daughter Ginny (Antonia Gentry) — who was born when her mother was the same age that Ginny is at the start of Season 1, a fact that does not escape her — is getting tired of her mother’s tendency to run when life gets hard (and of her mother’s tendency to ensnare the first man she sets eyes on in any given place). Though not optimistic about starting a new chapter, she doesn’t have much of a choice.
So what happens when this dynamic duo shows up in their new home? A whole lot. Read on for an explainer of Ginny & Georgia’s Season 1. (Needless to say: spoilers ahead.)
First of all, who are Ginny and Georgia?
Georgia is a charismatic single mom in her early 30s, and Ginny (short for Virginia) is her 15-year-old daughter. Their closeness in age does facilitate a certain closeness in their relationship, but that doesn’t mean there’s no tension; responsible Ginny definitely harbors some resentment for her unconventional mother’s unique brand of chaos, and often feels misunderstood — especially as the Black daughter of a white, blonde Southern belle who still dresses as Scarlett O’Hara for Halloween.
Is it just the two of them?
Their family also includes Austin (Diesel La Torraca), Georgia’s son and Ginny’s half brother, who is nine in Season 1.
Funny that their names are all locations in the US!
Right?! Georgia named both of her children after their places of birth. She also sort of (metaphorically) did the same for herself. After running away from an abusive home as a teenager known as Mary, her new life truly began when someone asked her name and she took a new one — Georgia — straight from a nearby Peach State welcome sign.
🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐
Where do they live?
The series begins with Georgia and her children leaving Texas, where they’d bounced around for the last few years, and moving to the charming (and affluent) little town of Wellsbury, Massachusetts. They make the move following the sudden death of Georgia’s husband Kenny (Darryl Scheelar), Ginny and Austin’s stepfather.
Do they have any other family? Are Ginny and Austin’s biological fathers around?
Ginny has a close bond with her birth father, Zion (Nathan Mitchell), who has spent much of her life traveling the world as a photographer, but he visits Wellsbury in Season 1. Now spending more time with Ginny, he inspires her creatively, encouraging her to express herself through poetry. Austin’s father, Gil, is in prison for embezzlement — having been framed by Georgia herself, she says (as a joke? Who knows!).
Georgia also has a half sister, Maddie (Kelly McCormack), who unexpectedly shows up with her young son in Season 1. Austin and his cousin become fast friends, but the reunion opens up some dark old wounds for the sisters, and Georgia makes Maddie leave after a few days.
What’s going on with Ginny in Season 1?
Having moved around so much in her life, Ginny is at first annoyed to be starting over. But she is soon surprised to find that she loves Wellsbury. She makes friends right away and thrives at her academically rigorous high school — though she does clash with her racist AP English teacher, Mr. Gitten (Jonathan Potts). She also struggles with self-harm, occasionally burning her skin with a lighter in moments of profound emotional stress.
What are Ginny’s friends like?
Ginny quickly befriends her neighbor Maxine “Max” Baker (Sara Waisglass), who welcomes her into her clique, rounded out by Abby (Katie Douglas) and Norah (Chelsea Clark). The quartet starts going by the unfortunate acronym MANG (taken from the first letters of each of their names) — until breaking apart at the end of the season, when Max finds out that Ginny slept with her twin brother, Marcus (Felix Mallard) and kept it from her.
How does Austin adjust to Wellsbury?
With some difficulty. Sweet Austin suffers bullying — mostly from the son of Wellsbury realtor/tyrannical PTA mom Cynthia Fuller (Sabrina Grdevich) — largely due to his deep attachment to Harry Potter, demonstrated by the fact that he constantly wears round, lens-less glasses to mirror his fictional hero. Austin also sincerely believes that his incarcerated biological father, Gil, is in fact in the wizard prison of Azkaban — a lie that Georgia perpetuates by keeping all of Austin’s letters to Gil and forging replies herself. Austin eventually discovers his unsent letters in his mom’s closet and feels betrayed.
What’s Georgia up to?
Immediately upon her arrival in town, she sets her sights on Wellsbury mayor Paul Randolph (Scott Porter), who is defenseless against her charms. He hires her to work in his office, where she excels, and they start dating (in that order). She unfortunately makes an enemy of Austin’s tormentor’s mother, Cynthia, who decides to run against Paul in the next mayoral election, launching a smear campaign based primarily around Georgia’s involvement in the mayor’s life. It’s a close race, but Paul wins in the end — despite Cynthia figuring out, but failing to prove, that Georgia embezzled funds from the mayor’s office.
OK, spill the tea on all this romance in the air!
Well, there’s plenty of it! Starting with Ginny: She and Marcus (a moody artistic type) have immediate, undeniable chemistry. She catches the eye of MANG pal Hunter Chen (Mason Temple), though, who soon becomes her adoring boyfriend. That connection dissolves, though, by the end of Season 1, as Ginny and Marcus prove incapable of resisting each other.
Then there’s Georgia. Her quickly developing romance with mayor Paul is interrupted by the arrival of Zion, whom Georgia calls her “penguin” (since it’s a bird that can’t fly, just like their on-and-off relationship has never gotten off the ground); the exes spend one night together but ultimately decide to stay apart and Georgia becomes engaged to the newly re-elected mayor at the end of the season.
But wait! There’s more! Local café owner Joe (Raymond Ablack) has a pretty obvious crush on Georgia — whom he actually met 15 years prior, in a brief but impactful chance encounter when both were teenagers. And speaking of Georgia’s younger years, Season 1 also reveals the history of her loveless first marriage to a New Orleans hotelier (which she ended by poisoning him), and her second one to Kenny (which, it turns out, she also ended by poisoning him).
Um, sounds like Georgia’s got quite a colorful past. Has she really entirely escaped it?
Wow, great question. The short answer is no. The longer answer is: Kenny’s first wife, outraged that Georgia inherited everything he had, hires a private investigator, Gabriel Cordova (Alex Mallari Jr.), who shows up in Wellsbury to dig up dirt on Georgia and expose her crimes. He gets pretty close, too — especially with some help from Maddie — but his target always seems to stay one step ahead. He does real damage to her, though, when he approaches Ginny for information, revealing to her what he knows about Kenny’s death.
So how’s the mother-daughter relationship in Season 1, amid all this?
Not great! Ginny’s mild irritation at the beginning of the season evolves into something deeper over the course of it, as she starts to find traces of her mother’s many lies (including, for one thing, guns stashed away under the floorboards). Georgia claims — and believes — that everything she’s done all along has been to protect her children, but as Ginny approaches adulthood, she feels entitled to a bit more honesty.
With all that going on, how does Ginny & Georgia Season 1 end?
The revelation that Georgia murdered Kenny sends Ginny over the edge, and she steals Marcus’ motorcycle and runs away from home on it, Austin in tow, at the end of the season.