Ginny & Georgia Review: The Modern Day ‘Gilmore Girls’ You’ve Been Waiting For

Warning: this review contains spoilers for the entirety of Ginny & Georgia Season 1.

Ginny & Georgia makes you fall in love with the Miller family within minutes. Whether you’re captivated by Ginny and Georgia’s relationship or either woman’s relationship with Austin, the Miller family is instantly lovable.

There’s so much to like about this show. For one, the leads are outstanding.  Antonia Gentry (Ginny) and Brianne Howey (Georgia) deliver phenomenal performances. Ginny & Georgia manages to showcase the complexities of the two titular character’s lives and examines how their past continues to affect their new lives in Wellsbury.

Ginny & Georgia delivers wonderful friendships (MANG and Georgia’s friendships with Ellen and Nick), some swoon-worthy love triangles, and a family to fall in love with. And then, of course, there’s the drama.

The Gilmore Girls comparisons have been made, both within the show and outside of it, and there is some validity to them. After all, Ginny and Georgia spend a lot of time at a restaurant where the owner wears plaid and has a crush on the mom.

However, Ginny & Georgia is a step beyond Gilmore Girls; it is a better reflection of the world today. Ginny & Georgia is bolder and filled with more diverse, authentic characters that will capture your heart.

Sure, Rory and Lorelai had problems, but Gilmore Girls is much more idealized. You’d be hard-pressed to find a town like Stars Hollow today, but it would be pretty easy to find one similar to Wellsbury.

Ginny & Georgia is refreshingly realistic both in terms of representation and the problems facing the Miller family. The series doesn’t sugar coat anything.

Georgia: I shouldn’t have gone all mom on you about that jerkoff and the bike, but I had a flashback of this age, and your whole life flashed before my eyes. You were pregnant, and broke, and a high school dropout, and all that was fine, but then you had a super bratty teenage daughter. And honestly, that was awful. I just wouldn’t wish that on you.

Ginny is grappling with identity crises, racism, fitting in, her mother’s criminal past, and more. Georgia worries about her kids, money, and if her criminal past is going to make everything she’s built come crashing down.

They lead messy lives, and both women are well aware of that fact, which makes it even better. It’s hard to root for someone who is a mess and acts like they aren’t. They come across as fake and unlikeable.

Ginny and Georgia are aware of their issues and their baggage, and they try to control what their world sees while privately dealing with their issues, or at least acknowledging that they exist.

And while Gilmore Girls highlights Rory and Lorelai’s very close friendship and puts it at the front of the show, Ginny & Georgia focuses more on how Ginny and Georgia’s actions affect each other, for better and for worse.

A person’s upbringing shapes their future, and the show really hones in on that from both Georgia and Ginny’s perspectives.

Georgia would do anything for her kids, but that doesn’t mean that her kids approve of her actions. Ginny’s the same. She protects her mom by lying to Jesse/Gabriel, but she recognizes that living with Georgia is not what’s best for either her or Austin. You can’t deny that Ginny hasn’t learned a thing or two from Georgia though.

Overall, Ginny & Georgia is a great binge, but it does suffer from a couple of problems.

The show relies heavily on voiceovers and flashbacks, and that decision is one of the biggest issues I had with the show. At first, the show’s use of them isn’t too bad, but the longer the season goes on, the more annoying and pointless they become.

The voiceovers are a cheap way to establish Ginny and Georgia’s relationship and dynamic. A lot of their differences we can pick up on without a flashback cluing us in that, for instance, Georgia uses her beauty as a weapon while Ginny doesn’t.

Ginny: I’ve never felt beautiful, but I understand hiding. Makeup works best if no one knows you are wearing it. Like Georgia says, it is a face, not a mask. I see how my mom does it because I do it too, the hiding, changing, disguising. I’m used to not being seen, even by my mom. If they can see where your makeup ends and your face begins, you’ve done it wrong.

The flashbacks don’t serve much of a purpose other than to show that Georgia has always done what she thought was best to protect herself and her family.

A lot of what we see in the flashbacks comes up throughout the season, making the flashbacks a bit pointless.

If we didn’t have the flashbacks, waiting to see what Jesse/Gabriel Cordova finds on Georgia from her New Orleans days would create some suspense. Now, there’s only some minor dread because we have seen some (probably not all) of what Georgia did back then.

The only flashback that is worth our while is when a young Georgia meets a young Joe at a rest stop.

This flashback works because it is a small, character moment that enhances what we’re currently watching. It is a tiny piece of information that changes how we view Georgia and Joe and their interactions and gives us something to look forward to — Joe learning the truth.

I may have been flailing at each little reference to their first meeting, and then when Joe spots Ginny holding his old sunglasses? That scene is perfection. The flashback also sheds new light on Georgia’s choice to move her family to Wellsbury.

None of the other flashbacks really capture that feeling of excited anticipation or provide an “aha” moment where a lightbulb goes off and you start viewing someone in a different light. The only other one that comes close involves Ginny remembering Kenny being a creep and then the fact that Georgia made him a smoothie on the day he died.

Ginny & Georgia should have taken a more thoughtful approach to what flashbacks made the cut, opting for fewer flashbacks overall. Less really is more, and it allows the flashbacks we do see to have more weight to them.

Stray Thoughts

• Paul’s proposal speech is the absolute hottest thing; Scott Porter has never been so attractive.
• After that proposal, I can’t decide if I’m Team Paul or Team Joe.
• There really isn’t a reason to spend time with Abby outside of MANG.
• Georgia really should’ve moved her hiding spot after Ginny discovered it.
• Anyone else concerned that Georgia’s house is going to burn down since Ginny just set the plant on fire and left?
• The snap poetry scenes (both at the club and Georgia’s impromptu piece) are fantastic.
• Paul and Austin’s scenes together are sweet.
• Sorry, Zion, you don’t make the list of men I’d like to see Georgia be with.
• I don’t think I can choose between Hunter and Marcus.
• Why would Georgia put herself in the spotlight knowing full well that she has so many skeletons in her closet?
• Joe and Ginny’s relationship is wonderful.
• The confrontation during Sing Sing is beyond stressful.
• If I went to that high school, I think MANG would scare me a bit.

What did you think of Ginny & Georgia? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Ginny & Georgia is now streaming on Netflix.

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