Ginny & Georgia Season 2 Has Lost Its Spark
Warning: This review contains spoilers for the entirety of Ginny & Georgia Season 2.
With the exception of Bridgerton, every second season of a released-all-at-once show I’ve reviewed within the past year has not done well. There must be a second-season curse going around because Ginny & Georgia Season 2 is plagued with issues, resulting in a disappointing season.
Ginny & Georgia Season 2 suffers the same fate as the dreaded season of Gilmore Girls where Rory and Lorelai fighting brings down the quality of the season overall.
With Georgina and Ginny at odds, there’s far less levity in the season to help balance out the more serious and heavy storylines, which along with other poor decisions, make this a hard season to sit through at times.
I watched two episodes a night, and most of the time, it was a drag to get through those.
The first time I felt compelled to watch more was after Ginny & Georgia Season 2 Episode 6, “A Very Merry Ginny and Georgia Christmas Special,” and that’s the beginning of them coming back to the Ginny and Georgia we know and love.
However, there’s one aspect we really have to praise the second season on, and that’s how it handles Ginny’s mental health and therapy storyline beautifully.
It’s not rushed. It’s so well done and realistic. Not only that, it is important to see Ginny work through her own issues as well as her relationship with Georgia and everything she’s done that has contributed to Ginny’s current headspace.
Ginny’s storyline is the one thing the show really nails this season. The rest of the season suffered from a variety of issues, some of which are holdovers from Season 1, resulting in a subpar second season.
Unnecessary Storylines
Ginny and Georgia are basically the only two characters who have decent arcs during this season.
As discussed, Ginny’s working through her own issues, and Georgia is learning that she doesn’t have to run away when things get rough. Ginny’s arc is a great follow-through from the events of Season 1, and we’ve seen how Georgia has been running her whole life.
Joe: This is a new look.
Ginny: You like it?
Joe: It’s very Hot Topic.
Ginny: What?
Padma: What the heck is Hot Topic?
Ginny: I don’t know, but I think he insulted me.
Outside of those two, the rest of the season is a mess. We endure the never-ending drama of Max and Sophie, as well as other questionable storylines featuring side characters. Since there are sadly too many to discuss, let’s focus on one specific misstep.
Cynthia becomes a bigger part of the season for no real reason and stumbles into a relationship with Joe.
Aside from the fact this is a beyond strange pairing, there’s not enough chemistry there for us to care about them, which I would assume is what Ginny & Georgia wanted to happen. If not, then again, why show it at all?
For us to care about this relationship, there needed to be more of a slow burn that would’ve spanned seasons. Their relationship comes out of nowhere and escalates, and then all of a sudden, it’s over.
The only thing I can think of to explain why this happens is that Georgia sees Joe in a relationship, thus forcing her to acknowledge her feelings for him, and escalating the love triangle element now that he also knows about their past.
However, we don’t see enough of that angst or longing the way we would’ve if Cynthia and Joe’s relationship were public. All we get is her reaction to the news that they had dated, which does give us a great scene between Georgia and Joe, but it could’ve been so much better.
If Ginny & Georgia would’ve tweaked things a bit in how Cynthia and Joe’s relationship was handled (or any relationship Joe has, honestly), we could’ve been given some absolutely fantastic Joe and Georgia scenes.
Ginny & Georgia Season 2 Episodes 8 and 9
Yes, these two episodes get their own section, and I’m sure you know why.
Ginny & Georgia experiments with flashing forward an episode, although it isn’t clear that’s what’s happening during Ginny & Georgia Season 2 Episode 8, “Hark! Darkness Descends!,” until we get the “three days later” text on the screen early on during Ginny & Georgia Season 2 Episode 9, “Kill Gil.”
The experiment is an absolute failure.
It’s so out of pocket for the show to use this technique that we find ourselves confused as to what is going on with Ginny and Marcus for the entirety of Ginny & Georgia Season 2 Episode 8. There’s nothing that clues us in that something is off with the episode. We’re just stumbling through it, waiting for it to make sense.
Part of the reason why could be attributed to the pacing issue that plagues the season.
It doesn’t seem like we jumped forward during Ginny & Georgia Season 2 Episode 8 because it’s hard to gauge what a normal passage of time is during the season. We go from Georgia browsing and thinking about aspects of her wedding to it being in 6 days, an announcement that gives you whiplash.
Thrillers love to use this flashing forward/back technique to get their audiences invested by having them figure out the events that lead to something shocking. Ginny & Georgia isn’t a thriller, and it certainly isn’t This is Us, and it shouldn’t pretend to be.
The only time we’re intrigued by what’s going on is when we hear the gunshot.
That curiosity and tension are quickly lost because “Kil Gil” doesn’t pick up immediately after that or even minutes before that, we have to flashback all three days and relive the majority of the events of the previous episode until we get to Gil showing up at the Miller household.
In addition to the use of a flash forward, the voiceover and flashbacks change during Ginny & Georgia Season 2 Episode 8. Why, you ask? No one knows.
Nothing of value comes from this change-up, and it’s simply another aspect of Ginny & Georgia Season 2 Episode 8 that doesn’t work at all.
Hopefully, the show doesn’t try anything similar to this again.
A Confused Show
Ginny & Georgia is suffering an identity crisis.
Perhaps the (justified) comparisons to Gilmore Girls hit a little too close to home, and Ginny & Georgia tried to distinguish itself from the show by throwing on a variety of new storytelling tactics from different genres.
Ginny & Georgia could be fantastic if it would focus on giving us a slice-of-life story, comparisons be damned.
There are multiple aspects of Ginny & Georgia that work really well, but they’re buried under all the show’s poor choices. Considering how the show didn’t learn from its Season 1 mistakes, I’m not entirely certain it can turn things around if it gets a third season.
On top of that, I’m not entirely sure I’ll tune in to a third season after this mess. Will you?
Stray Thoughts
- I would’ve paid good money to erase Max endlessly moping over Sophie from this season.
- Let’s also do away with the voiceovers and flashbacks while we’re at it.
- Georgia’s unhealthy relationship with Ginny is on display this season.
- Gil being awful is a great twist and allows us to really root for Georgia.
- Max forgiving Ginny happens way too quickly and doesn’t feel realistic.
- Paul’s speech to Gil during the finale is applause-worthy.
- I love the focus on Ginny and Zion’s relationship this season.
- Hunter, I see you, and you’re doing amazing.
- Max is absolutely phenomenal during Wellington.
What did you think of Ginny & Georgia Season 2? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Critic Rating:
User Rating:
Ginny & Georgia Season 2 is now streaming on Netflix.
Follow us on Twitter and on 
Instagram!
Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!
Allison Nichols
Allison is in a love affair with television that doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon. Slightly damaged fictional characters are her weakness. She loves to spend her free time curled up with a cat and a show to binge-watch. Allison is a Tomatometer-approved critic (Rotten Tomatoes).
5 comments
What did you think about Marcus’s arc and his relationship with Ginny ?
You are right on the money with all your observations. It was grating. I tuned in for a comedy soap opera with a heart and got a mound of never ending conflict.
I wholeheartedly agree with everything mentioned in this critique. I just finished this abomination of a second season, and I’m practically raging at how deplorable it truly was. I’m no film critic, but it doesn’t take a even a decade of public education to acknowledge the flaws in character development, pacing, and unnecessary storylines. I forced myself to finish for reasons unbeknownst to myself. For 10 hours, I cringed, screamed, and cried, at the screenwriting and how careless the producers and writers were with certain aspects of the storyline. Though I thoroughly enjoyed the development, acknowledgement, and meticulous thoughtfulness toward Ginny’s mental health, I was baffled by their choices with Marcus’ character this season. He almost felt like a puppet in Ginny’s play. It took nearly 10 episodes for her to realize she paid no mind to his mental health in the slightest. He was there for her through thick and thin and she couldn’t even acknowledge the blatant darkness he was slowly drowning in. In all honesty their break-up was justified and underpinned by the wrong reasons. Ginny’s character has definitely improved from season 1 to now, but she still pissed me off for most of this season as well. Don’t even get me started on the side characters that add practically filler to the plot. Each episode is an hour, why? The whole season could be summed up in 2 minutes simply from the amount of overly teenage “trendy” useless drama present used to advance the plot in a grueling and lengthy manner. As a nineteen year old girl, I found it absurd how the writers portrayed sophomores in high school. They’re barely sixteen and already drinking, smoking, and hooking up regularly. To each its own, but I think it’s important for writers to acknowledge the influence this could potentially have on young and impressionable teens. Additionally, I found the contrast between Ginny’s AP English class and “normal” English class to be absolutely disgusting. I went four years through highschool taking a mixture of AP, Honors, and “On-Level” courses and the different students’ actions in each different level never reflected that. I get the writers want to acknowledge the decrease in challenge and rigor Ginny’s new English class provides, but that disrespects the many students in the real world not taking AP or Honors courses that work just as hard if not harder than Ginny (considering she spends a fair amount of time on activities other than her studies) To suggest an entire class would be rambunxious, obnoxious, and unwillingly to learn simply because of their placement is absurd. There’s so much more I could write, but I’d be here for eternity. These are ten hours I can’t get back, so I’ll look on the bright side. Hmmmmmm, I actually am paining myself to think of a good reason for spending time on this show. Maybe I’ll come up with one eventually. In the meantime I’ll reflect on how much I dislike Maxine’s character, that works for now, yeah.
why does every show have to have a mental health element.
I barely made it through the first episode . I had forgotten how much I hated the Ginny character. Done, won’t watch it again it’s an awe full show all the way around. What a waste of good actors.
Comments are closed.