Did you just finish binge-watching Ginny and Georgia? Are you left with endless questions, all in the realm of, “What the heck just happened?” At its surface, this new Netflix series appears to be a witty and lighthearted mother-daughter drama. However, it’s very, very far from that.
Ginny and Georgia intertwines the current lives of the Millers, plus Austin, and the heartbreaking backstory of the family’s “southern peach” matriarch Georgia Miller (Brianne Howey).
What happened to Georgia?
Throughout the episodes, it is revealed through a series of flashbacks that Georgia Miller has had an excruciatingly hard life. She ran away from home at a young age after being sexually assaulted by her father and she found herself living on the streets.
That’s how she meets Ginny’s father.
When Georgia begins hanging around a biker gang, she follows them into a local bar which is where she meets the poetic and soft-hearted Zion Miller (Nathan Mitchell). The two end up forming a relationship and they move in with Zion’s parents after Georgia discovers that she is pregnant, at only 15 years old.
After Zion’s parents discover that Georgia is pregnant, his mother proclaims that this was not how he was meant to be spending his gap year. After Ginny is born, Zion’s parents begin to bring up their interest in obtaining custody of the child. They would like to be the guardians of Ginny so that Zion can go to college to be a lawyer — which he doesn’t want to do — and Georgia can figure out the rest of her life, as she is still a teenager.
Scared, Georgia runs off and begins working at a hotel in New Orleans, which she is living at for free. The hotel owner’s son is a total creep and begins to harass her, asking her out on dates and stressing that he has the ability to fire her and kick her out.
Here, Georgia begins running an underground poker operation — which is illegal, and she gets caught which leads Ginny to be taken into police custody. In order to get her back, Georgia has to prove her stability and the fastest way for her to do that is to be married.
As Georgia expresses early on in the series, “There are two things you can get from sex with a man, passion or power. But you better make sure you’re getting something. Otherwise, you’re just getting screwed.” After faking a marriage to the hotel worker and getting her daughter back, Georgia is finding her situation to grow increasingly abusive as now, she is forbidden to leave the house under the threat that he will expose their fake relationship to the cops.
She escapes by crushing up multiple pills and stirring them into her “husband’s” alcoholic beverage. She watches him overdose before calling the cops.
What happens next?
In the Millers’ current timeline, Georgia and her two children have just moved to Wellsbury, MA after the untimely death of her rich yoga-studio-owning husband Kenny— so we think. It turns out, she had poisoned him by crushing up a heart-stopping plant and blending it into his smoothie. She is provoked to do that after she sees him sexually assault her daughter under the guise of “helping her yoga positions.”
Throughout her escapades in Wellsbury: befriending her neighbor, becoming a PTO mom, getting a job at the mayor’s office… getting engaged to the mayor, Georgia is being followed by a private investigator, Gabriel Cordova (Alex Mallari Jr.).
She catches onto his game very quickly, as he has disguised himself as her co-worker’s boyfriend in order to get closer to her.
There are two big moments at the end of the series where the audience thinks it might be over for Georgia:
- She gets caught embezzling money from the mayor’s office.
- The private investigator catches her watering the deadly plant used to murder Kenny.
The latter was a major eye-rolling moment but it fit the character perfectly. On one hand, why would someone keep their murder weapon? Especially after finding out that Kenny’s death and will are being contested? But on the other hand, Georgia is very confident and self-assured that she can continue hustling without facing any legal consequences.
Georgia is not arrested for either of these things. She ends up returning the money she stole from the office before the mayor’s competitor calls for an audit. However, the mayor’s campaign manager Nick (Dan Beirne) informs Georgia that he is aware that she made a large, last-minute deposit, returning the missing cash. As the mayor is in the middle of re-election, he doesn’t inform anybody of this but appears disappointed in Georgia’s backstabbing decision.
Also, after Gabriel reveals to Georgia that he’s onto her and a toxicology report will prove his theory about the plant, he asks what she did with Kenny’s body as it was previously revealed to be missing. Georgia heavily insinuates that the body has been cremated and the ashes were mixed in with the currently-exploding fireworks.
With that being said, Georgia was not arrested at the end of Ginny and Georgia and thus far, her tracks are covered. Although Nick and Gabriel are currently onto her and their suspicions are likely to continue into Season 2 if the show is renewed.
Ginny and Georgia is now streaming on Netflix.