Netflix 'Ginny & Georgia' Season 2 amps up the emotions, tears and chaotic mother-daughter drama

Feeling like an emotional punch to the gut throughout 10 episodes, Netflix's Ginny & Georgia Season 2 leans into the drama in the continuation of this mother-daughter story.

“A major secret that Ginny’s been withholding from Georgia, it's Georgia’s turn to find out about," Antonia Gentry, who plays Ginny, teased to Yahoo Canada. "They have to be there for each other."

"Georgia has to be there for Ginny in a way that's more than just, I'm trying to protect you from the outside. Now I need to help protect you from your own inner demons.”

A jam-packed emotional rollercoaster

When the first season of Ginny & Georgia landed on Netflix in 2021, most of the chatter was around the show referencing Taylor Swift's love life, and comparisons to Gilmore Girls.

While the Swift controversy isn't relevant in Season 2, the new season firmly establishes that this show is really nothing like Gilmore Girls, aside from an incredibly broad point that it's a single mother and her daughter leading the narrative. In addition to the repeated double G series naming.

Before you set off on Season 2 of Ginny & Georgia, be prepared for the jam-packed emotional rollercoaster you're about to go on.

The season begins with Ginny and her brother Austin (Diesel La Torraca) staying with Ginny's father Zion (Nathan Mitchell) in Boston, after Ginny discovered that her mother is a murderer in Season 1. Georgia (Brianne Howey) is not coping very well without her kids, but eventually they agree to go back to live with their mother.

While living with Zion, Ginny told her father about her self-harming, but the pair don't tell Georgia.

Returning to Wellsbury isn't particularly easy for Georgia. Aside from dealing with the recent revelations about her mother, her friends have abandoned her after secreting dating Marcus (Felix Mallard), and her relationship with him is a bit sensitive after she stole his motorcycle and disappeared to Boston.

On top of that, Ginny has to deal with her racist English teacher who puts her in charge of lesson plans to make the curriculum more diverse.

This is all while Georgia is engaged to Mayor Paul Randolph (Scott Porter) and is planning her upcoming wedding. But Happily Ever After is basically impossible in the world of Ginny & Georgia.

Ginny's 'difficult' self-healing journey

Much of Season 2 of the shows is an exploration of Ginny's mental health. For Antonia Gentry, while she admits this was particularly difficult to tackle as an actor, she stressed that it was also something she was looking forward to being able to show on screen.

"It's very difficult, but I was very much looking forward to Ginny’s mental health journey,” Gentry said. “I love that she finally is able to seek help and that she goes to therapy, that she starts getting tools to work through difficult situations.”

“I think that's a very, very important arc for her character that we do this season because it's important for people who maybe see themselves in her or have similar experiences, to be able to also see her journey through self-healing. That was definitely a part of her character arc this season that I was looking forward to being able to portray, even though it was also some of the most difficult, for me, as the character this season.”

For Georgia, played by Brianne Howey, while she is perfectly comfortable giving her daughter advice on how to give a blow job (a real conversation that happens in Season 2), when it comes to finding out about her daughter's mental health struggles, that's when her confidence starts to break down.

“Georgia very briefly, not to the same extent as Ginny, but goes on a journey through her mental health,” Howey said. “I love seeing and playing Georgia when she's super out of her element, so when Georgia does some of the work with Ginny, she's a fish out of water and she doesn't know what to do, what to say, and that's so not Georgia.”

As part of Georgia's journey, a highlight of Season 2 is how it leans into flashbacks, which show us exactly where the character came from and what she experienced as a young teen mother. Really allowing us to get a more comprehensive backstory for the character.

The actor hopes that putting these mental health storylines at the forefront of Ginny & Georgia Season 2 could spark some important conversation for the show's audience as well.

“We don't have all of the answers to everything but I'm super grateful to be on a show that is willing to start these conversations,” Howey said. “I'm super, super grateful to [Antonia Gentry], that we can have such a safe space to explore in these scenes, because it can be incredibly intimidating.”

“But I love, trust and respect [Antonia], and I learned so much from her every day.”

The 'Ginny & Georgia' scene stealer

While both Antonia Gentry and Brianne Howey give emotive performances in Season 2, we have to say that Sara Waisglass as Maxine (Max) Baker is an absolute scene stealer.

Max is still livid with Ginny for lying about her relationship with Max's twin brother Marcus, but she's on her own journey after getting dumped by Sophie (Humberly González). Now Max is putting all her energy, and she certainly has a lot of it, into the next school play.

“I think Season 1, you see such a happy Max, you see Max with great friends and Max just happy and energetic,” Waisglass said. “At the end of Season 1, that betrayal really changes things for her.”

“I was really excited to get to explore the complete opposite side of her. She's very angry and she's a drama queen, so getting to do that was a lot of fun and really exciting to see how she works through her pain.”

Waisglass is an absolute force on screen. Sure, Max can sometime be a bit insufferable with how dramatic she can be, but there's still something so loveable and exciting about the way Waisglass portrays this charismatic teen.

“Probably my favourite part of Max is she's the most passionate, energetic person I know,” Waisglass said.

'You can love someone but circumstances can change how that love is expressed'

We can't have a teen-focused drama with romance complications. One of the core fan questions about Ginny & Georgia is whether or not Ginny and Marcus are together, and stay together, in Season 2. Without spoiling the whole story, we'll just say it's very far from a straight road.

“We really learn how strong their love is for each other and I think that's always going to be a constant,” Felix Mallard, who plays Marcus, said. “As soon as Marcus sees Ginny, he knows that he's going to be in her life.”

“What we get to see in the show is how that capacity in her life changes, what kind of events or what kind of drama will change how they are with each other. But that love is always going to be constant. So that's what I really love, exploring how that can change, how you can love someone but circumstances can change how that love is expressed.”

With relationship drama, familial complications and really serious conversations about mental health, Ginny & Georgia Season 2 leaves no stone unturned in terms of introducing new plot points. Is it too much drama for one season to handle? At times it definitely feels that way, but the show certainly knows how to build tension.