Pilot
Episode 1 of Ginny & Georgia begins in school, with a quick rundown on our family set-up. Georgia had Ginny when she was 15 years old so naturally Ginny had the sex talk when she was only 7. Ginny’s inner monologuing is interrupted by her teacher arriving in the classroom. It turns out her stepfather Kenny has passed away. While at the funeral, Ginny listens to the conflicting dialogues about her family set-up – and specifically the inheritance money – before leaving. The family are making a fresh start and head off to Massachusetts. They make it to a big house where Georgia prepares for a fresh start. That begins with meeting the neighbours, as Ellen Baker heads over and finds herself shocked at Georgia’s age. She’s got two kids that are around Ginny’s age too, weed-smoking Marcus and Maxine. When Ellen leaves, Georgia and Ginny talk but the latter is still acting distant toward her Mum. After a dud joke about the Gilmore Girls, the two head to bed but struggle to sleep. Georgia sneaks out and decides to meet Marcus, scoring some weed from him. In the morning, Georgia drops the kids off at school where she meets the different parents, including Cynthia who appears to be the Queen Bee in town. They encourage Georgia to show up to a meeting the following night where Mayor Paul is scheduled to be. Alongside all this are flashes to the past involving Georgia being abused. This storyline continues later on as Georgia meets a guy called Zion at a bar. He’s underage and has a fake ID but doesn’t tell anyone about Ginny. He also sees through her façade of make-up around the eyes, encouraging her to hit his hand when he strikes her face. During further flashbacks, we see Kenny getting a little too hands-on with Ginny while she’s doing yoga. For now, this is kept on the back burner but I’m sure we’ll return to this again later on down the line. Ginny shows up and immediately makes a point of showing that the books they’re studying were only written by white men. Well, Maxine clings to her, deciding to take the girl under her wing. As they walk out of school, Ginny finds her Mum immediately worming her way into the political hierarchy when she meets Mayor Paul at a bar. She tries to get a job in his office but Paul shoots her down. Ginny isn’t exactly thrilled this is happening, and between her Mother calling the kids by the places they were born, it turns out they’ve been moving a lot. Ginny hangs out with Max at her place but winds up growing closer to Marcus, suddenly kissing him after taking the boy’s bike out for a spin. Georgia tries to give Ginny words of wisdom but it’s not exactly easy to do given how much of a bad influence she is. Anyway, the next day Georgia runs into problems while out shopping as her card is declined. It turns out Kenny’s will is being contested and because of that, the inheritance is being delayed. Ginny announcing she has a date with another kid from school, Hunter. This is enough to distract Georgia and allows her to fuss around her daughter instead. Ginny heads out for her date where Hunter eventually drops her off back home. Things are awkward but they end things with a hug. Georgia attends the school meeting with Ellen but both of them have smoked weed beforehand. She also grabs Joe on the way, threatening to report him to the Department of Labor for exploiting unpaid interns if he says no to cooking organic lunches. Joe begrudgingly is forced to comply with her. Anyway, Georgia’s manipulative ways do the trick as she manages to bag a job with the Mayor as Paul approaches and asks if she can start Thursday. Back home, Marcus and Ginny hook up together which eventually leads to the two having sex. Ginny becomes jealous at school the next day though when she notices Marcus with Padma.
The Episode Review
Ginny & Georgia takes the archetype idea of a “cool Mum” in Gilmore Girls and turns it into a more modern, mean-spirited mother-daughter relationship as this 10-part Netflix series gets off to a bit of a shaky start. Ginny is pretty likable in truth, with enough quirks and built up angst to promise some interesting subplots and ensuing conflicts with Georgia to bubble up in the coming episodes. Georgia meanwhile, is really not likable at all. At least so far anyway. Not only is she manipulative and a liar, she outright admits to framing Austin’s father for fraud while blackmailing a café owner and threatening to report him for malicious rumours if he doesn’t play ball. That’s not exactly the makings of a likable protagonist and the fact this show seems to paint mischievous music under that moment seems to hint that this is supposed to be amusing. Despite that though, the first episode sets the scene for some interesting drama to come. Any and all comparisons to Gilmore Girls should definitely end with that dud joke at the start of the episode though, as this series looks set to march to the beat of its own drum. Whether that drum is up to the right tempo however, remains to be seen.
