R29 Recaps: Every Episode From Ginny & Georgia Season 1

Ginny & Georgia has more than a few major commonalities with Gilmore Girls — the series Netflix's new dramedy has been compared to over and over. Both shows are about the dynamic between a pop culture savvy thirtysomething teen mom and her now-teen daughter living in a tight-knit New England town — and, well, both shows have two "G" words in the title. But while Gilmore is filled with feelings and good old-fashioned family drama, Ginny and Georgia's Scandal-level twists and Degrassi-style soap opera melodrama set it apart from your typical teen fare. And unlike Gilmore Girls, this small town isn't entirely populated by WASPy moms and their Stepford children.
You know what else Ginny & Georgia has? Murder. 
Sure, there's a Gilmore Girls-esque vibe to the whole thing — but there are way more cliffhangers, and there's way more Degrassi-style WTF drama than anything that once aired on the WB. (This is particularly helped by the fact that three cast members put in time on Degrassi: The Next Generation and Degrassi: Next Class — yes, this show filmed in Toronto, how did you guess?) 
Antonia Gentry (as seen on Raising Dion) stars as the titular Ginny, a 15-year-old who moves with her younger brother and vivacious mom, 30-year-old Georgia (Brianne Howey), from Texas to the tiny Massachusetts town of Wellsbury after the sudden death of Georgia's husband. And although Wellsbury seems to promise a picture-perfect idyllic life, there's plenty of salacious drama to be had.
Episode 1: "Pilot"

You know how Millennials are really mad that Gen Z has deemed side parts and skinny jeans uncool? They're going to have an even harder time grasping the fact that they are unequivocally in the parental demo for this show. (Sorry!) But the sooner Millennial viewers face this fact the better; the alternative is getting absolutely levelled by some of the pop culture references meant to denote that Millennials are old and kinda-sorta out of touch. But with that settled, it's time to jump into the drama.
Our saga begins at a funeral, where the glamorous Southern belle Georgia is mourning the death of her husband, Kenny (Darryl Scheelar) — and Kenny's ex-wife is lamenting that this pretty young thing is about to inherit her yoga entrepreneur ex's fortune. No matter to Georgia, who loads teenage daughter Ginny and 9-year-old Harry Potter-obsessed son Austin (Diesel La Torraca) into her black BMW convertible and hits the road in search of an idyllic life in New England. 

Georgia likes to make fresh starts after her relationships end, so she's picked the Stars Hollow-esque picturesque town of Wellsbury, Massachusetts, which really is like the home of the Gilmore Girls — one Main Street, neighbours who become instant BFFs, lush foliage, the vibe of if "Paul Revere boned a pumpkin spice latte," according to Ginny — except slightly less WASPy. On the way North, both Ginny and Georgia bristle as a cop walks by them. Ginny, because as a half-Black teenage girl she realizes that racism is as rampant in the North as it is in the South, it's just simmering under the surface rather than blatantly obvious; Georgia, because a flashback shows her surviving a fraught, dangerous, abusive childhood. 
But Wellsbury seems okay at first. Ginny immediately clocks the hot bad boy from across the street sneaking out of his house, though we first meet him getting caught smoking weed by his mom. This is Marcus (Felix Mallard), and his mom is Ellen, aka Schitt's Creek gem Jennifer Robertson. Georgia introduces herself to Ellen, who is stunned to discover that Georgia is, in fact, Ginny's mother and she had Ginny at age 15. 
For another reminder that Georgia is not a regular mom (she's a young, cool mom), when Georgia can't sleep she tries a variety of different solutions: her vibrator (it needs to be charged), wine, her vibrator again (while it's plugged into the wall charging), wine again, loading a gun, plucking her eyebrows, and finally buying some weed off of bad boy Marcus. The next day she's fresh as a daisy, wearing a hot pink clubbing dress to drop Austin off at school — while giving him a pep talk that Ron Weasley is a wuss and he's going to do great. Remember, she's a cool mom! She meets the mean girl moms of Austin's classmates and immediately clocks how they operate. To fit in with them, she picks up a fancy new purse that they'll like. It's a good idea, though her card is declined because Kenny's ex-wife is contesting the will; Georgia ends up stealing a purse instead.

Meanwhile, at the high school, Ginny's English teacher is being both condescending and vaguely racist as he implies Ginny won't be able to handle the AP class and keeps calling her "Virginia" even though she corrects him constantly. But Ginny can handle herself — she's not necessarily as sweet and friendly as her mom seems, but she is super-smart and capable of projecting confidence (even if she doesn't necessarily feel it) as she calls out the teacher for a syllabus full of mostly white men. A clearly very popular girl, Maxine (Sara Waisglass — Degrassi alum No. 1), backs her up. Between classes, Ginny flirts with Marcus until Max introduces herself and apologizes for her twin brother. 
While friendly, Max is a lot, and after introducing Ginny to her crew at lunch she babbles all about her interests and being bummed that Ginny is straight (Max is gay, having come out of the closet at 9 when she announced she liked Barbie's boobs). This goes on until a cute popular guy, Hunter (Mason Temple), tells Max to chill. 
It's time for Degrassi alum No. 2: That would be Raymond Ablack, who plays Joe, the owner of the local restaurant whom Georgia meets just before she has a meet cute with the town's dreamy mayor, Paul Randolph, played by Jason Street himself (Scott Porter, for you non-Friday Night Lights-watching philistines). Max tells Ginny all about Mayor Paul when the teens spot Georgia chatting with the politician after school. "Thirsty moms throw their twats at him,” says Max, because, just a reminder, this show is edgier than Gilmore Girls. Actually, later, when Ginny is getting ready for her first date with cute popular guy Hunter, she even tells her mum she's trying too hard to be edgy. It's not not true, but it does establish the relationship between Ginny and Georgia — Georgia has a huge personality and is prone to flights of fancy, so Ginny has positioned herself as the wise, grounded one in their relationship. This is why Georgia gets so freaked out when she sees Ginny flirting with Marcus, and even boldly kissing him.
It reminds her of a flashback to meeting Ginny's dad, a handsome 17-year-old named Zion (Kyle Bary) she met at a bar (yes, at age 15) whom she joins on his adventurous gap year road trip across the U.S. She thinks Ginny is just like her, and she wants Ginny to find a cute nerd instead of falling for the artsy "Shawn Hunter" bad boy. (That's a Boy Meets World reference, if you are a youth and never knew the wonder of Rider Strong.) Later she apologizes, and it's clear she's just worried about Ginny making the same mistakes she once did. 
When Georgia picks up Austin from school, she discovers his beloved Harry Potter glasses are broken.  The next morning, she confronts the kid who broken them, threatens him, and has Austin punch him in the face — then brings him to his mother, who is of course the meanest of the mean moms, Cynthia Fuller (Sabrina Grdevich). She gets Cynthia back later at the school board meeting, when she comes up with a brilliant fundraiser idea that also catches the eye of hot Mayor Paul. Afterwards, Georgia bonds with Ellen while smoking the weed she confiscated from Marcus, and fills Ellen in on their family situation: Ginny's dad, Zion, is a lovely artist, while Austin's dad is in prison for fraud — but not to worry, he was framed. How does she know? She's the one who framed him. 
Despite Ginny's scorching hot chemistry with Marcus, Ginny says "yes" when Hunter asks her on a date. Things go well enough, though Ginny word vomits when they say goodbye so they awkwardly hug instead of kissing. (This would have been Ginny's second kiss, after the first one she laid on Marcus a few days prior.) But back in her bedroom, Marcus climbs through the window and one thing leads to another, and before they know it they've rounded third base and slide straight into home plate. It's Ginny's first time, but Marcus leaves before she can tell him

A flashback shows Ginny and Georgia in the recent past doing yoga with Kenny. When Georgia leaves, Kenny inappropriately touches Ginny as he corrects her form (we'll call it what it really is: sexual assault of a minor), despite Ginny repeatedly telling him to stop. When she returns, Georgia interrupts them and then simply snips a flower from the same plant we saw her unpack earlier and puts it in Kenny's smoothie. After he drinks it, he has a heart attack and dies. 
At school, Ginny reveals in a voiceover that she finally realizes what her mom likes about having control over men — it's the power. Ginny then makes a power play of her own by going over to Marcus and his girlfriend in the hallway and acting like she's going to say something about them having sex — but she doesn't. She just wants Marcus to sweat — and he does. He's totally hooked on her. 

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Episode 2: "It's a Face not a Mask"
A crisis is afoot in the Miller household — one that has Georgia waking Ginny up screaming at 5 a.m. — she can feel a hair on her chin. Ginny helps her remove it, but thinks seriously about the kind of armour that beauty can provide — for her mother, it's both armour and a weapon. Ginny feels uncomfortable with her identity in general, since sometimes she feels she's not white enough for the white kids and not Black enough for the Black kids. And while there are plenty of non-white people in Ginny's new school, there's definitely tension that we can see as Max and her friends, Abby (Katie Douglas) and Norah (Chelsea Clark, Degrassi alum No. 3!), give Ginny the Mean Girls rundown of the school. Lots of (white) kids stop Ginny in the hallway — asking her about why she looks so exotic or informing her that they're totally "woke" — though Ginny does entertain and appreciate the overture from a Black classmate who invites her to join field hockey or student leadership or just hang out sometime. Oh, and that dick English teacher from the first day of school? He continues to be a dick by touting Hunter's perfect score on the pop quiz as the score to beat — no mention of Ginny also getting 100 percent or the fact that she is the top student in the class. 

That night, after Ginny buys Plan B (she's responsible!), she and Max "go to the movies," and by "movies" they mean a party in a basement where Ginny smokes weed for the first time. This spurs a conversation in which Georgia introduces Ellen to the concept of finstas — because Georgia is so young and hip, she absolutely knows t