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Stars Hollow, like the family relationship it revolves around, is a televised fantasy built on a foundation of spun sugar. This is precisely what loyal “Gilmore Girls” audiences loved about this little American paradise and adored Lorelai Gilmore and her daughter Rory. More than just a mother and daughter who loved each other deeply, they were also best friends.
Watch a few minutes of “Ginny and Georgia” and it can be assumed that Ginny Miller (Antonia Gentry) disputes this portrayal of the mother-daughter bond despite the best efforts of her mother Georgia (Brianna Howey).
We meet them as Georgia’s husband suddenly dies. Shortly after the funeral, she uproots Ginny and her half-brother Austin (Diesel La Torraca) from Houston, Texas and abruptly takes them to Wellsbury, Massachusetts, a wealthy enclave tucked away around a major thoroughfare perfect for a postcard. Ginny describes it accurately as “like Paul Revere boned a pumpkin spice latte.” But we recognize it as a substitute for another place.
Series creator Sarah Lampert clearly created Ginny and Georgia (Brianna Howey) as a negative version of Rory and Lorelei, inserting darkness into her characters where “Gilmore” embraced the light. She even checks the name of that other show in the opening episode she wrote. People who click and expect success from that old Gilmore Moss may be disappointed because “Ginny & Georgia” is not that show.
He lacks the gymnastic dialogue and the unapologetic gentleness of the first. Aside from Ginny’s defensive pride in her lofty academic achievement, writers don’t bend over backwards to make intellectual viewers feel better about watching a coming-of-age drama.
None of this is an argument against “Ginny & Georgia”. I’m just explaining what not to expect from a show that mixes teen angst, adult mystery, and 10-episode soap opera twists while delving into harsher realities rarely, if not. ever, faced with Stars Hollow.
The only thing Lorelai and Georgia have in common is that each is adorable, easy to root, and fiercely loyal to their daughter. But where Lorelai is pure sunshine, the glow of Georgia is purely cosmetic. Ginny loves her mother, and she also knows she’s dishonest, oddly silent about her past, and possibly dangerous. Georgia makes promises she can’t keep, like assuring her children that she will refrain from dating anyone to focus on them. But once she gets a glimpse of Wellsbury Mayor Paul Randolph (Scott Porter from “Friday Night Lights”) that insurance flies out the window.
Wellsbury is the kind of city built for people who look like Georgia, which makes it ripe for conquest. For Ginny, whose father is Black, it’s less welcoming. Yet the Georgia Chameleon sees the place for what it is and does what it needs to do, changing its appearance to accommodate its class-conscious inhabitants.
When she and the kids first come to town, Georgia is wearing denim shorts. Shortly after having Ginny and Austin installed in their schools, Georgia heads out into the boutiques and finds herself a wardrobe and a blowout fit to blend in with all the right people.
At the same time, Ginny is confronted by an English teacher who guesses she’s not cut out for her advanced placement class by watching her – and he doesn’t judge her fashion choices. Effectively cutting the man alive in front of her classroom earns her a friend Maxine (Sara Waisglass), who also lives across from her. She also attracts the attention of popular gentleman Hunter (Mason Temple) and Maxine’s troubled but hot twin brother Marcus (Felix Mallard). There is worse fate for a teenage girl than having two of the nicest guys in school fighting over her affections. And yet, Ginny also has to navigate her peers who want to touch her hair, calling her “exotic” and asking which of her parents is black.
“Ginny and Georgia” could have left those little assaults aside instead of squeezing them into its narrative stream fairly precisely and had an engaging Netflix teen show to work with.
There are plenty of other reasons Ginny feels like an outsider, including the classics: She’s the little girl in a small town where everyone knows everyone. She’s the child of a single mother with a succulent Southern sledge designed to cause snobbery, especially in New England.
The fact that writers make the effort to confront the occasional racial politics of places like Wellsbury should earn him a little more respect than he perhaps gets. And he handles it secretly, for the most part. This clothing-shopping frenzy Georgia is indulging in? Completely realized with a chain of small inconveniences. Whereas later when Ginny succumbs to peer pressure and tries to fit in by joining them in shoplifting, she is the only one getting caught because she is the only one the owner of the shop is looking.
Playing with class conflict on a show like this is easy. Leaning into other essential American ugliness while infusing the intrigue of the plot with dark humor and snark is a more difficult knit.
This show blends all of those emotional colors nicely while making sure that neither Ginny, Georgia, nor anyone else stands out as one-dimensional. Even Wellsbury’s resident queen bee, Cynthia (Sabrina Grdevich), isn’t entirely detestable; she might be used to being successful, but she’s also surreptitiously undermined by Georgia, which is all honey, smiles and ambition.
As messy and terrifying as Georgia can be, she is also an entertaining and thrilling maneater to watch. It’s a predator, but less of a wolf than the coyote, a creature whose prey is coded for survival as opposed to dominance. Her personality also earns her a true friend in Max and Marcus’ mother, Ellen (Jennifer Robertson), who is perhaps the only truly easy-going and tolerant person in Wellsbury. (Not for nothing, she’s also married to a deaf man, and in all of the scenes shared by the family, the actors all use sign language when saying their lines.)
Of course, all of Georgia’s existing problems escalate as she begins to set others in motion, further alienating her already ailing children in the process.
Gentry’s sensitive performance carries the weight of “Ginny & Georgia”, and it carries the excitement, hope, and pain of her character with a heartbreaking lightness. When we experience the world through Ginny’s eyes, it’s as intoxicating and alluring as her mother wants it to be, but as she warns us in her moody voiceover narration, buying her mother’s act entirely is foolish.
Ginny also has her secrets. She’s also the daughter of a sleazy woman who lies, steals, and cheats to get what she wants, maybe not expressly to get ahead but certainly to stay a few strides in front of something she’s running away from. However, Howey never allows us to completely hate Georgia, even when we watch her make choices to get out of here and now, which could make their lives more difficult.
Nonetheless, as part of a family of series that includes and is defined by “Gilmore” on one end of the scale and the stylized nightmare that is “Euphoria” on the other, a show like “Ginny & Georgia” plays like a product of Netflix’s Algorithm – a bit of Stars Hollow and a few “13 Reasons Why” parts with a touch of “White Oleander” to add some spice. But that only proves that he knows his audience and is confident in his awareness of the world we live in now, a place where Stars Hollow feels more unrealistic than ever. Wellsbury is also fictional, but we know its places and its people. Maybe that’s why we can relate more to the Millers with all their unenviable flaws and the melodrama mother and daughter create around them.
Sane people wouldn’t dream of wanting to experience (or relive) Ginny’s pains or fight the threat Georgia attracts with her actions. But damn if it’s not a good time to see from a safe distance.
“Ginny & Georgia” is now streaming on Netflix.
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