Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Ginny & Georgia Season 3.

Summary

Ginny & Georgia’s showrunners discuss those jaw-dropping Season 3 cliffhangers and tease what’s next for the show.

In an interview with Collider, they also delve into the show’s popular ships, including Georgia and Joe.

The duo talks about MANG’s development this season and reveals a hilarious scene that almost didn’t happen.

Ginny & Georgia has always been full of wild twists and turns, and Season 3 is no exception. As far as Ginny (Antonia Gentry) is concerned, she’s struggling to keep her family out of trouble while juggling her residual feelings for Marcus (Felix Mallard) and blossoming connection with Wolfe (Ty Doran). Georgia (Brianne Howey) is in hot water with the law — and with Paul (Scott Porter), who’s growing increasingly frustrated with her, though thankfully, she finds some solace in Joe (Raymond Ablack). MANG is, as always, going through some obstacles. Abby (Katie Douglas) is continuing down a dark spiral as she hooks up with Press (Damian Romeo), though a surprising new connection with a tutor named Tris (Noah Lamanna) offers some light. Max (Sara Waisglass) is desperate to keep her friend group together and look after Marcus, who’s numbing his depression with drugs and alcohol. Who are the minds behind a modern teen classic? That would be the Sarahs — Lampert and Glinski, to be more exact. Lampert is the creator of the show, with Ginny & Georgia shockingly her first foray into television. Glinski, who joined the series as a co-showrunner this season, brings her young adult expertise, as she formerly worked on several iterations of Degrassi and created the critically acclaimed Holly Hobbie adaptation. Collider got the chance to speak with the pair about the fact that Ginny is becoming more like Georgia every day, those multiple massive cliffhangers for Georgia, the exploration of Abby’s sexuality this season, what to expect in an already renewed Season 4, and much, much more.
‘Ginny & Georgia’s Showrunners Discuss Ginny’s Abortion and Georgia’s Pregnancy

“My favorite thing about the show is the surprises.”

Image via Netflix

COLLIDER: I want to start with Ginny because I feel like we see a lot more parallels start to emerge between her and Georgia this season. I found that line in the finale about her finding control intoxicating particularly interesting, so I’m wondering how that realization and turn will affect her going forward. SARAH LAMPERT: That’s a good question. I also love that line. It’s fun because the real main character of our show is the relationship between Ginny and Georgia — the scale we’re always sliding up and down is how they feel about each other at any given moment and the navigation they do around one another. For Ginny, I think what we saw this season is her really risking losing her mom. She had all these feelings about her mom before this season, and she didn’t fully understand her mom, but then, going up against the threat of losing her mom, she doesn’t want to lose her mom. That trumps everything. And then the threat of losing her mom and needing to protect her family, you see her make moves in the same way that Georgia does when she feels like her family is under threat. It’s interesting to see Ginny step into that role a little bit more this season. And Toni had so much fun with it. Toni was like, “Do I get to kill someone next?” It’s like, “Toni, calm down.” [Laughs] I love the rebel side of her. I also found it really refreshing that she has an abortion this season without any judgment or debate — I feel like that’s such a rare thing to see. Can you talk a little bit about crafting that storyline? SARAH GLINSKI: For us on this show, we’re interested in exploring everything that women go through in real life as authentically as possible. For Ginny specifically, it felt like something that was right to explore for the character and that it was the right choice for her. We kind of just let our characters tell our stories and tell us what we should do. LAMPERT: The show just tries to reflect the human experience and how messy and beautiful and hard that is. We then, of course, have Georgia pregnant at the end of the season. LAMPERT: Surprise! Like mother, like daughter. Can you talk about that decision and maybe tease a little bit about where that journey might go moving forward? LAMPERT: That cliffhanger was always the plan. The moment with the milk was always the plan. My favorite thing about the show is the surprises. I love telling a surprising story, especially one that’s grounded in such real character. We lucked out with our actors because they’re able to ground these characters while also being put through the wringer of plot we throw at them. They’re able to do that balance, which is phenomenal — especially Bri. But with her, what we really wanted to do in Season 3 was explode the world, which is not something that you typically do in a season 3. You typically try to hang on to the fact that your character is secretly a murderer for as long as possible before you are driven to the plot point where it has to come out, and that’s not the approach we took. We’re like, “Yeah, let it come out. Let’s go. Let’s set off the bomb.” And that was the goal of Season 3. And then, kind of similarly for Season 4, without giving anything really away…I’ll say ending Season 3 with her pregnant again, that’s not something you expect to see with the main character either. I love doing the surprising thing. GLINSKI: I also think it’s fun because it’s like, she’s free, she’s not going to jail, but is she trapped again? It questions the idea of freedom going into Season 4 for Georgia.
‘Ginny & Georgia’s Showrunners on Georgia’s Trauma Coming to the Forefront

“Scott came up to us after, gave us hugs, and said, ‘Thank you for putting the scene in the show.’”

Image via Netflix

Branching off of that, we also see her past start to catch up to her. There are some people coming into town. I’m curious why you chose to do that and also, again, if you can tease what we might see because people are going to be dying for any information on that. LAMPERT: I really wanna throw some flowers Nikki [Roumel]’s way, who plays young Georgia in the flashbacks. She’s such a phenomenal, interesting actress, and she really brings the more raw, unpolished version of Georgia to screen and to life. I think people love the flashbacks. I love them. I love watching them because you kind of get to see where Georgia originated from and why she is the way she is, which is such a complex, dynamic character that Brianne just…I’m constantly in awe of Brianne. And Toni. I mean, without the two of them, there’s no show, and we can all go home. But for the flashbacks, what’s so interesting is that they really give depth to the journey of why this character who makes these big, questionable decisions is making them and is the way she is, and it really does tell the journey of her mental health story. We partner with Doctor Taji, a psychologist who’s been helping us guide this character — all of the character’s mental health journeys — from Season 1, as well as Mental Health America. And to see the evolution of that character and the shifting and changing that she does to survive and how that impacts her adult self and her relationship with her children, digging more into that is what I’m excited about for Season 4. Speaking of that, my heart was pounding when Paul hit that wall behind her. I want to ask about that choice because it felt a little bit unexpected to me and like a real turning point for how the audience views Paul. LAMPERT: Any time a moment is really based in a true experience or something that happened or anything, I think that that’s what makes it more powerful. We had a lot of conversations with Scott about that scene. At first, he really wasn’t jazzed about it and was like, “I don’t think that’s Paul.” And then we talked to him about it. And shooting that scene was a moment I really fell in love with the show. Not that I ever fell out of love with it, but I was really grateful to be there when we shot that scene. I’m watching Bri and Scott’s performances in that scene, watching where they took the characters, and I just felt like it was a really special scene. The whole crew felt it. You could feel it in the air that day. Scott came up to us after, gave us hugs, and said, “Thank you for putting the scene in the show.” They’re also good at being both so funny and then so deep, depending on what the moment calls for. I’m always constantly surprised and inspired by the actors on the show, and then we write to it. We write to what they’re able to do because they’re able to do so much. GLINSKI: All the characters on the show are really complicated, and there are lots of different aspects to every one of them. It’s perhaps something surprising but something — a piece — that we always saw within Paul that would come out when he was tested the most. LAMPERT: A big question of Season 3 is how far the characters need to be pushed to make decisions they never would have thought they’d made. Because that’s a big question of who Georgia is, right? So, to put other characters through that, that’s what we did with Paul. GLINSKI: And obviously, we see that with Ginny and Austin as well.
‘Ginny & Georgia’s Showrunners Talk Georgia/Joe and Abby/Tris

“You see that character be, for the first time, really giddy and really smitten.”

Image via Netflix

On a slightly lighter note, we finally get Georgia and Joe, which I’ve been rooting for forever. Why was now the right time to make that happen, and what can we expect moving forward? I imagine many obstacles. GLINSKI: It’s gonna be totally smooth sailing for the two of them. I think that’s clear by the season finale. [Laughs] It just felt right because Georgia’s at her lowest point and her most vulnerable, and to me, Joe is a really safe place for her and nearly the one person that she can really just be herself with. It felt like a little gift to Georgia in that moment but the right time to bring them together. It was the right time for her to accept him into her world because it’s when she needed him most. I think with both Paul and Zion, she’s always wearing armor and playing a character, but with Joe, she can be herself. And after everything she’s been through, when she’s at home in that little moment, she can’t do much more than actually just be herself. I was so happy to see Abby explore her sexuality, first with Samantha and then with Tris. Can you talk about fleshing that storyline out? As a queer woman, I really thought that felt authentic and exciting to see. GLINSKI: That’s so good to hear. LAMPERT: Yeah, that’s awesome to hear. I think anything that’s grounded in truth is the answer usually, and so for Abby’s storyline, let’s be real, her hooking up with Press is a form of self-harm, right? It just is. I see the online chatter, and girls are like, “Press can save her.” And it’s like, “Oh no. Oh dear. How do we…? No, no, no, no.” I think that Abby is really coming into her own this season, and Katie is such a dynamic actress. She is an actor who will always make the interesting choice. She never does anything that isn’t interesting, and you’re just so drawn to her whenever she’s on the screen, and I think that watching her come into her own, explore her sexuality more, and also just get a little bit of self-love is really lovely to see. One of my favorite scenes of the season is her with her dad at Blue Farm and just seeing their dynamic and like, “Oh she’s a daddy’s girl. Oh, look at that.” That’s not the relationship you typically see with daughters and fathers, but it made so much sense that that’s Abby’s relationship with her dad. GLINSKI: I feel like, with Abby, she’s just looking for someone to connect with in a real, human way. And you can see she gets a little bit of that with Sam, but when she finally meets Tris, you can just see they connect and she feels safe there, and that’s just a good place to be. She’s never felt that with anyone else at that level. LAMPERT: And I think she’s surprised by how much she likes Tris because this is not a character who really is, like, swooning over anyone, right? What she gets out of Press is the attention, but I think, again, it’s a form of self-harm, so that’s what she’s getting out of that relationship. What she gets out of Tris feels healthier, and you see that character be, for the first time, really giddy and really smitten. And it’s a really cute look on that character — to see this very confident character suddenly get a little off-step because this is not a character I think that likes feeling vulnerable. So even just by pure nature, we knew we needed Abby to kiss Tris. We didn’t want Tris to kiss Abby because, for this character, that’s like an ultimate moment of bravery — being vulnerable. This is not a character who enjoys vulnerability, right? She’s always, “It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine.” GLINSKI: She protects herself. LAMPERT: But with Tris, you see a new version of her emerge that’s really fun to watch on screen.
‘Ginny & Georgia’s Showrunners Tease Max’s Future and Reveal the Scene That Almost Didn’t Happen

“She is a character who is constantly thinking about everyone else in the room.”

Image via Netflix

Speaking of vulnerability, someone who is not afraid to be vulnerable is Max, who I just love so much. Her storyline really broke my heart at the end of the season. You could see her desperate for someone to connect with her, and no one was really giving anything to her. I’m curious how that rejection from her friends — and also pressure from her parents that I think they’re sort of accidentally putting on her — is going to continue manifesting itself moving forward. LAMPERT: The thing with Maxine and that character is what people see, unless you’re in her head, is that she’s a volcano and a deep, deep well. If you’re only external, all you see is the volcano. You see the big emotions, you see the big show, you see the flashy fireworks, but inside, there’s a real deep well of potential sadness there and of real hurt and of real want. Maxine is a character who wants a lot. She wants everyone around her to be happy, she wants everyone to be okay, she wants to be loved, and she does want things to be good. She is a character who is constantly thinking about everyone else in the room, yet how it presents itself is that she is also very self-centered at the same time. It’s a real dichotomy of who she is. That’s a really interesting character. She’s a character I relate to the most, I’ll just be so honest. GLINSKI: I think because she cares so deeply and is so loyal, she expects everyone to care so deeply in return and to be so loyal in return, and that’s not how everyone’s built. That’s the hard thing to deal with day in and day out as she gets through life. LAMPERT: And Glinski, you say that all the time. I’m always like, “Glinski is describing me.” [Laughs] I could really pick your brain about this all day. I do have to wrap, but before I go, I have to say I desperately want the entire Lifetime movie parody that we see. LAMPERT: Oh, we almost didn’t shoot that! We ran out of time for it, and our fantastic director, Sharon, was like, “We’re shooting that.” [Laughs] And I was like, “Okay!” Oh my god. We had, like, three hours, and then we had that one house, and we banged it out. That episode could potentially be very heavy, so you need that moment. We did some guerrilla shooting to get that done. Praise to Sharon for that, definitely. Ginny & Georgia Season 3 is now streaming on Netflix.

Ginny & Georgia

Release Date

February 24, 2021

Network

Netflix

Showrunner

Sarah Lampert

Writers

Sarah Lampert

Antonia Gentry

Virginia ‘Ginny’ Miller

Brianne Howey

Georgia Miller

Watch on Netfilx