Ginny & Georgia Needs To Decide if Georgia Is an Antihero

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for Ginny & Georgia Season 3.]

Imagine me, minding my own business, settling in to watch Season 3 of sometimes mother-daughter dramedy, sometimes teen drama, sometimes murder show Ginny & Georgia and realizing I have just signed myself up for the most frustrating watch of 2025. I shouldn't have been surprised, really — that's my bad — since even from that short description of the Netflix series, you can tell Ginny & Georgia has always been a bit of a toss-up when it comes to tone. Up until this point, the fact that the series tries to present what is essentially trauma porn with the sheen of Gilmore Girls has, relatively speaking, stayed on the rails thanks to some great performances, but the problems inherent in trying to be so many things at once are so glaring in Season 3 that it starts to hinder the viewing experience. And while all the preceding sentences might make this hard to believe, I'm a fan of this show. I'm rooting for Ginny & Georgia! The complex mother-daughter relationship at its center; the way the series talks about mental health, especially in regards to teens; and the way the Season 3 Baker family storyline plays out are all interesting, emotional, and worth celebrating. And yet this is a show that gets in its own way, over and over, but especially in this latest outing. It's why I ask, wholeheartedly: Can Ginny & Georgia just decide if Georgia (Brianne Howey) is a hero or an antihero already? The attempt to treat her as both doesn't make the character more complicated; it just makes the show infuriating to watch.

Georgia was always meant to be a more-than-meets-the-eye type of character. From the moment we meet her, we understand that not only has she been underestimated over and over again, but that she uses it to her advantage. She's a cutesy little blond woman with a big Southern accent who knows how to flirt and charm. She is wildly likable. But in order to survive a life that has served up so many traumas that it seems impossible that this woman can still stand upright on any given day, she lies, manipulates, and, yes, at times murders people to get what she wants, declaring that she is doing what she has to do to survive and to keep her family safe. And that works when we're talking about the people who have used and abused her. She's a survivor and getting justice — that's hero behavior. Let's be clear, murder is still bad, but it's easier to empathize with someone who is protecting herself and her family and honestly believes she has no other options. That's what her life to this point has taken from her. But by the end of Season 2, and for what feels like all of Season 3, Georgia has crossed a line that it doesn't seem like Ginny & Georgia is ready or equipped to face.

In case you somehow forgot, Season 2 ended with Georgia taking it upon herself to suffocate frenemy Cynthia's (Sabrina Grdevich) dying husband in what she — and the show, apparently — views as a mercy killing and then getting arrested for murder during her wedding to Wellsbury mayor Paul Randolph (Scott Porter). While the context surrounding Georgia killing two of her husbands makes it easier to empathize with her, killing Tom (Vincent Legault) has no grey area. He certainly doesn't ask to die, and Cynthia definitely never reaches a moment so full of desperation that she requests this type of favor. Georgia looks at the situation and makes the call to end Tom's life on her own. That is, at best, psychotic behavior. She should suffer consequences for this. And yet the whole season points to the show wanting the audience to root for Georgia to get away with everything. 

This would be fine if the show would let her lean more into antihero territory, but Ginny & Georgia constantly presents Georgia as nothing but a victim; she is always in the right. She shows no remorse for anything she does, but when people who care about her call her out — like her daughter, Ginny (Antonia Gentry); Ginny's dad, Zion (Nathan Mitchell); or Georgia's ex, Paul — they are the ones who are treated like they're in the wrong. Sure, it's easy to sympathize with a character who has been through as much as Georgia has, but there is such a cognitive dissonance going on when you're watching a character do bad things, someone hurting people who care about her, and you're asked to root for her — not because she's being presented as some antihero who is fun or compelling to watch, but rather because she's being presented as constantly in the right. "Doing what you have to do" doesn't always justify your actions; otherwise everyone could do whatever they want. And it would be one thing if the show made it clear that Georgia deserves some consequences, but instead it always, always seems to side with her. She is a character who doesn't feel rooted to any kind of reality.

In the Season 3 finale, there is a scene between Georgia and Paul that pretty much sums up why Georgia getting to be a hero and a villain at the same time will hurt your brain if you let it. I won't go into every twist and turn of the trial that takes up the entirety of the season, but surprising no one, by the end of it, even though it's come out that this woman has killed three men now, Georgia Miller Randolph is found innocent. Once the trial concludes and Georgia is no longer on house arrest, she makes her way over to Paul's office. They need to have a conversation.

You see, when details about Georgia's life and the other murders came out during the trial, Paul was understandably angry and hurt, and he stopped showing up at the courthouse. He drew up divorce papers. He had begged her to never lie to him again, after all. These are all pretty normal human reactions given the abnormal situation. But Georgia doesn't see it that way; she sees it as a betrayal. She sees it as proof that he doesn't love her because he can't remain loyal. Is she scared and lashing out? Maybe — but the show never implies that. That is an assumption the audience would have to come to on their own. Instead, the show doubles down on Georgia's behavior. Desperate to make sure Paul doesn't divorce her during the trial, which would be incredibly bad for her, she instead pulls her teenage daughter's positive pregnancy test out of the trash and uses it to convince Paul that she is pregnant. He can't leave her now. When Paul inevitably discovers that he's been lied to again, he is enraged. He winds up slamming the wall right next to Georgia's head. Georgia, who has been the victim of domestic abuse at the hands of Austin's (Diesel La Torraca) dad, Gil (Aaron Ashmore), is terrified. But Paul walks away, and while I guess only time will tell if this hints at something more sinister going on with Paul, there has so far been no allusion to anything that would support that assumption. 

When Georgia arrives at Paul's office, it is with the intent to apologize for the fake pregnancy. Once again, imagine little ol' me sitting there legitimately thinking, Oh wow, here we go, Georgia is finally going to show some true remorse for the things she has done! But Paul is still bereft, and he hurls some hurtful words her way — no one ever wants to be referred to as "insidious" — and calls her out for still believing that she is the victim when it comes to the trial and the pregnancy lie. So instead of apologizing about lying to him and leaving it at that, she basically calls him a monster, too. Paul isn't perfect, but the wrongs he and Georgia (please remember, she decided to euthanize a guy who did not ask for it) have committed are not equal, and yet we're supposed to be Team Georgia here? It's a wild thing to ask of your audience. 

You can see the same thing happen with Zion. When the additional murder accusations come out during the trial and Zion also learns that there was an altercation in Georgia's house with Georgia, Gil, Ginny, Austin, and a gun, Zion has child protective services remove Ginny and Austin from Georgia's custody. OK, he is partially helping Gil, who is a legitimately bad guy, and that is hard to watch. But removing his daughter from an obviously dangerous situation — and from a woman who, he is learning, has a laundry list of lies and also apparently dead bodies to her name — is a normal human reaction. Any parent with half a brain would do this! But once again, Georgia calls it a betrayal. She cannot believe he would do this to her. Some of this is the pain and hurt of her kids being taken away, yes, but some of this — so much of this — is because Georgia doesn't view any of her actions as wrong or dangerous. There is no remorse anywhere to be found.

More on Ginny & Georgia Season 3:

• Ginny & Georgia bosses answer our burning questions after Season 3
• Brianne Howey and Antonia Gentry talk about Ginny's dark turn in Season 3
• Felix Mallard and Sara Waisglass discuss Marcus' and Max's futures

Even at Georgia's lowest point in the season, after she's been deemed a serial killer in the press and Paul has left her, after her kids have been taken away from her and it looks like she might actually go to prison for killing Tom, she doesn't offer up any type of regret. Instead, drunk and at her most alone, she calls up Ginny's therapist (a whole thing we are not getting into here) and expresses confusion over what people are saying about her. "Am I a bad mom?" she asks. She simply cannot wrap her head around the fact that maybe some people, as harsh and cruel as they are, might have a point. Perhaps Georgia the character is written in a way that makes her feel so untethered from reality because… she is untethered from reality? Or is this giving Ginny & Georgia too much credit?

The series has at least one more season (it's already been renewed for Season 4) to fix its Georgia problem. There are some clues that the show might be leaning toward letting Georgia see the error of her ways and make some changes: First of all, she has decided to finally go to therapy. Second, after she learns that Ginny is following in her manipulating-and-lying footsteps, she begs her daughter to stop. Perhaps those two developments, paired with the end-of-finale reveal that Georgia is now actually pregnant (although the father is TBD), will force her to see the ways she went wrong, though I won't be holding my breath. Another season-ending reveal is the reappearance of Georgia's abusive parents and stepdad. Since they are very much villains, the show is once again reminding us about the cruelty this woman has suffered. So really, Season 4 is still a toss-up. It's not that Georgia doesn't deserve sympathy, but if Ginny & Georgia is set on making her a complicated hero figure — which is much less interesting than making her a complicated antihero, but it does seem the direction this show, which aims to be heartfelt when it really comes down to it, is pointing — it needs to fully commit. She's caused so much destruction and pain, and the character makes little sense if she doesn't own up to that in some way. Like Georgia Miller herself, Ginny & Georgia has managed to slip past taking responsibility here, but as Season 3 has shown, the longer that continues, the more likely this whole thing is to fall apart.

Ginny & Georgia Season 3 is now streaming on Netflix.