Ginny & Georgia Season 2 delivered plenty of drama, leaving viewers with lots of questions as we head into a possible third season.
TV Fanatic got the chance to speak with showrunner Debra J. Fisher about the biggest twists.
Scroll down for the full interview.
At the beginning of Ginny & Georgia Season 2, the titular mother and daughter are at odds. How important was it for you to push them apart and showcase them repairing the relationship?
It was very, very important. We broke those two characters down and pulled them apart during the first season.
So in season two, we spend the whole season building up Ginny and Georgia and getting them back together for that big moment at the end.
We really see them as a unit in the final episodes of the season.
Cynthia was a big adversary for Ginny during the first season, but we see a different side to her in the second season. Could you speak a bit about that?
One of the things we love to do is show small bits of characters like Cynthia where she looks, as you say, like she’s just an adversary for Georgia, and then humanize them.
A beautiful character moment at the end of the first season is when we see Cynthia lose the mayoral race, and she goes home. We then see that she’s caring for a dying husband.
At the end of season one, we knew we wanted to build Cynthia up differently and highlight her husband’s death, which we do.
We also have her situation-ship with Joe, and them becoming closer and friends and then having their relationship for a very short-lived time.
We also have her and Georgia in a very different place by the end of the second season. I think that adds to our show’s layered, grounded, nuanced nature to show that people aren’t just one-dimensional.
We have a lot of facets to us and our personalities.
Ginny’s self-harming is a sensitive subject matter, but I appreciate that a show that connects with the younger generation is telling these stories. Could you speak a bit about that?
We wanted to highlight mental health in the show and always wanted to show it as best we could, a true, grounded representation of what high schoolers are going through.
Early in season one, we worked with a psychologist. Her name is Dr. Taji Huang. She specializes in this therapy and self-harm behavior.
In addition to writers who had this lived experience on our show, as well as people in front of and behind the camera that experienced certain levels of mental health issues as well as self-harm behaviors, we consulted with experts who gave us a lot of amazing insight, further shaping Ginny’s arc.
We also worked with Mental Health America in both seasons, and we won an award for highlighting mental health. So for us, it’s just so important to have that authenticity. We knew if we got a season two we wanted to have Ginny’s father, Zion, much more involved.
We knew we all wanted to show her in therapy. We just wanted to show what teens are really going through and the options that they have and get families involved, and get them the help that they need.
Throughout this season, we see Georgia going to extreme measures to have the life she always wanted, but it all comes crashing down in the final scenes. Could you speak about the decision to have Georgia arrested?
We have such a cliffhanger at the end of season one, and we always wanted to visually have just as juicy as a cliffhanger for the second season. I’ll get to the creative part, but you’ll notice at the end of season one, we have Ginny and Austin driving away on the motorcycle.
Similarly, in season two, visually and cinematically, we have Georgia being whisked away in the cop car. We had a moment with everything great, and Georgia’s at a place in which the past is behind her, and she’s finally marrying Paul.
And just when you think everything’s fine, we come in, and we subvert all expectations by having Georgia arrested for a murder that no one sees coming. And so, for us, it’s just more of the amazing emotional rollercoaster we love to take people on with our show.
Tonally, balancing the light and the dark, the happy and the sad, we love to explore all these different themes, and we have this beautiful wedding one moment, and then the next minute, Georgia’s being arrested.
I think it just speaks to the true nature of our show, which is very nuanced and complicated. It’s a wonderful rollercoaster.
Paul was visibly surprised about Georgia’s arrest. People in the town look up to him, but I imagine he’ll be in a different place after this very public arrest.
Scott Porter is great. He has brought so much life to Mayor Paul Randolph. He had a really hard job because a lot of men have feelings for Georgia. He’s been a great dad to the kids. We’ve seen him maneuver everything in the mayor’s office.
He put up with a lot that Georgia had done and still wanted to marry her. She tried to break up with him, and he responded by proposing to her and convincing her they were meant to be together.
Georgia genuinely does love Paul. As you can see when she’s arrested, he’s defending her. He’s on the phone with his lawyers and telling his family to calm down.
When the reality sets in, when he realizes Georgia’s been arrested for murder, that’s a whole different reality. And also, he’s in the public eye. We saw him highlighting the optics of certain things on multiple occasions.
The end of Season 2 leaves us with more questions than answers. Do you know how long you’d like the show to last?
We pitched four seasons of the show. Sarah Lampert, the creator, and I know where we’re going in season three and where season four would end.
So ideally, in our dream world, I would love to have two more seasons to wrap this up.
Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.