The cast tells ET their hopes for season 3 after the intense cliffhanger from the second installment. (SPOILERS AHEAD)
Ginny & Georgia loves to leave fans in their feelings over a cliffhanger! Netflix's hit mother-daughter drama returned for its second season on Thursday, and it picks up exactly where season 1's intense finale left off.
In the final moments of last season's episode, Ginny (Antonia Gentry) takes off into the night with her brother, Austin (Diesel La Torraca), to her dad, Zion’s (Nathan Mitchell), place, on her sometimes love-interest, Marcus' (Felix Mallard), motorcycle, after finding out that her mom, Georgia (Brianne Howey), likely murdered her husband, Kenny, with a deadly plant.
Unaware that her children are gone, Georgia seemingly comes up on top, implying to the private investigator that has been haunting her steps that she's scattered Kenny's ashes by placing them in the fireworks at her new fiancé, Mayor Paul Randolph's (Scott Porter), election victory party. But when she returns home to give her kids the good news, she finds her home empty and Ginny's parting gift for her mother: the remains of the burned plant that was responsible for Kenny's death.
"We knew where we wanted to end it," creator and executive producer Sarah Lampert told ET last February. "... Ginny now has blood on her hands with this decision to protect her mother. She is now culpable. We see her kind of start to run, which is a mirror of what Georgia did."
Things truly escalate in season 2, as Georgia juggles trying to regain her children's trust, planning a high-profile wedding to a seemingly perfect man and keeping her closet full of skeletons from running over. It isn't easier for Ginny, who struggles to deal with her trauma and intense emotions in a healthy way.
Tensions rise into an explosive season finale that took even the cast by surprise. The 10th episode ends with a major cliffhanger as Georgia is arrested for the murder of Cynthia Fuller (Sabrina Grdevich)'s husband in the middle of her wedding reception. She is then taken away by the police as her new husband and children watch on.
"What I love about the show is how imperfect all these characters are -- nothing is wrapped up in a perfect bow because that's not life," Howey tells ET when asked about the intense finale. "The show is starting [nuanced] conversations about mental health and our humanity, so of course season 2 wasn't going to end in a perfect beautiful bow."
The actress notes that her character's voiceover during the wedding is a bit of a self-filling prophecy. "Georgia [is] saying that she doesn't trust happiness and there's a reason she doesn't trust happiness. If I was Georgia, I wouldn't either," she says. "Her entire life has been defined so far by a lot of trauma and grief. You know, she's redefining it every day but there's a part of her that doesn't want to trust happiness. And then she finally does -- Ginny talks her back into the fantasy of staying in Wellsbury, and marrying Paul, she's looking at him as they're dancing, her fantasy is coming true and then, of course, the other shoe drops. And this is why Georgia doesn't trust happiness."
Although Gentry admits she knew what was going to happen in the finale "from day one," she says the knowledge "didn't make watching it any easier."
"I think when you're filming it, it's different. But when I sat down and I saw it for the first time as an audience member, I was so frustrated," she reveals. "I was like, 'Why is it stopping? I need more!' And what broke my heart is when Austin runs after the cop car at the end, like, I burst into tears."
"I remember watching me, like, run, you're like, 'No, Mommy! and I was like, 'Oh my gosh, this is going to be so heart-wrenching for people to see,'" she adds.
Putting himself in the shoes of his character, Mitchell notes how Georgia's arrest will undoubtedly give Zion anxiety as the father of her child.
"I remember reading episode 10 and there's this beautiful montage with the wedding and everything's coming up roses, seemingly. And you're just getting lost in this beautiful moment and then all of a sudden everything stops, police come in and Georgia's arrested," he recalls. "Even just reading it as Zion, just feeling that anxiety for Georgia and then being concerned about Ginny and Austin and what that means for them. I think this season ends on a really strong note and it's gonna leave the fans wanting more."
Lampert jokes that fans will be more surprised by "a whole episode that isn't centered around Ginny and Georgia," although it does set up "another spectacular cliffhanger" for the series.
"We wanted to really emulate what happened at the end of season 1 so that shot of Georgia driving away in the cop car is the same shot of Ginny and Austin driving away on the motorcycle," she explains. "This family just can't a lucky break."
They sure can't! Ginny in particular deals with a lot during the second season, well before her mother ends up taken from her own wedding to be hauled off to jail. The fictional teen struggles with her mental health throughout the season and eventually decides to end her tumultuous relationship with Marcus as she seeks professional help.
While Gentry also knew the breakup between Ginny and Marcus was in the cards, she admits that she was "very sad" to see the couple come to an end.
"I remember Felix and I in the rehearsal... it was like two in the morning, we wanted to go home, we were all exhausted and we had to do this big breakup scene that was gonna be really important. We did a rehearsal... we started tearing up, we were like 'we don't want to do this to each other,'" she tells ET.
She adds, "It's really heartbreaking -- I mean, these two characters, they understand each other in ways others don't and they really do support each other. But I think the key difference between the two of them is that Marcus bottles things inside and Ginny [doesn't. She's] very much like, 'This is what I'm going through.' So, it is heartbreaking to see them break apart because of their incompatibilities with how they communicate, but I do think it's extremely mature what they decide to do it."
The actress says she believes the duo will continue to be in each other's lives, recalling how Georgia is the one to nudge Ginny to befriend her ex and "the lovey scene where Ginny's just cuddling him and is like, 'I'm here for you.'"
But that doesn't necessarily mean Gentry thinks they should get back together any time soon. Joking that her character is "so great with love triangles," she says that more than anything, she wants "to see Ginny happy for once."
"That would be nice. I would like for her to be happy for more than an episode at a time," she says. "I know some of the ideas that they have if we're lucky enough to have more seasons and it terrifies me, I'm not gonna lie to you."
Speaking of a third season, Lampert reveals that she and showrunner and executive producer Debra J. Fisher have seasons 3 and 4 "all planned out" already.
"It's like season 1 and season 2 start in different places and tonally go into a different place... A season 3, it will also be a very different season of Ginny & Georgia. We will go in places that I don't think anyone could imagine," Fisher shares.
Lampert adds, "I also think it would be a very fun season. We spent all of season 1 really breaking the characters down and then season 2 we spend the whole season kind of building them back up again. And it takes a really long time! So, I think season 3 -- now that we've done that with them, now that they've had this rollercoaster -- we can really do whatever we want."
"At the end of season 2, the core family is really back together and so in season 3, it will be truly Ginny and Georgia and Austin together on the same page with everything that's happening," Fisher reveals. "So that's a little bit of new territory that we'll be starting with there."
"Things that happen in season 2 won't make sense until you see season 3 and then you'll be like, 'Oh they were bread crumbs! Bread crumbs, baby," Lampert explains.
But the show hasn't been officially renewed for season 3. "That's why we need all of those 53 million people to watch all 10 episodes again in that first 30 days. We need it so we can get season 3," Fisher says.
Season 2 of Ginny & Georgia is now streaming on Netflix.
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