blurb #4: making sure i don’t fit in

talking about ginny & georgia season 3

so i finished ginny & georgia in 2 days and i haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since then. i promised myself from now on when something is heavy on my mind like this i will just write about it and stop worrying so much about making it perfect so… here i am. heyyyy.

i think from the discourse online i have a lot of unpopular opinions about the season and i don’t think i’m being biased but you all can tell me what you think.

first and foremost, i do think it was fantastic. i think they keep leveling their game up and i’m so proud to have stood by them from season one because i knew the real! it was a heartwrenching and emotional season, i feel like every single character got their time to shine and were essential to the story (not you norah).

there are some big character moments that i would like to touch on, so this is your final warning for spoilers (duh!). but when you watch the season don’t forget to come back, i really wanna know everyone’s thoughts, even if you disagree with what i’m about to say. (don’t disagree with me).

let’s begin with zion.

i’ve been the main one calling zion a deadbeat from season one, i love him to death, but truth is truth. however, i feel like we got a closer look into his point of view and now he’s getting absolutely no slack from the audience because of some decisions that he has made.

i was a really big fan of the therapy scene with him and ginny, where she expressed that she always felt as though he chose georgia over her. and that is true, i feel like in the zion/ginny/georgia dynamic it always depended on the state of zion and georgia’s relationship and ginny’s feelings about that came last. they started off as two kids in love and a child came on accident and both of them continued with that dynamic well into their adulthood, quite literally ignoring ginny when she protested.

we also learn that he was not told about any of the things that happened while they were not with him, he didn’t know about anthony green, or kenny, or their financial situation, or the fact that gil was abusive. which i was under the impression that he was the only one in georgia’s life who knew everything.

i think that just as georgia is getting the chance to hear the mistakes she made in her parenting and correct those as best she can.. zion should get that chance too. he was allowed by both his mother and georgia to chase his dreams while georgia had to be the parent and he barely popped in. he got to be the cool one, leaving meaningful gifts to his daughter, being a stand in parent to austin, be there for the big events such as birthdays — but never really had to take any responsibility. and he reaps the consequences of those actions all season long.

i think just as georgia and zion kept their relationship as the focus for years, fans on social media are doing the same thing. they’re viewing him in episode 5 deciding to take ginny out of georgia’s care as a betrayal to georgia. everyone’s mad at him for not standing ten toes behind georgia, not defending georgia, not listening to georgia. but georgia is getting exposed as a murderer, and no matter what she’s saying:

• she did that shit

• all evidence against her is proving her to be one. (because she did that shit!)

there is so much about ginny’s life and her experience growing up that she tried to tell him and he didn’t do anything about it because she was a kid trying to tell him about the woman he was in love with. so he failed his daughter over and over again. and now the allegations about georgia are getting more and more serious, and he is getting another chance to protect his daughter and this time he does.

when he does get her into his care, he doesn’t know what to do, because he’s not a father. he wasn’t in the house to learn ginny’s patterns, he has no authority over her in general and now he’s pissed her off so now he definitely has no say. but he made the decision that he felt was best, he removed his child from a house where a serial killer was living. and he came to the realization that he should have done this a long time ago— not necessarily remove her from her mom forever — but be a present father, have joint custody. and for the people who are asking why didn’t he , just like georgia was a kid, zion was a kid too. a kid with his mother’s voice in his ear endorsing all of his decisions.

just like we can clearly see georgia’s immaturity come through because she never got a chance to be a kid, we see zion unable to stand up for himself or make his own informed decisions when his mom is around because he never really got a chance to grow up either. they’re both stunted and they both had to learn how to be good parents and i think this season zion had a lot to learn.

and like be real, would you want your child in that house?

another thing that keeps getting brought up is that zion used georgia shooting her stepfather in the hand as leverage against her.

i don’t have many gripes against the writing in this show but one that i do have is that i feel that they don’t lean enough into the subject of rape and child molestation. a lot of georgia’s actions and her permanent fight or flight mode is because she is a victim of child molestation but it’s almost like we brush over it. we know that that exists but it’s kind of up to the audience to decide what parts of her trauma influences her and i don’t really like it.

i can only assume that zion’s point is that he “should’ve known” because when she was going to kill her stepfather she didn’t hesitate and a normal person does get apprehensive to the idea of doing something violent no matter the reason and that’s true. but all it really seems like is that he’s victim blaming her which is… gross. there’s also another scene where ginny tells him that kenny was sexually assaulting her and we just brush by it to talk about the fact that georgia killed kenny which again, weird.

murder is not normal, it’s not a normal thing to do. all rapists and abusers must die though and i think the show may have their hands full with trying to convey both points without making either side look bad.

point is, besides some iffy writing choices, i do think that everyone is being too hard on zion. and i’m glad he’s petitioning for joint custody.

georgia & paul

one of the allures of ginny & georgia was that georgia didn’t have one bad love interest and season 3 made it their mission to set out and destroy that idea once and for all.

i feel like paul got the short end of the stick writing wise, because he had been the nice, supportive, normal guy for 2 seasons straight. he was the representative of everything georgia said she wanted on their first date. being someone she considers safe and secure, and someone she could be “free” with in a sense because ideally she was no longer looking over her shoulder.

and it just all changed from him having the right to be upset about big things (murder, violence, lying, fake pregnancies) to making him violent and abusive when it never gave that like ever..

the show is playing a dangerous game with making georgia a murderer and i do think if they planned to have her get off in the eyes of the law then having her alienate her relationships is the least they could’ve done. the things that georgia has done are irredeemable and i know they really want us to still have a soft spot for her despite it all because we know what she’s been through but with paul i did feel like it was plot armor and giving her a new instance where the writers could turn the wigs around in a situation where she was unmistakably in the wrong.

i think it’s lazy writing to make a male character abusive to shut the shipping rumors down. we already knew she wasn’t ending up with paul. everyone already knew she was going to end up with joe and for the most part everyone was fine with that. paul throwing a punch near her is not consistent with any of his character decisions thus far, even him having sex with her while he was angry at her was weird and gross and manipulative.

if you take a character like chuck bass from gossip girl, who opens up the show attempting to rape two female characters and spends the rest of the series being emotionally manipulative and disconnected from feelings, when he swings at blair in season 5 no one is surprised.

if they would’ve shown signs of paul being abusive or violent in the last 2 seasons — then i wouldn’t be as bothered. but we’ve watched paul this entire time with no such indications which makes his actions this season random.

i never thought that paul was a perfect character but i think the smarter writing choice should’ve been letting him he be a victim of her choices along with her children. if she would’ve had to sit with the knowledge that she had someone that would’ve stood beside her if she would’ve just told him the truth and that there’s someone out there that she wronged that did nothing to deserve it. and then that also contributed to her decision to do better and get help.. that could’ve been fine. it also gives the audience a wake up call to see her in a brand new light and i think that opportunity is missed. we needed to dig into georgia’s reckless side, and paul brought it up in that argument but the second he swings at her none of that matters.

because as soon as a man is violent all surrounding situations are moot — which is good. i don’t know, this is a hard thing for me to write because i don’t want anyone to think i’m victim blaming, i’m not anti georgia or pro paul in this instance i’m very just pro …. thoughtful writing.

MANG / ANG / Max

max made me very sad this season and i feel so bad for her. i think her parents are very absentee emotionally until they see the last straw and i am very scared about what that means for max next season. because the fact that marcus had to go as far as he does for them to even consider rehab is .. wild to me.

i’ve always liked max even when she was doing a lot last season (over nothing, mind you) but i think everyone is misunderstanding the dynamic between MANG — specifically between ginny, abby, and max. i don’t know what’s up with norah like she’s an NPC at this point.

first with abby and max, i think a reminder for everyone is that max and abby have known each other and lived near each other for almost their entire lives. their dynamic is definitely past friendship, it is kind of like a sibling relationship in the way that they fight and argue and know each other so well.

abby has been through a lot in the last 3 seasons, coming from a former abby hater, she’s suffered quite a lot and no one (besides ginny) has done anything about it. in fact, when she was crying out for help max shut her out.

now i know that everyone has argued that hanging that over max’s head is unfair when they’ve forgiven each other and they still hang out with norah who did the exact same thing. but i think that situation is a metaphor for their entire dynamic .. and quite honestly her dynamic in all of her relationships.

when max found out about ginny and marcus, her feelings about it became the center. she was lied to, she was betrayed, and nothing else even mattered. max does have big feelings, and my speculation is that they’re leading up to an OCD (and also possibly an ADHD) diagnosis which would explain why her emotional regulation is a bit off.

when the people around her’s first reaction to her is “don’t make this about you” / “don’t be dramatic” they’re not coming out of nowhere. she, while it’s not all she is, can be a very selfish friend. and abby has had to deal with walking over eggshells around her for most of her life which can be draining when you have big feelings about things yourself.

especially to her point of her exploring new things about her sexuality and not wanting to tell max because of how big she’d make it when she didn’t even know what to make of it herself yet.

i do agree that she was being kind of mean, and making unnecessary comments to her, but i do see her point of view.

with ginny & max, i think that it’s not as complicated. people keep bringing up that max “made” ginny and she was always loyal to her but i don’t think it has anything to do with loyalty. ginny has been through more in her short time of living than most adults, and throughout the whole show she has gone through it mostly alone. in your very worst moments of your life the people who you can talk to are the people you tend to keep around, and the people you can’t— fall out naturally. i think ginny and max did grow apart. ginny could never really talk to max about her mom from the beginning.

i’d even go as far as to say i don’t think that ginny and max were ever compatible friends in the first place. max represented who ginny wanted to be but never got a chance to be. but now ginny is coming into her own and becoming her own person and i don’t think at this very moment max fits there. but this doesn’t mean she never will, everyone in this situation has a lot of growing to do.

both ginny and abby are avoidant people. when ginny tells bracia about her self harming, and bracia reacts (like a person who hasnt been turned by trauma does) ginny immediately gets uncomfortable and starts backtracking.

ginny quite literally has to trauma dump to abby to get her to admit that she has an eating disorder and during that she drops that she had an abortion like it was a casual thing. these are not emotionally developed teens at all.

and then on the flip side with max, she’s anxiously attached, she is overbearing, she wants everyone to talk about feelings and be attached at the hip and if you don’t comply with that her feelings get hurt. and that’s a lot for anyone, but especially teenagers who got their own stuff going on.

and of course they could’ve been nicer to her. of course they could’ve had a discussion with her. but because they are teenagers and they are emotionally immature i can see both sides. and i don’t think abby and ginny are mean girls. i also don’t think max is in the wrong. i just think it’s a very impossible situation. and it makes me sad.

now as for norah, i don’t know what’s going on with that girl like she just flip flops i’m gonna need an explanation in season 4.

joe & georgia

#ENDGAME .. which we knew. like everyone knew, if you say you didn’t know — yes you did.

i have been rooting for georgia and joe from the first episode, i really do love the childhood friends to lovers story and this one really does have a twist.

but i do have a problem, and a few questions just bare with me.

where does he fit into georgia’s growth? because he had a very abnormal reaction to her being a murderer — like i’m sorry widening your eyes a little isn’t enough for me. this is a woman that kills people and has lied about doing so for months. and you believed her! y’all just cool now? i don’t think so!

so now we have to know is he going to reform her or is he also hiding a secret bloodlust because i am not down with that bonnie and clyde stuff i’m sorry.

ginny did a LOT to protect her mom and she says to her point blank: “prove to me that i didn’t make a mistake setting you free.” so now we have someone who loves georgia so much that he just doesn’t care that she kills people and that she killed cynthia’s husband because she genuinely believed it was the right thing to do (it wasn’t!).. that needs to be addressed. especially because she feels that what ginny did was wrong, and that austin is going to be messed up by it and she’s also seeking therapy. she’s developing a moral compass and joe seemingly doesn’t have one. that worries me soooo bad.

anyway, those are my thoughts on the major plot points in the new season of ginny & georgia. need them to get back in the lab ASAP.

please comment your thoughts on my thoughts, i really am excited to talk about this with everyone as people finish the season!

P.S. ginny haters being reformed. #GINNYDEFENSESQUAD

(it’s kinda annoying that it took her becoming georgia and becoming morally corrupt to make it happen but a win is a win)

until next time!