Ginny and Georgia is a modern drama that was released on Netflix in late February 2021. It gained significant traction that created an increasingly devoted fanbase the following year for its cinematically thrilling storytelling and brilliantly complex characters. The story follows a dysfunctional mother and daughter—Ginny and Georgia Miller—as they move across the country following the sudden death of Georgia’s husband, hoping for a fresh start. Unbeknownst to them, their horrific past would follow them all the way to the fictional town of Wellsbury, Massachusetts, where Georgia’s secrets begin to unravel in front of the rest of the world. The show presents dark themes involving murder, sexual assault, depression, narcissism, and self-harm, in which the writers handled these triggering subjects with a considerable degree of grace that offers a thick layer of astounding realism that sometimes hits too close to home.

The first thing I tell everyone when they decide to watch Ginny and Georgia is that patience is imperative. At first, none of the characters appear as they seem, and, over the course of three seasons, all varying perspectives are eventually revealed to be unreliable to a certain degree, specifically with what I deem to be one of television history’s most controversial and complex characters, Georgia Miller: mother, wife, schemer, and murderer. Georgia is a woman who, like any assumed mother, would kill, lie, and betray those closest to her for the sake of her children. To Georgia, nothing and nobody else comes above her son and daughter, Ginny and Austin, and she is shown throughout the show to go to extremes to keep them shielded from harm. Though the contrary part is that, in doing so, it did more harm than good, which led to mistakes that inevitably came back to haunt not only her, but her children.

The first episode, eerily, opens with a funeral. Georgia, ever so graceful, plays the part of a grieving widow in a way that would convince God himself that she was innocent. To everyone around her, she was a delicate flower that was just as shocked as everyone else at the untimely death of her husband, Kenny Drexel, whom she framed as a good man that she had always loved and who provided for her children. Despite Georgia’s convincing performance, we find that there is one person within the family that doesn’t believe it for a moment; the deceased’s ex-wife—Amber Lynn Drexel—who is said to have always held a grudge against Georgia, and even more so when she’d found out that all of her ex-husband’s money would not be split between Georgia and herself. This pushes her to hire a private investigator to follow Georgia to the next town and take up a fake persona in order to weed out the information he needs. Eventually, he (and the audience) finds out that Georgia’s deceased husband had attempted to molest Georgia’s young daughter, Ginny, for which she had killed him before he had the chance. This event plays like a domino effect that neither she nor anyone around her are able to outrun, eventually being crushed by the weight of her secrets and pulled from under the scrutiny just in time to get off scot-free. The audience is initially led to believe that this was the first incident. However, the details of Georgia’s gory childhood shed light on how she grew as a character.

Georgia Miller was abused, damaged, and left with a twisted perception of “love” and how to show it. With hardly anyone there to help her but herself—at least, this is what she believed—she strived to give her kids the carefree childhood that she never had, hopping through wealthy men, moving them from place to place, and stealing what nobody offered her along the way. She did everything she could to shield them from the harshness of the world, but her efforts proved to be in vain, as her kids began to unbury the taboos of her past. For everything Georgia did, there was a reason—an explanation to possibly justify her actions even beyond the incident with her ex-husband. She did everything out of love and concern for the people that meant the most to her. Though her heart was typically in the right place, she grew over-confident in the way she handled her problems, leading to the belief from apprehensive viewers that Georgia appointed herself as God.

Her decision to murder her second husband immediately tells us from the beginning where her loyalties lie; Georgia was a mother willing to do what a lot of others have failed to do when presented with the choice to choose between marriage and parenthood. It also shows us a crucial side to her, the one that’s already kissed her soul goodbye a long time ago, but figured it wasn’t too late for her kids. In the first half of the show, she’s simply presented as a woman that would do what any good mother would do for their daughter. Even when it was revealed a little later that she’d killed her first husband for being abusive, she was seen as a mere child trying to find her way out of an abusive situation. It’s understandable, and dare I say, even relatable. At least, until Georgia claims her third victim: the critically ill husband of a neighbor that she has a complicated connection to.

Tom Fuller wasn’t an abusive man, and Georgia didn’t have any good reason to kill him. Tom was dying, anyway, she’d reason. He lay in bed, day after day, unable to move, talk, or live. He had to be cared for and looked after 24/7. At one point in the show, we observe a conversation between Georgia and Cynthia Fuller, Tom Fuller’s wife, who confides that keeping her husband alive was costing them dearly—mentally and financially—and then mentions off-handedly that she wished “it” would be over with, a comment that Georgia took as encouragement to end the pain once and for all. Cynthia wanders upstairs, and while everyone is distracted, Georgia takes the opportunity to suffocate Tom in his sleep.

It’s a scene that always fascinates me because the incident is viewed from two different perspectives: Austin, Georgia’s son, who was watching from the closet during a game of Hide and Seek, and Georgia’s, who we see crying as she places the pillow over Tom’s face, showing us that it was neither fear, control, nor sick pleasure that she got from doing what she did. No—at this point, to her, it is seen as an act of love, even mercy. And it is unknown why exactly Georgia believes that she, specifically, had to be the one to intervene. After all, murder isn’t some small feat, and the typical person wouldn’t think of it as a consistent method for solving their problems like Georgia does.

Does this answer the ultimate question on why Georgia Miller assumes that she knows what’s best for everyone?

Indeed, it tells us that she’s cut-throat—ruthless, at times, when you cross her or her children. But if one were to guess, I’d say that she doesn’t just see murder as a way to solve everyone’s problems, but an action that only she is willing to do in order to get things done. This doesn’t justify what she did to Cynthia’s husband by any means; however, it is rare to come across characters who weren’t exactly written to be justified, but to just be understood.

Edited by Shaylie Muehl