Ginny & Georgia Season 3 Ending Explained

Tudum is on the soundstage while Howey, Antonia Gentry (Ginny), and the rest of the cast film the final scenes of Georgia’s trial, and we’re waiting with bated breath. When Georgia’s son, Austin (Diesel La Torraca), takes the stand and admits to witnessing Tom Fuller’s (Vincent Legault) murder, we’re thinking the same thing that’s written all over Georgia’s face: “This is that WTF moment.” 

PHOTO BY AMANDA MATLOVICH

That was also the guidance Howey received from director Darnell Martin. Georgia thought Austin was just going to say he was upstairs and didn’t see anything. “Georgia probably coached him with that,” Howey says. But when her youngest confirms he saw the murder, her heart sinks. She’s thinking, “Oh my God, is my own son about to sell me out?” 

But that’s not all. Austin actually frames his father, Gil (Aaron Ashmore), for the murder his mother committed. “It’s an out-of-body moment,” Howey says after wrapping the scene. “Georgia was fully resigned to the fact she was going away, so this completely rips the rug out from under her.” That shocking twist is all thanks to the machinations of her daughter, Ginny, whose smile as she watches her chess pieces move into place at the trial is an exact replica of her mother’s.

“Ginny is fully turning into Georgia by the end of the season,” Gentry explains. “Georgia giving up [on fighting the charges, thinking she’s finally been cornered into surrender] is something that really ignited the flame in Ginny that’s like, ‘No, you’re not allowed to give up. I’ve never seen you give up. That freaks me out, so now I’m going to have to be you in order to fix this. Because you won’t be you.’ ” Remember, Ginny hired her dad’s girlfriend, Simone (Vinessa Antoine), to be her mom’s lawyer. Ginny blackmailed Cynthia (Sabrina Grdevich) into saying Gil could have been present at her house the night of the murder. And Ginny convinced her brother to choose one parent over the other. Checkmate.

So what now? Allow creator Sarah Lampert, showrunner Sarah Glinski, Howey, Gentry, and the rest of the cast to break down the end of the season.

PHOTO BY AMANDA MATLOVICH

So was Georgia ever going to end up in jail at the end of Ginny & Georgia Season 3?

Lampert has the whole story of Ginny & Georgia planned out. “When we had to develop the storyline for Season 2, we knew exactly what we wanted Season 3 to be. Georgia needed to kill someone, and she needed to kill someone in Wellsbury, Massachusetts,” she told Tudum last season. So now that we’re in the midst of it, and with the series already renewed for Season 4, Lampert is here to tell you what she wanted Season 3 to “be” — a season to break all the characters while offering the possibility to then rebuild. And that meant one thing, she says: “We had to break Georgia.” How more definitively to do that than to have her face a viral murder trial in the town she moved to in Season 1 for a fresh start?

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Georgia is a woman who is all about running away from the ugliness of her past, and striving for a brighter future. In her mind, the other murders she committed (her two ex-husbands) were justified by the fact that she was trying to protect either herself or her children from a bad man who was out to harm them, as well as being triggered by the abuse she went through as a child at the hands of her stepfather. She regarded those men as bees — therefore she’d always sting first. “What was different about Tom was that he wasn’t a bad man,” says Lampert. “But she took it upon herself to really act as judge, jury, and executioner in a new way.”

For all three seasons, Lampert and her team worked closely with Mental Health America and consulted a licensed psychologist for the characters’ mental health journeys. In Season 2, Lampert asked her, “ ‘What would have to happen for Ginny and Georgia to have a good relationship?’ She said, ‘Ginny would need to establish firm boundaries with her mother, and Georgia would need to finally understand that her actions have implications on her children and consequences, because right now she doesn’t see that.’ We really worked in Season 3 on breaking Georgia’s soul with the option of then trying to rebuild her in Season 4.” That said, they knew they’d figure out a way for Georgia to wriggle her way out of real jail time.

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Where does Ginny and Georgia’s relationship stand at the end of Season 3?

Georgia is set free because of her daughter’s choices. By the finale, Ginny has come to terms with what she doesn’t want to happen — her mom going to prison and her brother potentially moving away with Gil, never to be seen again. “She viscerally reacts to that and does whatever it takes to prevent that from happening,” Gentry says. Ginny knows her mom’s fate is in her hands, and she fully accepts that it’s “on her.” 

Unlike last season, Ginny isn’t struggling with the burden of protecting her mother by keeping her secrets. She’d long hoped that the adults in her life would finally notice and clock her mother’s behaviors. But when they do, it’s not exactly what Ginny wanted. “We see her really change in that regard, where she’s like, ‘You know what? I don’t care. If this means that I have to manipulate people and blackmail, I’ll do it.’ Like mother, like daughter,” Gentry says.

Gentry is curious how Georgia will react going forward. “It’s going to be a very fun new version of Ginny that we get to witness, and maybe going into next season we get to see more of that.” 

Howey, on the other hand, thinks Georgia is terrified that she’s seeing herself in Ginny. Georgia’s entire mission in life was to make sure Ginny never had to make the kind of hard decisions she’d had to make. “Georgia’s incredibly grateful that they were so savvy, and she didn’t have to go to prison for the rest of her life,” Howey says. “But once Georgia realizes how her kids manipulated this situation, it’s quite sobering. It’s also the final straw that leads Georgia to finally want to go to therapy, to finally break the cycle. She’s now seeing in very real terms what her actions have done to her children, because now her children are re-creating her actions.”

How does Austin, Ginny, and Georgia’s family dynamic change at the end of Ginny & Georgia Season 3?

Howey sees the family post-trial as both fractured and connected. “It’s a level of love and sacrifice on so many levels,” she says. “It’s devastating for Georgia to realize the burden of guilt that is now on both of her children and how it’s going to affect them negatively.”

Showrunner Glinski points out that “the most important thing to Georgia are her kids,” and putting them through the wringer of this trial and murder has to have implications. “We thought the biggest consequences are how her children are changed through the process. The burden she leaves on Austin and Ginny at the end of Season 3 is what we’ll have to deal with in Season 4.”

Then again, Ginny sees forcing her brother’s hand to help their mom as a necessary evil. “In the back of her mind, she’s aware of how what she’s done to him is what Georgia has done to her, over and over again,” Gentry says. “Poor Austin, this kid has gone through so much.” At the same time, Ginny wants to protect her brother from turning into Gil, his abusive father who finally begins to form a close bond with his son while living together in Season 3. “[Austin] says, ‘I’d rather be like my mom than my dad,’ earlier on in the season,” Gentry says. “[Ginny’s] like, ‘Well, I’m Mom now. In order for you to not turn out like your dad, I have to make you do this.”

Ginny also reminds her mom in the finale that, “We carry the weight too. We always have.” For Lampert, that’s a really poignant moment for the mother-daughter pair. “It’s you and me against the world,” Georgia says in the very first episode of the series. It’s her creed for raising her kids, and always has been — which “is a really unhealthy and unfair thing to put on them,” Lampert says. Beginning to realize that now, at the end of Season 3, says the creator, “is a very powerful place for her to start the next season from, in a position of really wanting to change and knowing that what’s at stake is her relationship with her kids.”

Was Gil always meant to be the fall guy in Ginny & Georgia Season 3?

Oh yeah, without a doubt. Think back to the title of Season 2, Episode 9, “Kill Gil,” in which Gil accosts Georgia and their son, Austin, shoots him in the arm to protect her. That title choice was purposeful, “to kind of trick audiences into thinking, ‘Oh, maybe we’re going to kill Gil,’ ” says Lampert. “We did not kill Gil because we knew in Season 3 we’d need a fall guy. We’d need someone to take the fall for the murder. So that was always our setup and our plan.”

Ashmore didn’t know his fate when he joined the cast in Season 2. “That came as quite a surprise, but I think it’s really interesting for Austin to have to make that choice,” he says. “He’s playing it as if it’s a difficult choice, but I think it’s an easy choice. You go with your mom, not your criminal dad.”

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Is this the last we’ve seen of Gil in Ginny & Georgia?

You might remember that Gil went to jail previously because Georgia framed him (to protect herself and her children from his domestic abuse). So seeing Austin frame him the same way his ex did feels like the ultimate betrayal. “In jail, the only thing that kept him going and that he was looking forward to was hopefully reuniting with his son,” Ashmore says. Even though Gil obviously doesn’t know the full truth, he blames Georgia for turning his son against him when they were just starting to form a relationship. “He knows Georgia. He knows what she’s capable of. For his son to be the one to throw him under the bus is brutal,” Ashmore says. “If that poor kid didn’t need therapy, he certainly needs it now.”

As for Season 4, the actor doesn’t know where Gil will go next, since he’s on parole. But Howey reminds us, “Look, the last time Georgia framed Gil, we thought that was the last time we were going to see him, and then he got out — so I would imagine there’s more to the story.”

Was there ever a world where Cynthia would have helped frame Gil without the blackmail?

“No, because Cynthia’s a really righteous person,” says Sabrina Grdevich, who plays the Wellsbury mom. “The notion of what is right and wrong is really important to her.” 

Ginny blackmailing her for having an affair with Joe (Raymond Ablack) forces Cynthia to save her own skin to avoid being considered a suspect — not to mention that she definitely recognizes a violent man when she sees one. In Season 2, she blocked Gil’s apartment application after witnessing him become violent toward Georgia at their kids’ elementary school. This season, she pulls pepper spray on him when he grabs Ginny’s arm in the hall. “She sees that Georgia’s kids are potentially suffering and Georgia’s not around, so she steps in, because that’s just what you’re called to do as a mother,” says Grdevich. “But she needed the blackmailing to go, ‘Oh my God,’ and then doesn’t feel too bad about it because of what Gil is clearly capable of.”

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Speaking of child care, what does it mean to Ginny that Zion is going to file for joint custody?

Ginny’s dad, Zion (Nathan Mitchell), officially filing for custody is Gentry’s favorite part of the season. “Can we please, please have Zion in Ginny’s life in a meaningful way?” And the fact that Georgia doesn’t protest is a huge step for her. “For Georgia’s arc, some of these final moments we see from her in Episodes 9 and 10 might seem small on the outside. But for Georgia not to throw a fit that Zion wants custody and that Ginny wants Zion to have partial custody is enormous growth for Georgia.”

Ginny’s relationship with her dad is special, as he’s the one who has always encouraged her to write poetry as a form of self-expression. She ends the season as a Youth Poet Laureate, performing one of her poems in front of her entire school. Zion is about to take her on a summer trip to South Korea, like he’d promised since she was a kid. “Zion has operated with the notion of ‘Georgia knows best,’ and he’s learning that he also has a right as a father to take up space in her life the same way Georgia wants to take up space,” Mitchell tells Tudum. “Just because she’s Ginny’s mom doesn’t make him any less her father.” 

The end of Season 3 leaves room for the possibility that Zion and Georgia might be able to repair their frayed relationship now that he knows more about Georgia’s past. “He always knew Georgia had a more rebellious, darker side, but he thought she walked up to the ledge rather than jumping over,” Mitchell says. “We see their relationship grow a little more complex, where it might never be what it once was. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not still family, that they’re not still on the same team. And hopefully, eventually, we’ll get back to that.”

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Why was Season 3 the right time for Joe and Georgia to finally hook up?!

We all know Georgia’s dynamism is one of her superpowers, and she receives something unique from each of her three love interests: Zion; her (estranged) husband, Mayor Paul (Scott Porter); and Blue Farm Café owner Joe (Raymond Ablack). “With Joe, the thing that he gives her is this authenticity and this ability to not wear a mask,” Lampert says. “She’s still performing for Paul.” 

Georgia’s love with Paul is real, but it’s also transactional — he gets a picture-perfect family and wife, while she gets the status his civic position brings. “When [their marriage] starts to become threatened, we see Paul and her relationship put under serious strain, because perception and outside presentation is hugely important to both of them,” Lampert says. “With Joe, perception means nothing.”

The fact that Joe doesn’t care what other people think of him frees Georgia to allow her to be her real, unfiltered self. “Joe is one of the few people she’s always felt comfortable around, and we get to see the most genuine Georgia with Joe,” Howey says. She gets to act her age: a young, early-30s woman. “With Joe, we see a sliver of who Georgia could have grown up to be if she never got pregnant at 16, if she never joined the Blood Eyes, if she never killed anybody.” Being with Joe helps Georgia start healing her inner child that had to grow up too fast because of all she’s been through. The dynamic was evident between the actors, too, says Lampert. “He brings out the more playful side of her, and Ray brings that out in Bri, which makes their chemistry really fun to watch on screen.”

In a season where you strip a main character of all her masks, presentation, and perception, who’s still riding for her? “The answer to that in this season really is Joe,” says Lampert. Especially when Georgia’s hit true rock bottom and everyone’s left her, “to have someone like Joe just be her friend and still even make eye contact with her, hug her, talk to her, and ask her how she is, is monumental,” adds Howey. He’s safe and feels like home. 

According to Glinski, “It’s the first time where we really get to see her be vulnerable with a man in a really true way where she’s not still masking it a bit. She needs that when she’s lost everything.” 

Joe doesn’t judge Georgia when she unveils all her dirtiest secrets because he’s also the kind of guy who isn’t above doing something underhanded in order to get by. After all, like Georgia, he does appreciate a good scam. So when she tells him this is goodbye and attempts to go on the lam, he takes the shot he’s always longed to take. Until now, “there’s always been a lot left unsaid between the two of them,” Ablack says. “I hope the fans feel excited or paid off for what we’ve built thus far.”

So is Georgia pregnant?

Lampert can confirm that yes, indeed, Georgia is pregnant. But we don’t know who the dad is. This season, “Ginny gets pregnant, Georgia fakes a pregnancy, and then Georgia really gets pregnant, and we don’t know who the dad is. And when you say these things out loud, you’re like, ‘What in the world is this show?!’ ” Lampert jokes.

Gentry knew that Ginny getting pregnant this season was a plan Lampert wanted for Season 3. “The show is really just about how Ginny and Georgia are mirrors and reflections of each other,” the actor says. “Ginny going through a pregnancy the same way that Georgia did, but having the support system in her decision for what to do about it, is the key difference between the two.” Georgia opens up the space for Ginny to make the choice for herself, letting her daughter know that she has options and unconditional love no matter what she decides.

But as Ginny watches her mom down milk from the fridge after sleeping with both Paul and Joe in recent days, Gentry knows her character’s reaction is a little less measured. It’s more “Are you kidding me?” And since Austin and Ginny (Virginia) are both named after where they were born, Gentry is curious to know, “What is the name of this kid going to be? Wellsbury? Massachusetts?”

Howey’s reaction? “Oh, the irony. The irony. The irony!” 

Who’s the father of Georgia’s baby in Ginny & Georgia Season 3?

Do we seriously not know who the dad is? That is correct! We do not. But Howey has some perspective on whether she hopes it’s Paul or Joe. “Seeing the way things ended [between Georgia and Paul], seeing all of our true colors, and what we brought out of one another, I think the healthiest option for everyone was probably for that relationship to dissolve,” she says. “And perhaps someone new is about to be a dad.”

Ablack is certainly holding out hope for Joe. If it were Paul, “I would die of a broken heart,” he says.

What’s the real story with Georgia’s parents?

In Season 3, we see Georgia’s dad call her from jail to warn her about her mom. Georgia had always thought her father had been sentenced to jail because he tried to kill both her and her mom when she was a child, but it appears that might not be the case. And in the finale, we see Georgia’s mom and stepdad drive by the family home in Wellsbury — meaning they’ve found “Mary.”

Where will these breadcrumbs lead next season? Lampert and Glinski can tease that the official theme of Season 4 is “Cycles and Origins.”

Howey has chills thinking about how we’ll finally meet Georgia’s family and get a little bit more of her origin story. “Sarah [Lampert] has some incredible things planned, and I can’t wait to see more about the circumstances that shaped Georgia,” she says. She’s excited to see Georgia have a lot of “Ginny moments.” Georgia’s been lied to about her family, but now she’s on the verge of learning a lot about her past that she never knew. “We’re going to need that therapist.”

PHOTO BY AMANDA MATLOVICH

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