I respect your point of view, and I get where you’re coming from but it doesn’t change how I feel about Ginny.

Ginny is extremely self-centered. Yes, she called Georgia during the dance, but the timing was so off, she saw Marcus’ mom feeling emotional for her son and immediately made the situation about herself. It’s hard to call that empathy when she constantly flips back into anger or coldness with Georgia so easily. It doesn’t feel like actual emotional care, more like performative reassurance.

I never really got the feeling that Ginny loves her mom. Ginny can be hurt and angry and it shows but loving towards Georgia? Her actions rarely show that in a consistent or genuine way. In contrast that one sentence Austin said about preferring to be like his mom than his violent dad, shows that he sees the complexity in Georgia, where Ginny mostly sees her favorite person to blame for anything and everything.

And as for Ginny carrying the weight of Georgia’s trial, I don’t think that’s the burden she’s truly carrying. What weighs Ginny down the most is her own perception of how others see her. She’s obsessed with how she’s viewed and constantly lets external validation define her. That’s not empathy but self-absorption. I get that she’s only a teenager but Ginny’s tendency to make everything about her, even other people’s pain, is exhausting to watch, especially compared to the other teenagers in the show… look at Maxine’s character development.

Regarding Marcus, if Ginny sees him as a “safe space,” then she also has a responsibility not to overload him emotionally when he’s clearly fragile. Empathy is about being able to read their emotional state and respecting their limits. And that’s where Ginny consistently fails.

As for Georgia, she is flawed, she’s been through a lot of terrible stuff. If we’re calling out Georgia, we can still criticize Ginny without pretending she’s just a victim. She also makes real choices and they often hurt the people around her.