By: Ayamei Her

Note: In both season 1 and season 2, it mentions some sensitive topics such as: eating disorders, body dysmorphia, depression, self harm, abuse, sexual abuse, racism, and drug abuse. 

If you don’t know what ‘Ginny and Georgia’ is, it is Netflix’s current #1 show and it is full of drama and intensity. In season one, the show introduces a mother with her kids in a car together, on their way to a new town to live in. Georgia (the mom) has moved her two kids (Ginny and Austin) around through many cities and towns. Georgia wanted to settle, and she wanted stability, so she decided on the small town of Wellsbury.

Ginny was upset about the move, she always felt like Georgia was always disrupting her life once she felt as if she had settled in, although Ginny was worried about fitting in and making friends, she made friends quickly with Maxine, and her twin brother Marcus, who lived across the street from Ginny and her family.

At her new school, Maxine introduces Ginny to her friends Abby and Nora, and they become a friend group and combine their initials together to make a name for the group which is “MANG”. 

The first complication is that Ginny develops feelings for her best friend’s twin brother Marcus. Despite those feelings, Ginny starts dating a boy name Hunter. Ginny sneaks Marcus into her room nearly every night though, keeping him close and exploring her feelings for him. Eventually, she cheats on Hunter with Marcus, but inevitably, with time, everyone finds out about Ginny and Marcus’s secret affair. 

Now, with Georgia, she is one of my favorite characters because her back story is just so deep; her character does so well with hiding it. She is clever, playing mind games with people, while most of all trying to be the best mother she can be for her kids. Georgia has a very rough past and decided to hide it from her kids to protect them, she ran away from her abusive home and joined a dangerous biker gang who protected her while she was pregnant with Ginny, raising her alone at the age of 16.

Georgia has done some unspeakable things such as kill people who she felt she had to protect her kids from. She says from time and time again that she does everything for her kids and to protect her kids. 

A private investigator was sent to see into Georgia’s past to see who she really was. He finds out that she has been through a life of crime and pain and tells Ginny that he knows about her mother’s life, and that he doesn’t want someone with a past like Georgia’s to be around Ginny and her brother Austin. After Ginny was told, she put the pieces together and left home with her brother, and that’s how they ended season 1. 

Season 2 starts with showing that Ginny and Austin went and stayed with her father for awhile, and it shows that her mother is angry at Ginny, but misses her kids very much and still has no idea that Ginny knows of the crime Georgia committed. Soon, Ginny tells her father about her self harm, but begs him to not tell her mother, so he secretly puts Ginny in therapy so she can get the professional help she needs.  

During this, Ginny moves back to her mom’s and starts the angsty teen rebel phase where she starts to skip school, smoke, and spontaneously dyes her hair. 

While Ginny starts to seriously date Marcus, Maxine and Nora continue not being friends with Abby and Ginny, but Abby and Ginny start to become friends.

During Ginny and Marcus’s relationship, everything was going great and they seemed to be perfect for each other. But Marcus starts to have a depressive episode and feels like his happiness is only coming from Ginny. He says that it’s not fair to have his happiness depend on one person, and he can’t love her if he can’t love himself, so he decides to break up with Ginny.

Ginny and Abby decide to reconnect with Maxine and Nora, and they all become friends again. During Maxine’s show, that she was acting in for school, Marcus takes Ginny out in the hall and they break up which leaves Ginny heartbroken. 

I won’t spoil the ending of season 2 in case you haven’t watched it, but I would recommend watching the show if you like a roller coaster of emotions and tons of new surprises.

By: Julia Sikorski Roehsner

In 2002, an English woman named Jennifer Worth published a book of memoirs titled ‘Call the Midwife,’ telling the story of her life as a young midwife working in London’s East End beginning in the 1950s. The book was later reissued as ‘Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950’ and became a bestseller.

Worth published several other books, including ‘Shadows of the Workhouse’ and ‘Farewell to the East End’ to complete the Midwife trilogy, before her death in 2011.

‘Call the Midwife,’ the television drama series, premiered its first episode to the United Kingdom via BBC One on January 15, 2012. Since then, the show has expanded to eleven seasons with over 90 episodes, and is currently in the midst of its twelfth season. The series was created by Heidi Thomas, who is also the show’s writer and executive producer (along with Pippa Harris), and is inspired by, and partially based on, the memoirs by Jennifer Worth. Past and present stars include Jessica Raine, Jenny Agutter, Miranda Hart, Helen George, Laura Main, Stephen McGann, and Leonie Elliott.

Season one follows the story of midwife Jenny Lee (the character based on Worth), who arrives at Nonnatus House—run by the Order of St. Raymond Nonnatus, an order of nursing nuns—unprepared for the poverty and terrible living conditions of London’s East End, in a neighborhood called ‘Poplar.’ Unprepared, too, however, is she for the warmth and sense of community she feels from both her colleagues and those they care for.

At Nonnatus, Jenny meets the diversely-characterized group of midwives and nuns, who despite coming from various socio-economic and geographic backgrounds, and having extremely different personality types, all have one thing in common—the desire to do the best they can for their patients.

Jenny departs at the end of season three to pursue work at a cancer hospice, but ‘Call the Midwife’ continues. We learn about the trials and tribulations of nurse-midwives such as Trixie, Cynthia, Phyllis, Barbara, Sister Julienne, Sister Monica Joan, and Shelagh. There are also the outside forces of Dr. Turner and Fred Buckle, who aid Nonnatus House in whatever ways they can.

And, of course, there are the patients. As the show’s name suggests, Nonnatus mainly serves the pregnant women of Poplar, helping them from conception to birth. They also provide care for outbreaks of disease, mysterious illnesses, and complex injuries. The community trusts them, often more than they do any hospital.

Nonnatus House’s occupants are constantly changing, welcoming new nurses and bidding others goodbye. As the cast changes, so do the times; the series progresses through times of thalidomide, tuberculosis, and the novelty of the contraceptive pill.

‘Call the Midwife’ is not afraid to show the gritty parts of childbirth, nor does it shy away from difficult and even controversial topics. We see women who suffer domestic violence, as well as those who desperately seek abortions despite the dangers and illegality. Racism, discrimination, and homophobia are all portrayed. Characters struggle with matters of adoption, addiction, and crises of faith.

‘Call the Midwife’ is not a grim show by any means, but it does not gloss over the realities of those who lived during the times.

I have been a fan of ‘Call the Midwife’ for many years; I’m not sure what it is that draws me in. Perhaps it’s because I find the characters vibrant or the dialogue realistic. Maybe it’s because, as Heidi Thomas put it, “[‘Call the Midwife’ is] telling stories about the human condition, and you can really engage with that, not just matters of society or medicine, but matters of human existence, life, death and birth.” Whatever the case, I would highly recommend the series.

You can watch ‘Call the Midwife’ on Netflix and PBS.

For more information, please visit:

• https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/527872.Jennifer_Worth –
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0118t80
• https://www.pbs.org/call-the-midwife/