🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐
What would an angsty teen drama be without a cute boy climbing through his crush’s bedroom window?
Luckily, that’s not something we have to worry about on Ginny & Georgia. Back in Season 1, we met Felix Mallard’s Marcus Baker, the skateboarding, nihilistic neighbor who lives just across the street from the Millers — i.e. Ginny, (Antonia Gentry) and Georgia (Brianne Howey).
Throughout the first season, Marcus is forbidden fruit for Ginny since he’s the twin brother of her new best friend Max (Sara Waisglass). But in the end, their hidden love for each other boils over and they dive headfirst into a full-fledged relationship in Season 2. “From the moment that they meet, he knows that he’s going to be in her life; it’s instant,” Mallard tells Tudum. “And what I love about Marcus and Ginny, specifically, is that the love is constant.”
Constant, but not necessarily consistent. By the end of Season 2, that love has transformed into friendship, since Marcus can’t offer anything more due to his all-consuming depression. “Even though he does have that love from Ginny, he doesn’t think he deserves it,” says Mallard.
Season 2 sees Mallard portray an inner turmoil that so often goes unspoken, especially by young men. “So much of the show is about showing how hard it is to grow up, and reflecting that everyone has a battle that you can’t necessarily see,” he says.
Mallard felt a “sense of responsibility” in telling Marcus’ storyline this season. It made him revisit how “angry and depressed and sad” he himself was at 15. “Getting to watch it back was validating,” he says. “To look at how I was at that age and go, ‘It’s OK, other people can go through that, too.’ ”
In the first season, Marcus tells Ginny about the painful period he went through after his best friend’s death. But in Season 2, his “old familiar friend” has returned, and he’s back in the room of sharp pain and overwhelming numbness. As Marcus says in Episode 8, which he poignantly narrates, “You never really know what’s going on inside someone else’s head.”
The episode serves as a spyglass into Marcus’ brain. Up until that point, he’s been hiding what’s really going on with him from Ginny, desperate to feel happy that he’s finally with her. But when he realizes that his girlfriend can’t be solely responsible for his happiness, he ultimately makes the heartbreaking decision to end their relationship.
“That is so heavy,” says Waisglass of her on-screen brother’s turmoil and the unintentional burden on Ginny. “It’s too big a responsibility for one person. Of course you want to be that for someone, but no one can.”
And Marcus is hesitant to realize what he perceives as his responsibility to cut Ginny loose throughout the season because, for the first four or five episodes, “he’s in a relationship, he’s happy, he’s being loved, he’s giving love, and everything’s going OK,” says Mallard. “That’s new for him — I don’t think he’s ever experienced that before.” While Marcus has hooked up with Padma (Rebecca Ablack) before meeting Ginny, this is his first serious relationship, which is why he wants to let her go rather than drag her down. As he admits in Episode 8, “I don’t have it in me to be loved right now,” nor does he “have room for anyone else’s pain right now.”
For Mallard, Marcus’ downward momentum began back in Episode 4, when Georgia made him promise not to be a hindrance in her daughter’s life. “That’s where it started for me, in that scene,” Mallard says. “The moment that Georgia reminds him, ‘Hey, you’re damaged, you’re going to start holding her back,’ is the moment that he starts that spiral of not thinking that he’s worthy.”
Despite feeling inadequate, Marcus still provides an invaluable safe space for Ginny after she turns to him to unburden some of Georgia’s worst secrets. “To know that Ginny has that in Marcus –– even Georgia can set her pride aside for half a beat and say, ‘You gave my daughter that and thank you,’ ” says Howey. “It’s such an important gift in life that not everybody has the luxury of having.”
While Ginny turns to Marcus in her moments of need, Marcus also finds safe spaces that he hasn’t previously tapped into. The Baker twins put their incessant quarreling aside and really show up for each other when it matters. It was a dynamic that Waisglass and Mallard were eager to explore. “In Season 1, a lot of people asked, ‘What would you like to see in Season 2?’ And that was my main thing,” says Waisglass. “All of our bickering did come from a place of love, we just didn’t get to see that place a lot.”
Max is the first person Marcus really starts to confide in about his depression resurfacing, and she tells their parents that she’s worried about him. Meanwhile, Marcus is the one to remind Max that her emotional fearlessness and honesty are her superpower when she’s scared about getting hurt again romantically. “That’s genuinely one of my favorite scenes, in the whole, whole show,” Mallard says. “He’s really perceptive, and his love and his care for people around him –– even though he might not show it –– goes quite deep.”
A deep, perceptive boy next door — and he also plays guitar? Yep, Season 2 sees Marcus embrace his musical talents as an outlet, playing the guitar in a jam session and tickling the ivories with Ginny in her room. “Man can shred,” says Waisglass. And it’s all Mallard, too. “It was all improv-y, just kind of jamming stuff on the day with Hunter (Mason Temple),” says Mallard. “It was super fun.”
Going forward, Mallard is hopeful we’ll see more of those little glimmers of joy for Marcus. “I’d just love him to find a way to not just be happy, but also content,” he says.
Season 2 of Ginny & Georgia is now streaming.
If you or someone you know is suffering from depression, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) or go to www.samhsa.gov
