[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Ginny & Georgia Season 3.]

Georgia Miller (Brianne Howey) was able to evade prison, thanks to Ginny (Antonia Gentry) and Austin (Diesel La Torraca), but her marriage to Mayor Paul Randolph (Scott Porter) didn’t receive a “get out of jail free” card in Ginny & Georgia Season 3. As Georgia went on trial for Tom Fuller’s death, her marriage to Paul crumbled.

The newlyweds were torn apart by a plethora of issues, including a pregnancy lie, Wellsbury politics, and a shocking fight that led to Paul punching a wall. By the end of Season 3, Georgia and Paul felt like strangers.

To unpack it all, Scott Porter spoke with TV Insider about Paul and Georgia’s last words to each other, that pregnancy twist, and his hopes for Season 4.

Do you think Paul knew in his gut from the beginning that Georgia was guilty?

Scott Porter: I think Paul says as much in their final confrontation as a couple this season. He says to her, “Don’t you want to know why I never asked if you did it?” Because he doesn’t ever ask her. He knows that she did it for him, and this is the really tough thing for Paul. He just wanted her to tell him, and he’s been asking for Georgia to let him in for seasons now. In Season 2, the infamous argument in the elves’ house at the Santa party, he says, “I just need you to let me in. I can’t be a real partner for you unless you trust me.” And for some reason, Georgia never really did. That’s at least how Paul feels. He says to her, “I could have protected you, I could have protected us, if you just would have trusted me, if I knew what was coming. We could have worked together.” But she just never did. I think that was, most of all, what was so heartbreaking for him. He was all the way in, and she never truly was, and that’s what leads to their downfall.

After lying about being pregnant, Georgia actually is pregnant at the end of the season, and Paul could be the father.

Porter: I don’t know where this storyline is going in Season 4, but I foresee Paul being very fool me once in this situation. I don’t know how he can believe her at all anymore. First, it was secrets that she kept, and then a blatant lie to manipulate him to save her, even though he has said before, “I am not going to save you, you are going to save yourself,” which is why he was such a good match for her for so long. And for me, it’s so frustrating to watch this go back and forth because Paul really was, I think, a perfect fit for Georgia in so many ways, but now it’s just broken. If it is Paul’s, that will be intriguing to see how that plays out, but for him to even believe that this is real is going to be quite a feat.

How do you think Paul would react if he found out about Georgia and Joe?

Porter: The interesting thing about Paul is that he reacts in ways you don’t expect him to. In Season 1, for example, he’s like, “You went back and slept with your ex, who is also the father of your daughter. When he shows up in town out of nowhere, of course that happened, but I’m not going anywhere because I know I’m better for you than he is.” No one expected that out of Paul. In Season 2, he really steps up and tries to be a parent with no experience prior. I think a lot of people didn’t expect that of Paul. His parents tell him, “She is not the woman for you.” And he says, “No, I’m doing things differently than you two did, whether it’s politically or in relationships. You’re not going to tell me what’s best for me.” And he’s done all of these things. He’s very surprising in this aspect. Looking at a possible Joe and Georgia relationship, I could very well see Paul, while having initial reaction that’s a little bit of frustration and anger, also leaning back and going, this makes sense. Paul is a mostly level-headed, goal-oriented man, right? I could see him very simply going, “Georgia is no longer my partner, and she’s no longer my problem.” This makes sense. And Joe? Godspeed.

One of my favorite things over Season 3 is Joe and Paul’s evolving relationship. Is it a friendship?

Porter: I think maybe Zion and Paul have become that, but the banter between Joe and Paul feels like two guys who have really known each other for a very long time. The fact that Paul is willing to open up to Joe a number of times in Season 3, whether drunkenly or not, and tell him things that maybe he wouldn’t tell anybody else, has been such a really cool thing.

Let’s unpack the final scene between Georgia and Paul in the Season 3 finale. He tells Georgia that she turned him “into the worst possible version” of himself and calls her “insidious.”

Porter: Sarah Lampert and myself talked about this scene an awful lot, and we hadn’t found the word “insidious” for quite some time. There were other phrases that were being tossed around, and we happened upon “insidious” at one point. We had a discussion about it, and that was a very particular choice of words because he has been through this situation, poisoned almost in a way, against her. He believes that she’s the one who is the cause of it, and he has put every ounce of himself into becoming mayor of this town, pulling this town into the future, fighting the old establishment in Wellsbury and trying to open their eyes to a great deal of other things. He loves this town, and now the town is against him. He’s being recalled. His entire career is falling apart, as well as his relationship, and he can think of nothing but the fact that she’s at the root of it all. Something insidious is something that burrows inside of you and then just spreads. In this moment, he kind of is seething and feels that word. Do I think he truly believes it? I’m not sure, but yes, he is the most wounded that we have ever seen Paul in that moment. We just wanted to make it clear that Paul has really turned a corner with Georgia. Up until now, we’ve always seen him come back and say, “Please, just one more chance. Tell me the truth. We can get through this, please. Just one more chance.” But after she lies to him about being pregnant, he realizes that he has just been a tool for her, and he doesn’t understand how a human being can act like that to those around them that they love, unless they are just insidious, unless they are just manipulative and just selfish.

That’s how he feels. He feels that he was wrong the whole time. He believed that she was great, and now he is just shattered. Maybe he is just placing blame in the wrong place. But that’s where he feels right now. We were very particular with the way that they spoke to each other in the final two scenes that we see between them, both the fight in the kitchen and then the scene in his office. The scene in his office is almost more damaging to the two of them.

Courtesy of Netflix

And then there’s that line Georgia says as she walks out the door: “I didn’t make you anything that wasn’t in there already.” What is going through his head when she says that back to him?

Porter: I think there’s a part of him that knows it. I’ve fielded questions over the first couple of seasons because everybody has wanted Paul to be hiding darkness or be a little bit underhanded in his own right, like there’s a twist coming. And I think the twist was that there wasn’t anything coming. He’s a very thoughtful partner who’s very career-oriented. He wants to succeed on his own in a different way than his father did. He doesn’t love all politics. He doesn’t love the conservative nature of this town at all times. He doesn’t love a certain number of things, and he wants to forge his own path. But over time, Paul realizes he can’t stay clean if he wants to change the world because you have to get a little dirty. And then when he saw Georgia, he realized, “We could be the perfect pair. I can stay clean. You do the dirty work. We’re perfect for each other, and I can protect us.” And that’s where he feels like he failed the most. He did not protect that relationship. He did not protect himself through it all, either. He allowed this level of exposure to everything that came along with Georgia to really overtake and almost destroy everything he’s built. He made these decisions, though, and I think at his core, Paul understands that.

When she says, “I didn’t make you anything that wasn’t already there,” it is Paul’s final reckoning. I’ve been using the word “reckoning” for this season a lot, but Paul’s final reckoning is, “You know what? Maybe I’m not as clear of conscience. Maybe I’m not as clean as I like to believe that I am.” Most of the season was watching Georgia’s support be stripped away. At the end of the season, it’s Paul who is left alone with no support, with no one around him any longer that he can count on. I think he realizes that in that moment, it’s quite possible he is responsible for putting himself there, not her.

Paul is really out of allies. It’ll be interesting to see how that changes him. Could we see a new Paul in Season 4? 

Porter: I think what I would like to see in Season 4 is more of a return to who we saw at the beginning of Season 1 where he finally says, “I am good at what I do, and it is time for me to get back to who I am.” I think a lot of Paul has been split in half. I think a lot of his energy has been put into this partnership with Georgia, and it is taken away from what he’s capable of. I really think that Paul and Georgia are both forces in their own right. If Paul can respond from being backed into this corner with focus and with his natural talents and try to rebound from all of this, I think that could be a really interesting place to see Paul in Season 4. Not as a broken, wounded man, but as a confident person who says, “I’m good at what I do. And you want to step up to me, bring it on.” We could see a competitive version of him. I’d love to get back to some of this banter that we saw between Paul and Georgia in Season 1 and see this kind of biting tone that he can have sometimes as a politician. We saw a lot of that in Seasons 1 and 2, and we saw way less of it. In Season 3, he became fractured, and he no longer had that smart-witted ability to guide himself through conversations in a very political way. I’m hoping that we see that part of Paul again pop up in Season 4.

How do you think Georgia would react to Paul getting another love interest? 

Porter: I think as far as women go, I can’t. Paul is broken in that field. And quite frankly, I’m not sure, even in this state, that Paul believes any woman could really stack up to who Georgia was when he first proposed to her. I think Paul says it all at the end of Season 3 when he says to Joe, “You’ll never understand until you’ve been with a woman like that.” I think Paul believes what he says there. She shattered him, and finding someone like her is going to be nearly impossible, and I’m not sure Paul’s looking to go into that arena again anytime soon.

Ginny & Georgia, Season 3, Streaming Now, Netflix