Gerica

Gerica is the het ship between Erica Goldberg and Geoff Schwartz from the The Goldbergs fandom.

Season 2
Geoff is part of the group of friends of Barry the younger brother of Erica. When Barry and Erica's best friend Lainey Lewis start dating, they spending all their free time together, neglecting their friends. Erica therefore begins to frequent the JTP (the name with which the group of friends of Barry is called) and after a while tries to exploit them to separate her brother and Lainey, failing miserably.

In short, all three JTP fall in love with Erica, and although she declares that she is not interested in any of them, the three woo her insistently. When Erica admits she tried to split Lainey and Barry because she missed the first one, the two forgive her and Barry convinces his friends to stop courting his sister, telling him that Erica is unable to choose between them. Of the three Geoff is the only one who remains in love with Erica.

Season 3
Erica does not want to go to the school dance and has little opinion of all the boys who attend her school including Geoff. Her father Murray and Lainey inspire Erica to be less selective and she decides to go to the dance with Johnny Atkins, a pompous idiot, but after learning that he also wants to go with another girl, Erica decides that Geoff Schwartz is a "nice idiot "and asks him, but in the end they just go for a ride together. The two seem to have fun and enjoy each other's company.

After seeing music videos of their favorite rappers, the Beastie Boys, Barry and his younger brother Adam form a group called "Tasty Boys", and Geoff joins them just to impress Erica, but fails because of his fear from the stage. In the end it will be Erica herself who sings avoiding a bad impression on her brothers.

On Valentine's Day, Geoff tries them all to conquer Erica: he arrives to send her a hundred roses anonymously, or hiding doves in her locker. However Erica seems annoyed and irritated by all these attentions, with great sadness of Geoff. However, after seeing Barry and Lainey profess their love, Erica realizes she wants the same thing, and begins to stare at Geoff.

Later, Erica is fully aware of Geoff's feelings, but claims to see him only as a friend, but nevertheless he declares that her sincerity only makes her more attractive to him. After seeing their favorite movie, Dirty Dancing, Erica and her mother Beverly decide to do a school dance theme, obtaining the consent of the principal. Bev soon stops supporting Erica's idea when she realizes that the dance can lead to unseemly acts and forces the principal to withdraw the permit. However, Erica continues in the project and tries to recreate the main scene of the film with Geoff, failing miserably. With Beverly's support too, the two try again later, succeeding.

Geoff shows he loves the same music that Erica likes, but for her it's not a valid reason why they start dating. Ironically when Jhonny Atkins makes her passionate about Rush, Erica starts dating him. Geoff, the other JTP, Lainey and Erica's father, Murray do not approve at all, but she continues to frequent Jhonny for the sheer pleasure of spite them. When the two break, Geoff tries to imitate Jhonny, but even this attempt is not successful.

Geoff still tries to impress Erica, without succeeding. Furthermore, Erica signs Geoff's end-of-year diary with an unimportant sentence. However, when the boy gives her a mix of songs made and played by him, Erica realizes that she is in love with Geoff and decides to tell him ... only to find out that Geoff has now resigned and started dating, Evelyn Silver, with her great sorrow. Eventually Geoff greets Erica with, the same sentence she wrote in the boy's yearbook.

Erica's regret
Lainey decides to enroll her father in a video dating service, and Erica also decides to make a video but in every shot she only despairs of losing her chance with Geoff. Adam the younger brother of Erica takes a crush on Zoe McIntosh and tries to make himself desirable. Taking inspiration from an episode of The Brady Bunch in which one of the characters invented a fake boyfriend George Glass, Adam invented his girlfriend Lampie Tableman. Erica initially teases him but soon does the same thing by inventing a university boyfriend named Jordan Wahlberg (joining the names of two members of the New Kids on the Block) in the hope that Geoff gets jealous, but nobody believes her, so she does a fool ruining his reputation, when a handsome guy who claims to be Jordan Wahlberg sent by Adam confirms her story in front of everyone. Geoff and Evelyn declare that they will go to the Halloween dance dressed as Audrey and Audrey Jr. of Little Shop of Horrors, and Erica lies saying that she will go to the dance with Lainey's cousin Nate. However, because of the pain of unrequited love, Erica has neglected her attitude a lot, becoming very ugly, so Laineyu cannot convince Nate to take her to the dance. To avoid a fool, Erica rents an Audrey Jr. costume and forces Barry to wear it and take him to the ball, with Lainye's approval, but during the party the head of the costume falls, and everyone sees that Erica has been accompanied by her brother and she goes away humiliated. Shortly thereafter, Lainey and Barry ask Geoff to console Erica, and he does, singing a song with her and telling her they will always be good friends. Thanks to Geoff's intervention, Erica returns to the dance and enjoys herself, no longer worrying about the opinions of others. On Valentine's Day, Erica falls into total depression, for losing Geoff and seeing Barry and Lainey enjoying their romance does not help. To his great shame he admits that he is jealous of them, and neither his mother nor the teachers can cheer her up. Erica gets so sick, that even Evelyn, who has understood her feelings, takes pity on her. This causes her a surge of pride, and she collects herself by organizing a clandestine party, succeeding thanks to her mother's help.

Become a couple
Erica's father Murray tries to get involved in her daughter's love life after seeing her depressed. The man knows that his daughter likes one of his brothers' friends, but he doesn't know the details and tries to get her out with a friend of Adam Dave Kim, who gives her a love serenade in the cafe the next day, ridiculing her. Discovering that everything was caused by her father, Erica fights us at home; during the discussion it turns out she likes Geoff Schwartz ... who went to see Barry and hears everything. Geoff later tells Erica that he is flattered to like her, but that she is with Evelyn and things are going well. After a few seconds of silence, Erica and Geoff hug and kiss.

After their first kiss, Erica and Geoff begin to see each other secretly behind Evelyn. They decide they want their relationship to become public, but Erica doesn't like the way they started it since as the truth comes out, Evelyn is very hurt. Reluctantly, Erica suggests that Geoff wait to be seen together in public until it seems right. Upon the arrival of the dance, Erica and Geoff desperately want to go together, but not being sure that it is the right time, and they decide to go with other people, so that they can at least see each other at the dance and go out. Erica invites Ruben Amaro Jr., while Carla forces Geoff to go with her, since she is angry with Johnny Atkins and is trying to make him jealous. However at the dance Erica and Geoff eventually start dancing with each other.

Erica and Geoff are a bit sad when Erica's diploma approaches, because since Geoff is one year younger than her they will no longer go to school together. Geoff then helps Erica figure out what a fantastic mom she is, when she is bothered by her mother's attentions.

Long distance relationship
When Erica starts attending college, she and Geoff find themselves having to manage a long-distance relationship. The two spend so much time talking on the phone, and so Erica accumulates a huge telephone bill.

Surprisingly, her father Murray, who has always been stiff about money, does not mind, because he knows that until Erica spends all her free time talking to Geoff, she will not approach college nightlife. However, her roommate makes her understand how pathetic she is, that she does nothing but talk to her high school boyfriend and convinces her to go to a party. For Geoff this is not a problem because he trusts Erica, but Murray forces him to go and see Erica, even leading him to ask her to marry him! Fortunately, Erica realizes that this is not a serious proposal, and when Geoff admits that he was manipulated by Murray, Erica gets very angry, even if she forgives Geoff almost immediately and asks him to stay with her for the night.

Lainey went to see Erica for Halloween and the two went to a masquerade party. However, Lainey could not resist the desire to see Barry, so crying Erica, at the first opportunity to rush to him. Erica, however, sensed what had happened and followed Lainey to the party where she and Barry were celebrating the resumption of their relationship. There was also Geoff and he and Erica were delighted to see each other again (even if they were a little disgusted by the fact that the characters they were dressed in, were mother and son).

When she learned that her brother and friend had returned together, Erica was not at all happy and explained to them how difficult it was to maintain her relationship with Geoff, now that they lived three hours apart from one another while now Barry and Lainey lived twelve hours apart and Geoff confirmed, what led Barry and Lainey to leave again. Although she knew she had done the right thing, and had once been against the relationship of Barry and Lainey, Erica felt terrible about hurting her so much, two people so dear to her. Geoff nevertheless consoled her by confirming that he had done the right thing, and the two decided that their story would continue, since there was less distance between them than between Lainey and Barry.

Erica returns home to celebrate thanksgiving, and when she says she wants to talk to him, Geoff fears that she wants to leave him, but in reality Erica wants to inform him that she has accumulated three thousand dollars in debt and wants him to help her make money from Beverly. Geoff refuses and the two have a little discussion; later the boy offers to repay Erica's debt, but she refuses, saying that she must be responsible for her mistakes. Erica returns home for the winter holidays and Geoff covers her with romantic gestures. Erica, however, gets tired of it after she slipped on the rose petals, with which Geoff covered the stairs telling him that she just wanted to relax during the holidays and that it's getting stifling, so he is disappointed. At that point Erica worries about becoming the same as her rough and unromantic father, and asks her brother Adam and her girlfriend Jackie for advice and tries to recreate a romantic scene from one of their favorite movies, but only manages to combine a disaster. In the end, Erica merely tells Geoff that she really loves him, even though she struggles to show it.

When Erica's birthday comes to surprise her, Geoff invites her whole family to join them for her birthday dinner in a restaurant. Erica is not at all happy, because her family are unbearable customers, and Geoff completely loses patience and loudly scolds the Goldbergs in front of the entire restaurant, exactly what Erica feared would happen. She later tells Geoff that she is part of her family.

Erica is encouraged by her roommate Erica Coolidge to become more educated, so she refuses to see The Hooters with Geoff when she gets tickets and he reluctantly decides to take Barry with him. Later, Geoff and Beverly reach the two Ericas at a musical show, partly to show their support, but above all to convince Erica that she is becoming pretentious. Erica initially avoids both, but then realizes she has taken a bad attitude and runs to apologize to Geoff.

Erica and her roommate start to irritate each other, and when she complains to Geoff, he suggests she irritate the other Erica, inviting a guest, but to Geoff's disappointment, Erica invites Barry, and when the plan fails Lainey. In the end it is Barry who invites Geoff and the other JTPs, and Geoff forces the two Ericas to talk to solve their problems.

Fanon
Gerica is a very popular ship, in The Goldbergs fandom. There are videos, fanfictions and gifs dedicated to this ship. However, the fact that it has never been more than a side detail in the second and third seasons, to then become one of the central themes of the fourth, has led some to prefer Barry x Lainey which has had a slower and more constant evolution. In the fifth series Gerica replaces Barry x Lainey, as the main couple of the show.

Fandom
FAN FICTION