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.

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