Date of release: June 23, 2017 (Netflix)
And what Debbie does is figure out what wrestling is all about, that it’s all just a soap opera, and she finally realized she wants to be part of it because she knows how to do this. The fact that this happened after half a season makes GLOW look like it was never intended to be a single-season show and that the writers were attempting to build character arcs out of the ring of women’s wrestling, which also means there will be a time when GLOW becomes less about the wrestling and more about the characters.
Five episodes in, and the characters are still figuring out where they stand in this wrestling show and what it is going to look like when more than training is being done for a scene or two. Five episodes in and Debbie realized that she is in the greatest TV production ever, while at the same time, her nemesis (and her obvious heel) Ruth has realized what kind of villain she can be and how to be useful to the wrestling show (and for Sam). I would like to watch how Debbie’s heel turns out to be Ruth with that fake Russian accent, I want to see how the all-American hero battles the USSR villain (come on, this could not be any better for this show), and I want Debbie and Ruth to hate each other inside the ring and respect each other outside of it, because like Steelhorse said, hate and respect are all that’s needed to look good in the ring, to make the fights more entertaining for the audience. And honestly, seeing Steelhorse’s villain in the ring slap his in-show wife, I wanted there to be a duel that needed to end in a happy ending. I wanted the all-American hero on an all-American motorcycle to beat evil communism. It is what worked perfectly in that instance, and it is what could work well between Debbie and Ruth. In a way, GLOW just explained wrestling to the Netflix audience, making me wonder if some of them picked up a cable network and started watching WWE. I didn’t, so maybe the percentage of that audience is far below zero point one percent.
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| I would really like that shirt for myself. |
This episode helped quite a lot of people who are prone to not liking wrestling develop a sense of how the sport works and why it’s so entertaining, realize its playful attitude, seeing the fun coming from the ring in a different light. Honestly, I never saw wrestling as the muscle version of a soap opera, and since I saw Steelhorse and Mr. Monopoly battle it out in the ring, I got interested in a series of wrestling matches telling one story – it is the same kind of storytelling, but with a different kind of execution, and I kind of want to see that for real now. Holy cow, you people, a Netflix comedy-drama is changing my mind about wrestling as a form of entertainment. But I already know that it will never be a sport I will watch, even though I might look up some stories on the internet at one point, just for the sake of amusing myself with random stories. In a way, Debbie was the audience in this episode: Even if some viewers who stuck with the show don’t like the sport, maybe their eyes were opened just a tiny bit during these 35 minutes. By the way, I consider FIGHTING WITH MY FAMILY as one of the greatest films in my digital collection, but it happens to be because of the characters and the journey, not the actual wrestling.
The rest of the half hour was extremely episodic though. Rhonda, Ruth, and Sam’s field trip felt extremely useless, except for the information dump that Rhonda and Sam are shagging (where did that come from all of a sudden, and why did it seem so predictable?), and Justine’s crush on the pizza delivery guy might have been the stereotypical equivalent to Sam’s efforts to include all female stereotypes into his wrestling show, because Justine happens to be a teenager with a crush, as it’s custom in shows like these. What I saw in the story was the hot early 1980s guy who comes up to a girl’s door, she falls for him and can’t get him out of her head, but has troubles getting to him and out of his pants. Well, it’s a good thing for Justine that she had a good friend, otherwise, she would have never had a chance to choke on a penis that same night. A little bit of cliched storytelling going on here, but since the show-within-a-show is also being carried by stereotypes, I’m wondering whether or not the actual storytelling was planned to be this predictable, to serve as a mirror for the audience to realize that the character arcs and the wrestling shows are all and the same.
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| Debbie does understand her new job now. |
Both stories weren’t that interesting, however, even if the former happened to establish a character for Ruth to play, as well as create the idea of Debbie being the all-American hero fighting the best supervillain since the Nazis. While I was amused about Ruth playing her new character during the opening of Patio Town, it seemed like the writers spent a little too much time on it. I would have loved to see more of the prank calls (I was laughing, especially during the AIDS part, which was so silly and dumb that it was funny again), or generally some of the girls getting together during off time and doing whatever. I guess there was only time and room for the prank calls in this episode, but seriously, what do you do at night with a bunch of women staying at a motel? Well, Rhonda got someone to shag when she feels lonely, prank calls are being made, and Cherry uses the time to be more serious about her job. Okay, I take it back – there was enough in this episode to show what the girls would do in-between training sessions.
