Date of release: June 29, 2018 (Netflix)
written by: Kim Rosenstock
directed by: Mark A. Burley, John Cameron Mitchell
Well, this was a different episode from the previous ones. There is always something about episodes of television shows that break the narrative for an hour (or in this case, a half hour) and decide to tell a stand-alone plot that is almost disconnected from the rest of the show, even if it managed to do a lot of work with the characters, establishing them even further. Most of the main characters were absent from this episode (was that for budgetary reasons?), and instead, the show just focuses on the few that remained. This episode only had four of the main characters, giving two of them a whole lot of time to develop their persona and create a story that goes farther than the show has ever gone before.
I was never expecting Tamme to have difficulties selling her GLOW character in front of her son, and I was not expecting her to break out in tears when the offensive stereotype she played became too much to handle on stage, especially when the family is in attendance. I was not expecting Debbie to go a little crazy with her character and become a selfish version of Liberty Belle, and I was not expecting that her failing marriage might ruin her emotionally because she does not know what she is supposed to do and even loses control of her life a little bit. Tamme was in the middle of a story that could have distanced her from her son or brought them closer together. Debbie was in the middle of a story that might show she is incapable of being a good mother, which means she might lose her son, followed by her losing her sanity and maybe even her job she has worked so hard for in recent episodes. Then again, she decided to become a producer (with Mark’s help, no less) with the thought of becoming more controlling over her life – maybe forgetting her baby son was an indirect action of her mind to become more controlling of her career?
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| Wrestlers in private just want to tour colleges with their kids. |
I liked both main characters a lot in this episode, and I loved that the entertaining crown match was used to further the character arcs of the two women, instead of being just a hilarious piece of 1980s women’s wrestling. I was impressed that the match was almost complete and could have aired like that on cable television back in the day, and I loved that emotions still played a role here, even though the writers tried hard to create those emotions out of the constructed feelings Ernest had watching his mother wrestle and then getting humiliated on stage. Ernest was back and forth with his emotions while being an audience member, seeing his mother be fought and humiliated as if all of this was real life and not staged. He seemed embarrassed at first, but then he looked like he was finding the fun in the crown match, eventually enjoying the action that was unfolding on the stage, thanks to an energetic audience. And then the “get a job” part had to come, which I saw as a plot device to create those tearful emotions and yet another moment of character conflict, which may or may not have been necessary. After all, Ernest and Tamme were still together and talking by the end of the episode, spending the rest of their mother/soon weekend together. So, maybe the humiliation thing did not work on Ernest and he figured it was all just a big game?
In the meantime, I was believing that Debbie started caring less about everything. She sold her bed and then her furniture, and when Betty Gilpin started singing, I was wondering if her next acting gig will be a musical. I figured during that moment that she was about to forget she had a job and would come late, due to her getting lost in this little success story of hers – getting rid of everything that Mark owned. Instead, the story just became a character arc, and Debbie stepped into a world of her self-created hurt. It is almost like she is obsessed with hating Mark, yet she cannot believe he is still part of her life, whether it be through the divorce that is still ongoing, or their son who is starting to look more and more like the father. I would not be surprised when Debbie starts doing drugs in a couple of episodes, because she cannot handle her emotions any longer, as she is trying to work her way up the food chain with the show, while also hating her husband and despising Ruth.
I also would not be surprised if she never stops not giving a damn any longer, and all she cares about now is her new career. She was totally into Ruth’s quickly developed child kidnapping plot during the taping, otherwise, screaming for Savannah Rose would not have been so real during that moment. Then again, maybe Debbie realized that this career move was not paying off, looking at the disinterested audience, and she was thankful for getting the opportunity to quickly move on from a dark moment on stage by creating a new storyline involving a kidnapped daughter.
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| Liberty Belle only has signature moves in the ring. |
By the way, that is how you make stand-alone episodes. Yes, it still had character arcs which will have an effect on later episodes, but the sense of half the main cast missing, and only focusing on one aspect of the wrestling show made it all look like the Liberty City chapter of Grand Theft Auto: "Hey, do you like the show? Here is an extra story full of drama! We do not mind if you miss it, but if you watch it, we hope you have fun!"
This could not have been a bottle episode, because of various exterior shots throughout the half hour, but with half the cast missing, this episode must have been a demand by the studio or Netflix, simply just to keep the budget of the show to a minimum. Now I am interested in why the series cost so much money in the first place.
