TV Club 10: Why GLOW was the ideal tag team of prestige comedy and drama

With TV Club 10, we point you toward the 10 episodes that best represent a TV series, classic or modern. They might not be the 10 best episodes, but they’re the 10 episodes that’ll help you understand what the show’s all about.

The pilot of Netflix’s GLOW ends with soap star Debbie Eagan (Betty Gilpin) storming into an early rehearsal for a women’s professional wrestling league and (both verbally and physically) confronting her best friend, Ruth Wilder (Alison Brie), for sleeping with her husband. While witnessing this confrontation, director Sam Sylvia (Marc Maron) instantly imagines this confrontation in the wrestling ring, under the bright lights and in front of a raucous crowd—gloriously set to Journey’s “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart).” In that moment, real life becomes pro wrestling, and for these characters—and the ensemble surrounding them—pro wrestling becomes an integral part of their real lives.

Created by showrunners Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch and executive produced by Jenji Kohan, GLOW was a heavily fictionalized take on the real-life professional women’s wrestling show and cult phenomenon from the 1980s, G.L.O.W. (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling). The phrase “inspired by” often does a lot of heavy lifting, but in the case of GLOW, the approach made a tremendous amount of sense: As a story initially about jealousy, betrayal, and self-worth, it was only natural to tell it through the backdrop of a world where backstabbing, politicking, and manipulation were the norm, despite the collaborative process. And that world just so happened to be professional wrestling in the ‘80s.

Plus, GLOW tapped into something that pro-wrestling fans have long known: The drama behind the curtain is often even juicier than the predetermined drama in the ring and on the screen. Think of it like truth being stranger (and also even more contentious and cutthroat) than fiction.

The first two seasons of GLOW follow a ragtag group of misfit underdogs scraping to get by and ignoring the harsh realities of their lifestyle. (The third season is technically a success story, but what that success means is a far cry away from what anyone involved expected.) It’s not just about wanting to be a performer and end up on television, but wanting to be a wrestler and be taken as seriously as you can in what’s considered an unserious world—especially as a female wrestler, a niche within a niche. The sexism, the racism, the desperation, the demoralization—that’s all there in GLOW (much like it especially was in pro wrestling in the ‘80s) from moment one. But what’s also there is the series’ ability to find both the truth and the humor in all of that.

While the inciting incident for GLOW isn’t exactly the funniest situation to ever appear in a half-hour comedy, GLOW still ultimately succeeded in being just that: an actual comedy. As the discussion of what truly constitutes as a comedy or just a half-hour drama is revived occur over and over again, it’s fascinating to look back at a show—a prestige series on a major streaming platform—like GLOW and see how the television landscape has learned (or not learned) from it. Here, to mark the show’s final season dropping on August 9, 2019, are 10 episodes of GLOW that made for that special blend—that stellar tag team, if you will—of prestige comedy and drama.

“Pilot” (season 1, episode 1)

GLOW (Photo: Erica Parise/Netflix)

One thing the GLOW pilot does immediately is set the tone of the series as both soul-crushing and funny. (Depending on the scene, GLOW was either a soul-crushingly funny show or a funnily soul-crushing show. Max’s Hacks has followed in GLOW’s footsteps in this regard, albeit with a glossier approach.) As a struggling actor not just looking for work but substantial work, Ruth is desperation personified. This is contrasted by the success story of Debbie, who was able to walk away from a starring role on a soap to have a baby. Nothing is going Ruth’s way when the series begins, to the point where she’s even mugged by a gang of children who add insult to injury by calling her a “Pert Plus-looking bitch,” a funnily soul-crushing moment if ever there was one.

But in that desperation, Ruth finds herself at the G.L.O.W. auditions among the likes of an assortment of women who also mostly have no business being in a wrestling ring. Like a middle-aged single mother who’s ready for her second act in life. Or a stuntwoman who believes it’s her turn to be the leading lady. Or a Hollywood party girl who just wants to have another crazy story to tell. Or the daughter of a wrestling legend who has to lie to her family. And from there, the world of GLOW opens up to tell these and the other characters’ stories in both real and hilarious ways.

“Debbie Does Something” (season 1, episode 5)

“Debbie Does Something” is actually quite the packed episode of GLOW. It features the introduction of Ruth’s eventual wrestling gimmick (the Soviet heel Zoya the Destroya), a mini-teen rom-com in the form of Justine (Britt Baron) and the pizza delivery boy Billy Offal, and, of course, the major moment everyone remembers from the episode: Debbite realizing that pro wrestling is just a soap opera.

Each G.L.O.W. Girl has their own reason for coming aboard the lady-wrestling train, but in the case of Debbie, she was the one pursued, the one brought in to be the star of the show. She didn’t have a eureka moment about pro wrestling in the pilot like Ruth did, and she doesn’t “need” G.L.O.W. like any of the other girls do. Her realization finally comes when she goes with Carmen (Britney Young) and Melrose (Jackie Tohn) to her first-ever pro-wrestling match. Debbie knows soap operas. Debbie gets soap operas. Debbie cares about soap operas. So in understanding that wrestling is just a more violent, visceral soap opera, Debbie is able to have a shift in mindset. And with that shift, finally, the star of the show has an investment in it. And she learns that in order to truly be said star, she needs a great heel—even if she’s not yet ready to accept that her great heel is Ruth. (It is unfortunate to be reminded of disgraced pro wrestler Joey Ryan’s existence in this episode, but at least he only plays a small part as local wrestling heel Mr. Monopoly.)

“Live Studio Audience” (season 1, episode 7)

GLOW (Photo: Erica Parise/Netflix)

“Live Studio Audience” is an episode of television that includes both a legitimate ‘80s training montage (set to the musical stylings of Stan Bush) and a hilarious (and hilariously taboo) tag-team match between two Black women (stuntwoman Cherry [Sydelle Noel] and single mother Tammé [Kia Stevens]), channeling their inner Pam Griers and a pair of dummies (hairdressers Dawn [Rebekka Johnson] and Stacey [Kimmy Gatewood], the comic relief and essentially to GLOW what the Faks are to The Bear, who are convinced to wrestle as Ku Klux Klan members). And it happens after this question is uttered: “What if Bill Cosby gets mad at us?”

Anything can happen in professional wrestling. So as G.L.O.W.’s first official live show and test run before they film for TV, naturally, things were never going to run smoothly. They don’t have anyone to do the entrance music for the girls, so Sheila the She Wolf (Gayle Rankin) ends up on keyboard, performing the only song she knows how to play. The crowd they’re able to get is a bunch of randos and weirdos who don’t care about wrestling and really aren’t given a reason to. Until Dawn and Stacey—whose typical gimmick, the Beatdown Biddies, sees them as old-lady stereotypes—come out in their white sheets and proclaim, “Segregation forever!” that is. This is the moment that gets the people going, provides some side-splittingly dry commentary from an unprepared Sam, and actually turns things around for the live show. It ultimately doesn’t get Cherry and Tammé out of playing their stereotypical characters Junkchain and Welfare Queen, respectively, but it’s a moment that transcends the awkwardness that precedes it and paves the way for the main event (that, unfortunately, has its own snags).

“Money’s In The Chase” (season 1, episode 10)

The season-one finale is a true main event and the culmination of all these characters’ hard work, as it centers on the first live taping of G.L.O.W. While the training montage in “Live Studio Audience” (and the bits of the match we got before it abruptly ended) promised that “Liberty Belle” Debbie and “Zoya the Destroya” Ruth would tear the roof off the place with their epic battle of good versus evil, “Money’s In The Chase” finally delivered it. And though Ruth and Debbie’s friendship was a central piece of GLOW, the series wasn’t hesitant to point out that reconciliation—if ever—would be a long way away. By this episode, there is no reconciliation. But in the ring, there’s trust. And in that trust, there’s the ability to make magic and storytelling gold.

At the same time, after a season of these women learning to accept and be their, often times, offensively stereotyped wrestling characters, this is also the episode in which Arthie (Sunita Mani)—who is saddled with a terrorist character, Beirut, which is right up there with Cambodian character Jenny’s (Ellen Wong) Chinese heel Fortune Cookie in terms of classically xenophobic-based wrestling gimmicks—learns and experiences the real-life effect of playing a fake bad guy in the world of pro wrestling, especially when it’s race-related. There is nothing funny about the slurs thrown at Arthie in this moment or the things thrown at her simply for existing, which even end up hitting sweet summer child Rhonda (Kate Nash)—a.k.a. Britannica, the smartest woman in the world—in the process. But unfortunately, it underlines the reality of the situation, even as the show highlights the humor in how ridiculously over-the-top gimmicks like this were. 

“Mother Of All Matches” (season 2, episode 4)

GLOW (Photo: Beth Dubber/Netflix)

Arguably the best episode of the series, “Mother Of All Matches,” centers on the moms of the show, Debbie and Tammé, while also building up to the main-event match between their respective wrestling characters, Liberty Belle and Welfare Queen. The installment is a true, manic tour de force for Gilpin, as a phone call from Debbie’s now-ex-husband’s secretary sends her into a spiral where she immediately has an “everything must go” sale, culminating in an eerily calm rendition of “Home On The Range” in a completely empty house. On the flip side, Tammé gets to be the proud mother as she visits her son at Stanford until he finds out about her professional career and she has to reveal the Welfare Queen side of herself to him. Kia Stevens—the sole cast member who was actually a professional wrestler prior to GLOW—also provides a surprisingly stellar performance here, taking the series and season to another level. 

Both Debbie and Tammé end up questioning themselves when it comes to their roles as mothers, with Debbie letting her pettiness get in the way of her parental duties and Tammé having to confront the idea that she’s letting her son down by playing such an offensive stereotype. Debbie and Tammé are such completely different characters from different worlds, but GLOW finds the commonality between them. 

“Nothing Shattered” (season 2, episode 7)

GLOW (Photo: Erica Parise/Netflix)

“Nothing Shattered” picks up where the previous episode, “Work The Leg,” left off, with Debbie having just broken, yes, Ruth’s leg. But the episode is more about the state of things at this point in the series, as the rest of the G.L.O.W. Girls rally to help Ruth. The montage of them doing whatever they can think of to entertain Ruth while she waits for a doctor is a capsule of just how much things have changed since the pilot and how much these characters have all grown together. Ruth still has that desperation that defined her character from the start, but in “Nothing Shattered,” she also has the realization that she finally has people in her life who truly care about her. She has a community and a team she can rely on. 

This is also the episode where Ruth and Debbie finally, truly have it out. All cards on the table about why Ruth betrayed Debbie in the first place, how Debbie was never exactly the completely innocent wronged party, and why their friendship was always doomed to fail. After nearly two full seasons of Ruth walking on eggshells and desperately working to get back in Debbie’s good graces, Ruth finally is able to (metaphorically) stand up and have the conversation that was a long time coming, even before the events of the beginning of the series. The duo’s relationship is never quite back to BFF status after this, but the moment of Debbie signing Ruth’s cast—”Sorry I broke your ankle.”—is a major step in the right direction.

“The Good Twin” (season 2, episode 8)

For anyone unfamiliar with the real G.L.O.W. or ‘80s professional wrestling at all, it’s probably easy to believe that GLOW took liberties or exaggerated. It did not. And that truth is never more evident than in “The Good Twin,” which presents an “actual” episode of G.L.O.W. for our viewing consumption. It’s a full-on episode airing on “KDTV, the premiere cable channel of the San Fernando Valley,” complete with skits (and laugh tracks), music videos, and a couple of wrestling matches. The most shocking part of it all is that there’s a linear narrative throughout the episode. This is an installment of G.L.O.W., besides, that happens when Sam and the girls know the end is near for them and literally say, “Fuck it.” 

Because of the nature of GLOW’s story, it was only able to do something like “The Good Twin” once. Season three focused on the Vegas stage show version of G.L.O.W. doing a wrestling Christmas Carol, but it still had nothing on this. 

“Every Potato Has A Receipt” (season 2, episode 10)

The season-two finale is the end of an era for both GLOW and the wrestling series within it. From this point on, it’s off to Las Vegas with that aforementioned stage show, performed on repeat night in and night out. And after the ending of the first season, GLOW knows exactly what major wrestling trope it has to hit in order to end things with a bang: a wedding. It also knows that no pro wrestling wedding ever goes as expected, as G.L.O.W. producer (and deeply closeted rich boy) Bash Howard (Chris Lowell) sweeps in at the last minute to interrupt Rhonda’s green-card marriage to a superfan and instead proposes marriage to her himself.

G.L.O.W.’s final television taping all ends how you’d expect it: with a battle royale over the bouquet and an intergender tag team match that only makes these girls look even better on their way out. A still-injured Ruth even gets a win as Zoya finally nabs the G.L.O.W. crown (riding on a zipline in the process). It’s a triumph even if technical defeat for the men and women of G.L.O.W., and it ends in a bittersweet fashion as they head on to Las Vegas for their next adventure.

“Freaky Tuesday” (season 3, episode 5)

GLOW (Photo: Ali Goldstein/Netflix)

Part of the struggle with GLOW’s third season was that the Vegas stage show aspect of it all meant a lack of focus on actual pro wrestling, as the show was built to be the same every time and was based on the major matches we saw in the first- and second-season finales. But “Freaky Tuesday” allowed both the characters to get a break (a common refrain throughout this batch, as the fun of wrestling was sapped from these women because of this monotony) and the audience to get something fresh. With the G.L.O.W. Girls all switching characters—save for Reggie (Marianna Palka) and Sheila, who ended up being a nun (as opposed to her usual character, Vicky the Viking) and Liza Minelli, respectively—they were able to let loose and play around with their perceptions of each other and also talk more about the offensive nature of some of these gimmicks. (Plus, we got to see Debbie as a highly sexual version of Zoya the Destroya and Ruth as a Dorothy Gale-esque Liberty Belle.)  

For a season with far less wrestling than the first two, an episode like “Freaky Tuesday” genuinely captured the fun of the independent-wrestling scene. While there are plenty of rules in pro wrestling, sometimes the joy is in watching them break. 

“Outward Bound” (season 3, episode 6)

GLOW (Photo: Ali Goldstein/Netflix)

Stepping far away from the wrestling ring wasn’t necessarily always a bad thing for GLOW. “Outward Bound” is one of the series’ more intimate character studies, as well as a strong offering from the ensemble. By taking the girls into the desert for a weekend away from the lights and noise of Vegas and the G.L.O.W. show, they’re forced to talk (and sometimes walk) through their feelings. Not only is “Outward Bound” a turning point for Sheila, as she finally sheds the wolf persona, it features go-with-the-flow Jenny venting, at last, about the toll of playing a xenophobic stereotype night in and night out. As the women let out their frustrations and traumas, it’s cathartic—and a nice break away from the show they’ve come to care far, far less about.

There is a revitalization by the end of the season. But since the series was cancelled prematurely, the season-three finale doesn’t feel as triumphant as the previous two. In “Outward Bound,” however, there is that sense of triumph—as temporary as it is.