Why GLOW was the ideal tag team of prestige comedy and drama

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https://www.avclub.com/glow-10-essential-episodes

To mark five years since the show ended, let’s dig into the episodes that brilliantly had it both ways.

By LaToya Ferguson | August 8, 2024 | 12:00pm

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.