Our Style Is Wild And You Know You Can't Tame Us: GLOW on Netflix

he's the trainer they get rid of really quickly. i had a hard time recognizing him since mundo is so full of vigor + personality and his char was pretty mellow.

i thought the trainer was John Morrison

lol duh nvm

This was really good. Only three episodes left to watch. For some reason I felt like this had a very Cheers-y vibe. Not just because Alison Brie does an extended Diane Chambers impression for the first half. Just something about the lovable loser-iness of it. Also Stacey and Dawn are clearly Cliff and Norm.

I'm so glad this thread is here, thank you VG

I totally didn't recognize Carlito until I started reading episode recaps

his triangle hair made me lol

I've yet to really get into this, partially because I watched the documentary first and it was so good. Watching the first episode of this felt like an inferior product, but I'm probably wrong

it's heavily fictionalized, so the real story is only the barest of a framework for the netflix show

it's almost better if you just watch it as fiction. kinda like orange is the new black: that had very little to do with the actual story of the actual woman who was in prison, and was just a jumping off point for all kinds of made up lols

This show has renewed my faith in Alison Brie bc I really liked her but I think her characters in Mad Men and Community were kinda underwritten so it wasn't clear how talented she really was but, maybe bc it's not made by men, in GLOW she's extraordinary & undeniable.

agree

I am not ashamed to say that I teared up when they played "Invincible" in the final ep <3

- I love how Debbie is so beaten down & sad in all the non-wrestling scenes but in the ring she radiates strength & confidence & beauty

- same with Ruth, she's weird & awkward & detached & doesnt fit anywhere and carries herself like a middle-schooler and then turns into this freaking POWER-BEACON as Zoya

- i love how the emotional beats of the story are economical, the actors sell the moments so well but nothing is overdone or melodramatic...it all feels earned & human

goddamn i love this show

Easily the best TV of the year so far. Alison Brie is phenomenal but it's a great ensemble and it manages to be uplifting without being mawkish. I Think VG says it better, though.

i wasn't sold on this until the sudden leap into fantasy at the end of ep one, but then i liked it enough that i watched it all in a week, which is more television than i watch in most months

highlight for me was maron's sad esprit d'escalier at his typewriter at the open of the third episode. at leasy humor-wise. a lot of the debbie-ruth interactions were just heartbreaking. betty gilpin phenomenally good, the scene at the wrestling match where her facial expression transitions from 'not feeling this' to 'gets it' to 'thirsty' just amazing

something about the show's register that bugged me. i kept expecting scenes to resolve with 'character embarrasses themselves' as the joke. then found their actions implausibly succeeding. particularly in the penultimate episode, the whole plot of that v wackety-schmackety-doo.

Started out very A League of their GLOWn. (I assume that's been invoked upthread?) but we were quickly sold, and I was surprised at both how much I liked or empathized with characters I thought I might hate (like the James Spader yuppie guy) and how impressed I was by the quality of the acting across the board.

If I were Netflix, I would start green-lighting as many shows set in the '80s as possible.

Good, otm writeup by Nussbaum: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/03/the-glitzy-verve-of-glow-and-claws

Arguments break out immediately, and they continue to roll through the show, even as we get the requisite training montages and behind-the-scenes drama: Is it O.K. to act out a crass stereotype if it makes you a star? How about if you get paid a ton? What if your performance is genuinely funny? Is it subversive—or cathartic, or even therapeutic—to expose the ugliest ways people see you? Or is that just an excuse you make because it’s better than being ignored?

Unlike other eighties-pastiche series, such as “Red Oaks” and even the terrific “Stranger Things,” “glow” feels like it’s set in the actual eighties, not a dream board of eighties movies

the yuppie is played by chris lowell, who played piz (the pitchfork intern to be) on VERONICA MARS

Ha. He looked to me like Nick Rhodes.

oh shit

PIZ

Was pretty interested in this but it's uh... super mediocre?

I thought I liked Alison Brie too but maybe I don't. Jesus.

*quietly slides out of thread*

a netflix original is super mediocre?

yeah idk thought the subject matter was pretty ripe

Binged all 10 eps in one sitting. LOVED IT! Much of what I loved has already been covered better in the thread, but I think maybe the most genius moment was Sam finding out 'Mothers and Lovers' had already been made with a bigger budget.

Unlike other eighties-pastiche series, such as “Red Oaks” and even the terrific “Stranger Things,” “glow” feels like it’s set in the actual eighties, not a dream board of eighties movies

This was not my feeling at all. There are even dumb jokes about Steve Gutenberg or whatever

I thought this show would be better, cuz he milieu is so fascinating and the characters are interesting and has good actors but it's just not working for me. I feel like it started to look at what makes wrestling interesting but then drops it...I feel like these characters probably would have been much more interested in wrestling than is depicted, like, they were passionate about it!

Also the lead character feels like a one dimensional joke on "serious actress" and not in a way that's funny or interesting. Also reminds me too much of piper from oitnb

The 80s-ness didn't seem overdone imo. Since at least half the show took place in a non-descript gray gym or in old-ass motel rooms, there wasn't a whole lot of period-specific scenery to deal with. (I thought Stranger Things was really good at this as well.)

Somebody wrote a thing at Pitchfork the other day about the music selections and how unique they were, and I gotta call bullshit on that. I LOVE most of the music that was used, but let's not pretend that Howard Jones and Journey took a whole lot of thought.

agree

music supervisor said he just leaned into the stuff he liked back then & didnt try to overthink it

GLOW is mostly about women figuring out who they are .. and wrestling

i think that you kinda have to be down with the first part to be able to enjoy the show

also, i'm not saying everyone has to like the show but imo it's well made & well written. any mediocrity is maybe viewer's own baggage rather than a failing of the show

Agree. I think if you just want to watch a bunch of characters thrown together, given almost no depth, you should probably be watching actual wrestling.

As someone who listens to Maron talk three hours a week, every week, I actually found myself using him as an anchor while I focused on learning about everyone else. There was a moment when I thought they were going to give characters flashbacks a la Orange Is The New Black, but it was really just Sheila doing the wolf thing. Maybe flashbacks help, maybe they don't. I feel like I know OITNB characters better than I do these women, but maybe learning about them more organically is okay.

i think that you kinda have to be down with the first part to be able to enjoy the show

also, i'm not saying everyone has to like the show but imo it's well made & well written. any mediocrity is maybe viewer's own baggage rather than a failing of the show

― Yoni Loves Chocha (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, July 1, 2017 9:34 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lol... if you say so?

I can imagine that this show is more entertaining than pro wrestling itself, as most things on the face of the earth are.

mr veg hates wrestling more than almost anything (some of our worst arguments when we first got together were about my love for & his hateed of wrestling lol ) he totally dug it
to be fair, he was a fan of alison brie & maron already. but he also had zero expectations going in

if you come in wanting some deep exploration wrestling & wall to wall dope moves you will be disappointed is all i'm saying

but there are dope moves :D

I'm more interested in their relationship to the world of wrestling than seeing wall to wall wrestling fwiw

There is no relationship yet. They're a tiny operation that doesn't even get on television for the first time until the last sequence of the last episode, and even then it's only on a small cable channel between two strange shows.

yeah they might explore more of that in the next season

Really can't tell if i should bother w this or not. I def watched GLOW as a kid otoh I hated Stranger Things and netflix has yet to produce a really solid show imo

I didn't watch GLOW as a kid, but I thought the doc a few years ago was neat and I like Maron and Alison Brie and came to really like everyone else in it. Plus, the episodes are short, so you don't have much to lose.

I wanted to like this far more than I actually did. The acting is pretty good (Kate Nash excepted, who is dreadful) but every single plot beat is telegraphed way in advance so after 10 minutes you can tell exactly what the cliffhanger will be.

Maron and Brie are the standouts (and have a totally unresolved sexual tension in the one real surprise the series delivered, not putting them together at the end) and have some great lines.

As stated above, the 80s feels totally thrown at it (for example this is
summer 85 - Back To The Future has just been released - and Hair Metal didn't really become a thing until the autumn of 86 with the Bon Jovi reference specifically a year out; alternatively, the aerobics craze started in gyms in the late 70s - the ONJ single Physical was 81 and Jane Fonda at home was 82, both of them felt like death knells and it was gone in 83) which chimes with the music supervisor's quote above.

It was an entertaining enough dramedy and I'll watch the next season, but it's very much a tier 2 Netflix commission.

in the one real surprise the series delivered, not putting them together at the end

Maybe I'm a dummy and didn't pick up on some clues, but the real surprise of the series was when Sam finds out [redacted] is [redacted].

Sam and Ruth having an adult relationship that doesn't involve sex is the kind of thing that should happen in tv more imo.

Yes, and that's why it was surprising they went that way with Sam & Ruth.

Sam the [redacted] is completely trope-tastic and a mainstay of teen fiction. Telegraphed from the episode where [redacted] shows in-depth knowledge of his film history, but also by "how old are you?" in ep 1 and the fact that they're the only one that has a relationship outside of the main cast.

Mulder & Scully, Don & Joan, Leslie & Ron...these are all the most compelling type of tv relationship, so I'm looking forward to Sam & Ruth continuing the legacy.

Oh man, this Betty Gilpin-written piece is fucking fantastic:

http://www.glamour.com/story/glow-star-betty-gilpin-what-its-like-to-have-pea-sized-confidence-with-watermelon-sized-boobs

"runaway" was a minor hit in the us (and huge in NY, not sure about LA) in '84-'85

oh and by this time they were being managed by doc mcghee

anyway

Yeah, I definitely remember Runaway and In and Out of Love prior to Slippery When Wet, and I lived in bumfuck Alabama.

I defer to the American knowledge on Bon Jovi because they didn't make it abroad until SWW. I'm sure there's a Whitesnake ref too though, which isn't till 86/87.

Despite this I'm still not convinced that it was enough of a thing for a rich girl to decide it was going to define her life but it doesn't bug me enough to argue about.

Liking this but when there's nudity is sure is gratuitous.

The nudity is a loss leader like Best Buy putting cds at the front of the store. After you get in, there isn't any more (except for Maron's ass later on in the season).

Oh wait, I forgot about the Cherry/Keith scene later in the season, probably because that's married couple sex.

You're telling me that Cherry and Keith have sex TWICE? They really are married! (I already saw them doing it, I think episode 2 or 3.)

Some less glib thoughts:
Glad that we got to see a real show before the finale -- a real slow drip would've killed me.
Similarly, it was better that Debbie realized that wrestling == soap opera earlier than later, and Ruth embracing being a heel elevates the mood so much.
Do doubles do most of the wrestling in the wide shots? I can't imagine the producers being ok with their leads doing things to their bodies that will eventually require painkillers just to function normally.

Stick with it - I don’t think it’s so clear cut as that. Still, I’m somehow really invested in their story. The characters’ flawedness plus their chemistry carries it and I find them quite sympathetic.

agree they're both compelling characters, but one of the things I liked best about this show was having their relationship at the center as one of platonic mutual respect/antagonism

this def picks up whenever it focuses on the intersection of the wrestling act w their real life. Awesome Kong's "All That Jazz" morning routine reference was nice, that was a good episode.

the ethnic studies/group bonding ep in the desert was... oy vey

this season is bumming me out

Yeah, the actual wrestling content this year was close to ZERO.

When the stories are focusing on the characters, this is fine, but it means the show falls over completely whenever they do go to the ring. e only see them wrestling when they change the show - swapping roles, playing A Christmas Carol - but the changes mean nothing to the TV viewer, since we haven't seen the regular show at all. The wrestlers have suddenly gone from wrestling a new story every week to performing the same piece eight times a week, and we have no idea how this affects any of them: their emotional journeys are completely disconnected from it.

Carmen FINALLY says she's dissatisfied, once, after performing it 2,900 times, but were most of the other non-pros instead happy to not have to develop their non-acting skills? Wasn't anyone frustrated that they'd spent a year learning to wrestle and getting better every week, only to throw that away? Wouldn't doing the exact same moves every week have greatly increased the chance of injury, to more than one of them? They take huge, recharging delight in the one night where they swap roles, but nobody has any other indication of boredom every other night of the year, and the delight doesn't lead to them trying to have fun - either for their sakes' or the audience's - by making any other changes or tweaks for another six months.

I still liked the season, but this was a really weird move, and sidelined one of the series' greatest strengths: being able to express the characters' personal and emotional struggles through metaphor that they generate themselves.

being able to express the characters' personal and emotional struggles through metaphor that they generate themselves.

yeah, jettisoning this approach was a really bad idea. I didn't like this season at all tbh.

also felt like all this focus on gay culture of the 80s kinda came out of nowhere and felt really shoehorned in. Like why did they bring in the whole drag performer/show thing?

The exception is Bash's storyline, which developed naturally from previous seasons and felt the most authentic and affecting.

If the series hadn't brought the drag performer in, Bash's storyline of AIDS panic --> realising closetedness would have felt hideously unbalanced and shoehorned. The drag character also let them interact with another Vegas performer, and compare and contrast a successful show with a more marginalised one.

But this also felt unbalanced since they don't interact with ANY other performers in the entire city, even the dancers from the other show *in the same casino* as theirs.

any thoughts on why Ruth turns down Debbie at the end? I didn't get that at all

I love these characters, and overall there was a lot to like about this season but it just felt so all over the place, almost manic with the number of plotlines they were juggling

not a huge fan of Maron but by god is he good in this

Makes total sense, she wants to act and Debbie came at her pretty hard about her not making it. She’s not without pride or stubbornness obviously and she just had a blast acting in the Xmas show. My sense is that Ruth is determined to be a serious actor but her true gift (and one of Brie’s gifts) is at comedy. She doesn’t recognize it yet even though Zoya is comedy. She thinks she’s slumming but she’s doing good work.

Good season, very different but in ways that held onto the core principles of the show. Lots of the stuff with regards to racism and feminism and sexuality couldn’t be avoided at this point so when it went serious it was a tonal shift but I thought it worked. I think in the year of our lord 2019 they felt they had to take on some stuff more directly.

Bobby was a good addition, he assisted Sheila is coming to terms with shit too. The character was likable and felt correct for the era.

The acting on the show is generally superb but I think Betty Gilpin is phenomenal. To stand out on a show with Alison Brie as your costar is no small feat.

I also think it’s good to recognize that this show is trying something vv different and it’s so not made for golden age of showrunner tv fanboys. I love that fact. I don’t doubt you all recognize that of course. This is the anti-MRA shit I crave.

yeah overall I love it, it's got a good heart

similar to Red Oaks in that respect

she wants to act and Debbie came at her pretty hard about her not making it. She’s not without pride or stubbornness obviously and she just had a blast acting in the Xmas show. My sense is that Ruth is determined to be a serious actor but her true gift (and one of Brie’s gifts) is at comedy. She doesn’t recognize it yet even though Zoya is comedy. She thinks she’s slumming but she’s doing good work.

huh yeah okay that makes sense. Agree that Gilpin is a real standout.

I love the turnaround on Tex. He was cool up until the very second he wasn't, and then she made him pay for it immediately.

As an aside, I really love that the 2010s have been Toby Huss's playground. I never would have expected when watching Pete & Pete that the guy who played Artie, the Strongest Man in the World would be turning in some excellent dramatic character work 25 years later.

I love the turnaround on Tex. He was cool up until the very second he wasn't, and then she made him pay for it immediately.

this whole thing seemed to very closely mirror Joan's fling in the last season of Mad Men

think Ruth was also really struck/inspired by Carmen going off to chase her big wrestling dream

She sees Carmen go for what she wants/is fulfilled by, AND she just missed out on a role she thought she was a shoo-in for (& had earned through Sam knowing how talented / what a hard worker she was, not through their intimacy), AND Debbie comes at her as a power play.

Debbie wants her for her directing skill, but frames it as Ruth being a failure who needs to settle, not that her passion for acting is what helps her tell stories in the ring and through cameras. Probably she could have been won by praise in the latter vein, or maybe by a promise of collaboration & equity, but Debbie’s framing underlines that Debbie is The Man - Ruth’s only way to resist capital’s oppression in that moment is to withhold her labour.

omar’s point abt comedy is also v relevant

this is otm too, love the way it happened so fast it’s basically off-screen:

He was cool up until the very second he wasn't, and then she made him pay for it immediately

I liked this a lot like I always do, but I also felt like it didn't get rolling until halfway through; and there were some weird things that just got dropped, like Cherry's debt to the casino. I suppose we're to assume she paid it off mud wrestling?

yeah there was just a lot going on

She mentioned at one point celebrating because she was debt-free (I think at the fundraiser event?)

Finally finished. I thought this season was pretty great, up until the last couple episodes, when it kinda fell apart. I didn't buy the Ruth/Sam stuff, and it gets negated in such a lame way when she doesn't get the movie part and they just sorta forget about it.

The stuff with Debbie was very strange this season. She REALLY screwed over her boyfriend, but she also screwed over Sandy doubly (pulling the money from Rhapsody AND having GLOW bail on the casino), which seemed like maybe setting up Debbie for a heel turn, I guess? They haven't done (afaict) a ton with using wrestling metaphors in their real lives (maybe I'm dense and there is a ton of this going on, but I haven't noticed it if so), so that could be interesting, but it was pretty sudden.

The saddest part of the season is poor Reggie the Viking. Everyone around her is having love interests and spilling about their traumatic pasts. Her thing is that she's pretty good at camping and hiking. The last scene where she announces "Redwood National Park, here I come!" was just painful, and borderline cruel to that actress after a season of nothing. I suppose the old biddy characters are in the same boat.

Also, we bought an OLED TV a few months ago, and godDAMN Netflix stuff looks incredible in HDR. Any scenes with neon lights look amazing, but really everything looks so beautiful in HDR.

old biddy characters are there for comic relief so they at least get that, the viking character gets literally *nothing* to do

Some of the characters or maybe actors are weak enough that I kind of would rather they be kept in the background since there are so many other better stories. I could've dealt with a lot less Melrose and Kate Nash this season.

Ruth's styling this season seemed weird. They make her look so sickly.

Finished last night, and this season never took off for me except for the role swap and camping episodes. I really missed the group camaraderie from the first two seasons, and the character interactions were so much more atomized and compartmentalized that the energy dragged a lot for me.

I definitely would've preferred more Tamme than Rhonda.

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2019 season is nominated in the 2019 ILX TV poll:

ILX's Best Television of 2019 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends January 31

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (4 minimum, 25 maximum, organized by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail by end of day today. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

Fuckin' canceled. >:(

Despite a final season being greenlit, Netflix pulled the plug. It ends where it ends.

Fuck.

Fuck that shit. That show was the best.

goddamn it

Like this just shows that Netflix doesn't know wtf it'd doing. Go ahead and greenlight another season of Stranger Things you fucking morons.

it's

They canned Teenage Bounty Hunters today too. I hadn't watched that, but people seemed to generally like it. All this on the heels of them canning I Am Not Okay With This, a show I LOVED, about a month ago. Meanwhile, just like network tv, there's a new "unscripted" series popping up on the platform every five hours.

https://i.gifer.com/hPx.gif

fuck u netflix ;_;

Between this and Dark Crystal, I second VG's sentiment.

Seems like Covid-related cancellations are big w/Netflix. Do they just not insure properly?

They canned Teenage Bounty Hunters today too. "

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this was the best show on Netflix in a long time by some margin IMO. Can't believe it. Someone should pick that up, it's extraordinary.