★★★½
“Twoooooooo….”
I don’t typically binge-watch shows, being generally content with an episode or two per week. For the second season of GLOW, Netflix’s original series (very) loosely based on 80’s TV show Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, we made an exception and blitzed through the series in a couple of days. This in itself is a recommendation – with most of the episodes running barely 30 minutes, it was very much a case of “just one more…” Before we knew it, we were done, and left with a vague feeling of emptiness and slight regret at having burned the 10 episodes so quickly.
Is it as freshly original as the first series? I’m inclined to say not quite, mostly because it’s treading in its own footsteps. Some aspects have improved – not least the wrestling, which (under the continued tutelage of Chavo Guerrero, who makes a cameo on the final episode) is now probably better than anything the real Gorgeous Ladies ever managed. But the balance seems to have tilted. It feels more like a soap opera with occasional interludes of sports entertainment, while its predecessor went the other way. This series is also rather more strident and obvious in its morality, not least a ham-handed shoehorning in of a #MeToo narrative that had #MeRollingMyEyes.
If the first season was about the struggle up the mountain to make the show, this one is about the fight to stay on the summit and avoid cancellation, in the face of evaporating sponsors and an unengaged TV station, as well as the ongoing relationship between its top stars: former soap star Debbie, a.k.a. Liberty Belle (Gilpin) and bit-part actress Ruth, a.k.a. Zoya the Destroya (Brie). This comes to a literal crunch when a coked-up Debbie genuinely breaks Ruth’s ankle during a match – an incident inspired by a badly dislocated arm suffered by Susie Spirit in the real GLOW.
Some scenes, and even entire episodes, are great: the GLOW parody of “USA for Africa” is perfect, as is the anti-teen sex PSA Debbie assembles. And the eighth episode is, save for the final few seconds in which life decides to imitate art, an entire TV episode of the supposed show. It’s a faithful recreation of the style – albeit with rather less wrestling than the “real” thing – and is glorious, something I’d happily watch every week. The performances throughout are beautifully nuanced, with the best being Brie, and Maron as the show’s good-hearted bastard director Sam Sylvia.
But there were enough flaws in the writing as well as weaker episodes (especially during the first half); combined with the lack of any much sense of building on the previous season, I have to give it a slightly lower rating. Debbie’s coke use, for example, comes out of nowhere and goes there too. Maybe things like that will become more relevant in any third series: this one ends with the cast and crew heading to Las Vegas [finally catching up with the real GLOW, who were based out of there]. Until then… Well, we’ll just have to watch Lucha Underground instead.
Created by:: Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch
Star: Alison Brie, Betty Gilpin, Marc Maron, Sydelle Noel
