This Friday on the POST Wrestling Café, Wai & I will review Season 2 of GLOW on Netflix.
Please leave us your feedback to the season, discuss characters, scenes & themes explored in this season and what you liked or disliked.
MJ -
I had waited to see the official thread go up before posting these from The Ringer (the latter is with Kia Stevens and a fun read!):
I watched GLOW season 2 in about 4 days and thought it really took the next step as far as a television show goes. While Maron, Brie, and Gilpin continued to shine as leads on the show, it was the focus on the other characters that enhanced the show that much more. One thing that made the Attitude Era great was every character felt important and busy. This can be said for GLOW this season as each character felt essential to the overall story and had a role to play. I likened each character having a story that was a focus each episode to a well booked wrestling promotion where he talent gets their spot at top of the wheel. As in wrestling, caring about everyone made a the viewer invested in the big finale.
I also enjoyed the bottle episode in which we saw their version of GLOW. The way they used skits to build story actually made me appreciate something like Being the Elite, (or Fashion Files, to a lesser extent), that much more. Good matches can only carry a promotion so far, but when you add backstory and drama there is meaning. Even if it is campy skits, you want to know what the motivation or feud is. This isn’t new but seeing the GLOW cast recognize this needed to happen in order to sell matches even more hammered home for me how simple it is and rare done in WWE today.
I found myself rooting for the cast to succeed and get picked up by another station in the Finale because they were very much a DIY bunch who found purpose in making their show. They found their niche and took pride in entertaining them. This is why I praise the Elite obsessively, and root for all NXT talent. To carve out your own place in wrestling and succeed is something we should all root for.
Bringing this full circle: It is why I am such a proud and active member of the POST Wrestling community - I recognize the hard work being put in by John and Wai to both have careers and deliver an enjoyable product to their audience. The least I can do is show my support in-kind and be there to encourage others to do the same. I enjoyed the emphasis placed on the women having fans this season (even though it was for comedy) as well as Allison Brie’s character verbally explaining that it was more to her than a job. Behind every good wrestling product - podcast or promotion - are real people trying to make it doing something they love. We take that for granted so many times when we discuss wrestling and the second season of GLOW simplified it enough to make me appreciate who I suppose even more.
(Sorry for this being so long but I lifted some of what I had wrote elsewhere here and wanted to tie it together)
It’s been a while since I have been able to sit and enjoy a Netflix series but this one grabbed me. I really enjoyed this, I loved Sam once again, Ruth wasn’t the key character she was in the last series but that helped the other characters around her more and I did get a lot of fun out of the full GLOW episode that was episode 8. I think 10 episodes was the right amount and the ending was perfect to help build to the next season. Overall, I really liked GLOW. I do think season 1 was funnier but season 2 built more and told more of a story.
Dave from the Netherlands
Thought this season was great, even better than the first.Loved the main cast, though not all of the supporting characters worked for me.Kia Stevens was one of the standouts for me, would’ve never thought she would be this great of an actress back when i watched her in TNA.I especially enjoyed the 8th episode, in which they air an episode of the show, thought that was very well done.Definitely looking forward to season 3!
Marc from Cole Harbour
I thought season two was really great. I think they did a good job of showing more depth with the individual characters as well as their relationships with each other; especially Justine and Sam, Ruth and Debbie and Ruth and Sam.
As far as the way they portrayed the wrestling aspect of the show, I thought they made it easy for non fans to catch on to some of the basic concepts but also accurate enough for an educated wrestling fan to feel like the creators really get it. One scene that stuck out to me was when Welfare Queen lost to Liberty Bell, who then cut a demeaning and racist promo to build herself up and get a few laughs. This didn’t fit the white meat baby face character so when Welfare Queen left crying, the crowd began to turn on Liberty Bell. Knowing this was bad for the baby face of the show, Ruth decided to create an angle and kidnap Liberty Bell’s daughter to put the baby face back in peril to get the crowd behind her again. A nice way to explain the importance of the heel/baby face dynamic and crowd reaction.
Lastly, I thought the scene of Ruth and the TV executive in the hotel room and the subsequent story line were well done. They showed in season 1 that they were willing to touch on some “taboo” subjects with Ruth’s abortion, and they didn’t move away from that in season 2. With all of the #MeToo movement controversy happening, I thought they did a good job of showing a situation highlighting why the movement originally started; a man trying to use the power they have over a woman’s career for sex. It’s a real thing and they did a good job of using their platform to show a realistic scenario that might put it a bit more into context for some.
Overall I really enjoyed the season and I’ll definitely be back for season 3.
1 Like
Just finished it with the mrs, we both felt the first half of the season dragged a lot compared with season 1 with not a lot of consequence really happening until episode 6 or so.
However once the show woke up it quickly made up for lost time in the last part of the season with the brilliant episode showing the TV show itself building to a great finale.
Whilst the stuff with the exec did feel a bit lazy to me, as has already been pointed out in other comments that doesn’t make this practice any less commonplace, sleazy or worth highlighting.
I did like how the executive’s actions were used to contrast with the relationship between Brie and Mark Marron’s characters, with the incident with the exec derailing the show and Marc Maron’s actions causing akwardness but not to the point of ruining their friendship or professional relationship.
Feels like they’re setting up for Marron vs cameraman for season 3, definitely interested to see how things shake out.
Overall we both really enjoyed it by the end and can’t wait for a season 3 where hopefully some of the other girls who feel well intentioned if a little rushed (jump chain, beirut, one that I always assume is supposed to be Ivory) find a bit more time to shine and develop without being so pushed to the side by the main story.
Jez and Hannah from the UK via Seoul, South Korea.
Andrew from New Zealand
Seriously how good was Awesome Kong in this season? How long til we see her in more acting roles?
My only real complaint is that the season was too short. You can tell from the glimpses we get that all the girls have really well developed characters, so its frustrating that we barely see most of them.
Also, what’s up with Liberty Belle asking Chavito to do a “back flip”? It feels like her character would know the proper name for the move. Weird choice.
Eric in Miami, I watch a lot of Sitcoms from Modern Family and Brooklyn nine nine to Silicon Valley and Blackish which had some dramatic turns this season. Glow season 2 episode 4 “Mother of all Matches” may have been the best single episode of TV I watch in 2018 I loved it from the setup of Tamme being a proud mother visiting her son in college, to not wanting to tell him what she does, to performing in front of him knowing how embarrassed she felt. It all paid off when he said “You threw that white girl across” as a wrestling fan you get that he got it. I loved that episode and it was a great season. Thanks as always guys
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Daley in Paris.
I blitzed this series in a matter of 48 hours. I feel like the first two or three episodes were slow moving but I understood why they were paced this way by episodes 8, 9 and 10. The character development over the course of this season was stellar.
The star of this season for me was Kia Stevens. I found her performance to be moving and totally believable. I have a feeling that we will be seeing more of her in the years to come. The rest of the cast also put in great performances. I thought their abilities were particularly evident in the episode of Glow (I think it was episode 7?) itself. When I watched them performing as wrestlers, it was rather jarring; they were hamming it up like, well, wrestlers. So upon returning to their usual “real” characters, I practically forgot that they were acting.
Overall I would highly recommend this series and I really hope that it will be picked up for a third run. Do you know anything about that?
Thanks for all you do. Daley.
Yet Another Chris, also from Melbourne.
I wasn’t very impressed with season one, as I felt it started with a pretty vocal feminist theme before eventually ditching the women and focusing more on Sam and Bash’s problems. When Ruth’s abortion seemed to only happen to build sympathy for Sam, I was over it.
This season was fantastic, and I enjoyed it far more. I found it more interesting, more heartfelt, and far funnier. It brought it back to the women, and it felt a lot more balanced across the whole season.
Bash’s line “And what’s a mother without her child? Just a person!” has become a catchphrase in my house, and episode 8 is destined to be rewatched whenever I need a campy comedy fix.
My only complaint was how short some of the episodes felt, but maybe that’s a positive, since each one left me wanting more until the very end of the season.
6 stars out of 5.
(Max in Seattle, if this doesn’t genuinely amuse you guys skip it)
I don’t believe this, Machu Picchu is the best worker in the company and they’re burying her!!!
She should go work in New Japan where they appreciate workrate.
I don’t understand the booking with the crown either.
Welfare Queen has real heat, and actually benefited from holding it, but even though she was their champion she still wasn’t really booked in the main event spot. She got herself over, but now they’re not doing their part to create a star.
What’s even worse is they took it off her and gave it to someone who just proved herself to be unsafe.
Liberty Belle is sloppy and dangerous, and if she wasn’t blonde she’d be nowhere near the top of the card, and there’s no way she’s passing any wellness testing either.
Anyway, I know I’m just being optimistic here and losing their TV deal will probably kill the promorion, but I think it’ll give everyone some much needed time to focus on their in-ring outside of the spotlight.
2 Likes
I loved the first season and had quite high expectations about the second season. I was overwhelmed with how good this season actually was. While the first season told a story of them trying to get the ball rolling, this second season told the story of how the ball rolled - and they did so without setting the ball on fire and rolling it into a pigshit ditch.
Between Ruth giving 110% in an effort to repair her broken friendship with Debbie while sacrificing any romantic prospects for the sake of it in vain (as well as trying to keep the glow alive in the GLOW promotion), the internal competition of the roster, Sam struggling to not being a changed man after a sudden fatherhood, this show had all kinds of good, convincing drama in it.
Most shows have this special episode that leaves a huge mark. A special kind of episode that really defines the essence and an emotional peak of the show’s storytelling. For me, this was Mother of All Matches (E04).
I hope for an S03. Any possibilities of them telling the story of the corporation from North-East threatening the promotion there?
All the best to both of you,
Max, I genuinely was amused by your post. Very well done! 5 Stars
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I have just finished watching season 2. I loved it too. I thought it was very consistant.
Episode 4 was the best episode because of its unusual structure.
For those interested the show runners from GLOW did a podcast interview with The Watch on the Ringer podcast network.
1 Like