Review: GLOW Season 1

Review: GLOW Season 1

 GLOW is a Netflix series. It is based on the popular 1980’s women’s wrestling program, Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling. It stars Alison Brie, Kia Stevens, Ellen Wong, Chris Lowell and more. It also features guest cameo appearances by professional wrestling stars Joey Ryan, Brooke Hogan, Alex Riley, Laura James and more.

GLOW starts out with an aspiring actress named Ruth Wilder. After auditioning for a role for a female secretary, she chooses to read the man’s lines instead of the woman’s. After realizing she is not going to get the part, Ruth confronts the woman hosting the audition and it is revealed that Ruth wants roles where women are depicted as powerful and strong. The woman hosting the audition eventually contacts her back informing her of an audition for a television show looking for women that are more eccentric and defy the norm.

 Ruth goes to the audition, only to discover it is located at a gym. The director hosting the auditions, Sam, reveals that the television show that Ruth and the other ladies are trying out for is called GLOW, otherwise known as the Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling. Pending that they are casted for the show, the ladies would be trained to wrestle. Ruth eventually ends up getting cut from the tryouts, due to being at odds with the director. Determined to prove herself, Ruth returns to the gym, only to be confronted by her best friend and former soap opera star, Debbie Eagan, who lashes out at Ruth for having an affair with her husband.

Ultimately, Ruth and Debbie’s confrontation makes them the promotion’s top stars. This is not without complications, however, as we see Ruth and Debbie struggle throughout the series with both of them trying to find and understand their gimmicks and backstories, Ruth dealing with an unexpected pregnancy and Debbie refusing to work with Ruth at first. Additionally, we see the other ladies deal with issues of their own throughout the series including Cherry being ridiculed for a past miscarriage, Carmen’s father disapproving of her getting into professional wrestling, Carmen’s panic attacks before wrestling a match, Justine trying to reach out to the father she never grew up with and Justine also trying to deal with her romantic attraction to a local pizza delivery boy.

Some of the things I enjoyed about the series were the portrayal of the ladies wrestling gimmicks, particularly Liberty Belle, Zoya, The Welfare Queen and The Beatdown Biddies. If you are a fan of the original GLOW wrestling program, you may also catch the references to some of the original GLOW stars such as The Housewives, Godiva, Hollywood, Mountain Fiji, Americana, Ninotchka etc. There are also references to other famous wrestling personas outside of GLOW, such as Miss Elizabeth and Hulk Hogan. Of course, the show wouldn’t be complete without a GLOW rap, which is shown when Britannica (Rhonda) tries to calm down the crowd after Liberty Belle (Debbie) walks out of her match against Zoya (Ruth) to confront her husband upon his discovery of her being a lady wrestler, to which he ultimately disapproves of.  In the final episode of season one though, we see Liberty Belle defy her husband's wishes for her to not be involved with professional wrestling as she faces Zoya once more in the ring, this time for the prestigious GLOW crown. 

While I did think the scene involving Cherry being teased for having a miscarriage was a bit inappropriate, I overall enjoyed the series and feel like a lot of females in the professional wrestling business can relate to the series or at the very least, relate to one of the characters. I also think the series did show a very surreal portrayal of what women in the wrestling business sometimes go through both in the ring and in our personal lives. I hope that another season will be released sometime in the future.