Lack of wrestling takes shine off ‘GLOW’
The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling seem to have forgotten about the wrestling portion of their program.
The third season of “GLOW,” out Friday, sees our favorite motley crew of wrestlers move the production, costumes and all, to Las Vegas and the Fan-Tan Hotel, but lost in the transition is the most fun aspect of the Netflix series: the actual wrestling.
Through the first six episodes you see as many wrestling matches as penises: one (seriously, what is it with all the nudity this season?). With a focus on the interpersonal lives, the show has seemingly moved away from the ring, but fails to find any interesting storylines to carry a narrative and instead forces C-level characters onto the main stage where they just don’t belong.
“Our show, as it goes along, our series goal is to dig into all the women on the team,” showrunner Carly Mensch said. “Because (the wrestlers) were doing the same show night after night after night, we didn’t need to show it to the audience.”
It’s a nice theory, focusing on the individual women; after all, both GLOW and “GLOW” were always supposed to be about letting women shine. But the wrestling is what made “GLOW” fun and, more importantly, what made it stand out.
“We put so much into the wrestling in Season 1 and Season 2,” star Alison Brie, who plays the ever-optimistic Ruth, said. “At this point, it would be more retreading the same thing; you could watch us do the same 10 moves we know again and again. It felt more exciting to cover new ground with the characters.”
Some narratives work better than others: Debbie’s (Betty Gilpin) arc from stayat-home wife to powerful businesswoman to be reckoned with is admirable and entertaining. Bash (Chris Lowell) and Rhonda’s (Kate Nash) marriage of convenience forces the newlyweds — and viewers — to confront their deepest fears. Sam (Marc Maron) isn’t even in Las Vegas for most of the season and still provides a riveting storyline, perhaps his first throughout the entire show. But “GLOW” doesn’t stop there. In true Vegas form, it tries to do entirely too much and just ends up disappointing. Even Geena Davis, joining the cast as the manager of the FanTan Hotel, is depressingly underused.
Visually, outside of the ring, the show is still luscious, helped by the bright lights and fake gold of Vegas. The set rarely changes, leaving the Fan-Tan for just one episode, but that, too, helps sell the story.
“Las Vegas sends all the girls into weird places. It’s a weird place itself,” Brie said. “We’re looking at the seedy underbelly of what Vegas can turn these people into. They get stuck in this loop and they start to go a little crazy. They’ve trapped themselves in this hotel and they’re wrestling their own demons.”
No pun intended, certainly, since they’re not actually wrestling.
Again, there’s not much wrestling, but what little there is, including a delightfully bizarre “Christmas Carol”-themed match, is a reminder that this is all actually supposed to be fun and even was, once upon a time.
“We came to Vegas to watch a wrestling show and now I’m stuck in a loop,” Ruth at one point tells Debbie.
Viewers who came to Netflix to watch a wrestling show may feel the same way.