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GLOW on Netflix


Dolfan in NYC

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Finally got around to finishing it.  Such a great, great show.  Absolutely loved the payoff to the TV taping.  I love how being a wrestling fan, I feel like I'm a step ahead of the writers, then I find out, they were a step ahead all along.   And it's not the finish, it's the whole series.  You kinda feel you know where it's all going.  And then they throw a curve that totally makes sense.  Just like good pro wrestling.

Probably the first TV series since Breaking Bad where once it was over, I was ready to start watching it again.

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Finished this last night, Bash was my favourite male character with Welfare Queen/Sheila tied for favourite female character. Marc Maron was great, i thought it was overhyped after the first 2 episodes but it found its rhythm after 3.

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I just finished it last night. Terrific TV show. My wife hates wrestling but loved it, too.

I loved how everyone "earned" their happy ending. Ruth's arc was also really great. I loved that sort of the underlying thing with her character was her lack of self-awareness and talent. She's the annoying theater kid who believes her talent is several levels above where it stands. And, not just that, but she's the pariah of the group. But she wins everyone over with her hard work. Everyone respects her at the end when she has to step up and organize the show. She's still a pretty terrible "actual" actress, but it works well in wrestling since over-the-top hamminess is what works. Alison Brie really hit it out of the park. 

The swerve at the end was also great. It was a power play from Sam. But it also showed that he finally understood wrestling. He went from writing some space opera (that I would have loved to see) into seeing that the money is indeed in the chase. People loved Liberty Belle's shocking win. But then it got stripped, and now she's out for blood. Perfect soap opera writing. 

The acting in this was great. Everyone had to play two roles: "themselves" and their character. That must have been really fun for everyone.Kong was also spectacular in her role(s). So did Machu. I loved how she gained self-confidence by realizing her family was supporting her after all.

It was also really great seeing Alex Riley be the guy to explain how face/heel dynamics work. He was so utterly worthless as a wrestler. 

 

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Wonderful show that blew away any expectations that I had. Incredibly well written and charming. The wrestlers that were chosen to be in the show were perfect in their parts, and nailed their performances. Salty "the Sack" Johnson is legit an all-time great name.

Sam had some amazing one-liners during the matches. Literal LOL @ "not looking good for the white supremacists".

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A lot of wrestlers really hated this show:

-- Missy Hyatt slagged it FOR HAVING A ROBOT of all things;

-- Jim Cornette, in true Corny fashion, said "I didn't watch the original so why the fuck would I watch this?"

-- and several of my indie colleagues were annoyed that it wasn't really about wrestling, nobody took time to learn to wrestle (or magically learned after one day), etc.

Personally, I though it was fun. Marc Maron is amazing, and they did a good job spending most of the show hiding the fact that Alison Brie is actually very beautiful. My one beef, and it is with EVERYTHING Jenji Kohan does, is that EVERY CHARACTER must be a piece of shit all the time. Whatever happened to having a protagonist that wasn't a fucking dick?

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4 minutes ago, Marty Sugar said:

My one beef, and it is with EVERYTHING Jenji Kohan does, is that EVERY CHARACTER must be a piece of shit all the time. Whatever happened to having a protagonist that wasn't a fucking dick?

This.  I enjoyed the show and thought it was well done, but i didn't get drawn into it because almost everyone is unsympathetic.  I don't mind shows built around antiheroes (it's a trend, after all) but good shows of that type tend to surround the main character with normal people to balance him out.  I loved House - even the later seasons.  I don't know that I'd last 10 years with a show of that type if everyone in the cast was playing a sociopath.  Also, antihero shows generally work because they hire a Hugh Laurie-type who can elevate the material and make the main character a more dimensional character.  I felt like GLOW was just a bunch of kinda scummy people doing scummy things when the situation presented itself.

Granted, I feel like that's what it'd be like to spend time in most wrestling locker rooms.

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2 minutes ago, Horton Hears a Wooo!!! said:

Granted, I feel like that's what it'd be like to spend time in most wrestling locker rooms.

As a pro wrestler, my personal beef with GLOW and with The Wrestler, is that many locker rooms are NOT scummy at all anymore. Hell, even the WWE locker room is mostly just video game nerds and guys whining about their lack of a push on twitter.

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34 minutes ago, Marty Sugar said:

As a pro wrestler, my personal beef with GLOW and with The Wrestler, is that many locker rooms are NOT scummy at all anymore. Hell, even the WWE locker room is mostly just video game nerds and guys whining about their lack of a push on twitter.

Except this takes place in the mid 80s.

45 minutes ago, Marty Sugar said:

Personally, I though it was fun. Marc Maron is amazing, and they did a good job spending most of the show hiding the fact that Alison Brie is actually very beautiful. My one beef, and it is with EVERYTHING Jenji Kohan does, is that EVERY CHARACTER must be a piece of shit all the time. Whatever happened to having a protagonist that wasn't a fucking dick?

Brie wore little to no make up for most of it. I think she claimed they really only used it on her for the big wrestling scenes. It didn't feel like every character was a terrible person all the time to me, just that the major cast were flawed. I can understand the why of it in trying to keep things interesting. There is also just the reality that people in general aren't perfect, with even the most well meaning having their occasional dick moments.

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4 hours ago, Marty Sugar said:

As a pro wrestler, my personal beef with GLOW and with The Wrestler, is that many locker rooms are NOT scummy at all anymore. Hell, even the WWE locker room is mostly just video game nerds and guys whining about their lack of a push on twitter.

Ever watch the TV show Kingdom? It's set in and around an MMA gym, and the top guys there are top of the regional circuit/ trying to get into the UFC level. And almost every character is an alcoholic, drug addict or sexual weirdo. Except the gay guy, he's just shy and afraid to be himself.

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13 hours ago, Marty Sugar said:

A lot of wrestlers really hated this show:

-- Missy Hyatt slagged it FOR HAVING A ROBOT of all things;

-- Jim Cornette, in true Corny fashion, said "I didn't watch the original so why the fuck would I watch this?"

-- and several of my indie colleagues were annoyed that it wasn't really about wrestling, nobody took time to learn to wrestle (or magically learned after one day), etc.

Personally, I though it was fun. Marc Maron is amazing, and they did a good job spending most of the show hiding the fact that Alison Brie is actually very beautiful. My one beef, and it is with EVERYTHING Jenji Kohan does, is that EVERY CHARACTER must be a piece of shit all the time. Whatever happened to having a protagonist that wasn't a fucking dick?

Spoiler

What was her beef with the Robot? The idea that a rich dude in the 80's stuffed drugs into a Hammacher Schlemmer catalog robot is pretty plausible.

 

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I think what most people in the business need to understand, is that the show wasn't made for us, or even fans of the business. It's a TV show with wrestling as the backdrop. They did more homework and due diligence for this thing than they really even needed to.

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I actually felt like the characters were a little too soft. They all had issues but none of them were as bad as some people in real life are with those same issues.

Ruth was an annoying try hard but was also way too effective at helping people at the same time.

Sam was self-obsessed and cruel but also was immediately apologetic usually and mostly tries to make up for whatever he said/did. And he also was way less sexually predatory than that person would actually be.

Piz was a shallow spoiled nitwit but also genuine and shockingly innocent at times. Like a John Huhes version of Johnny Depps Ed Wood.

Debbie was a bit of a Diva but hardly as destructive as a real life diva fucking with people on a production.

the only one who was irredeemably a dick was Mark and that was mostly because they squashed his face turn at the last second to pull a cheap swerve.

 

even the Reagan-bot Piz mom was a pushover and the local t.v. Exec was like a goofy uncle that let you get away with anything.

these people were all puppy dogs. They were crazy supportive of each other and their various tantrums were almost always forgotten within minutes and the problems they encountered were solved with almost no effort or consequences. 

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I had this show recommended by a non-fan friend oddly enough, but I finished it in 2 days. The characters could use a little more depth, but ultimately, I think the episode length is right and focusing more on the comedy was the right direction to take. Hopefully they stick with the progressive social commentary on the sexism and racism of the entertainment industry (and swipes at things like the war on drugs by having characters do lines of coke off a picture of Ron and Nancy or having "fuck Nixon" written on the bathroom stall) as the core of the serious aspects. All those scenes came out way better and more impactful than any of the personal drama. Some people have caught on to how grating Liberty Bell is as a babyface, but no one's appreciating the scene where the USA stand-in looks like the bad guy against every character except the completely manufactured "red menace."

If they do a second season, I'd be interested in how they handle The Welfare Queen as the top heel. I like that it suggests a bigger role for Kong, who really did knock it out of the park.

The only nerdy wrestling problem I had with the show was some of the moves didn't fit the timeline of the show. Chris Daniels was doing a fucking double springboard moonsault in 1985... Come on.

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