This was probably my favorite episode. There’s a heavy emphasis on wrestling. All the Gorgeous Ladies got a bit of business to do, and it had hilarious moments.
We open with the girls handing out flyers for their pilot episode taping. We also meet Sheila’s boyfriend Rob The Vampire, who is “bringing his entire coven.” “Hi Rob,” says Melrose, nonchalantly ignoring his vampire make-up and velvet jacket as he’s running down the street holding hands with a girl dressed in wolf skins and fishnets.
Sam has posted the Pilot Episode card. All the girls are excited to find out who they’re wrestling. Okay, almost all. Debbie, the prima donna, is less than excited. She also doesn’t like her choreography that Cherry has planned for her. Debbie wants some splashy moves that will make her match better than everybody else’s. And Cherry continues to be unimpressed with Sam’s use of her. Tamme and Cherry will be teaming up against The Beat Down Biddies. “I wonder why,” quips Cherry, suggesting there is something not quite coincidental about the two black wrestlers tag-teaming.
So Ruth and Debbie wind up heading over to Carmen’s house, where her wrestling champion brothers have a ring in their backyard. They want to learn some souped up maneuvers “with some panache.” In a hilarious rocking 80s training montage, Ruth and Debbie get a crash course in intermediate wrestling, and Debbie is taught a solid finishing move: a top rope body splash. “I think we’ll just stick with the second rope. I think it’s still cool,” says Ruth as Debbie gets woozy, shakily trying to stand on the top rope.
In some solid character business, Rhonda AKA Brittanica invests in the GLOW Girls rap, Cherry’s husband Keith becomes the referee, and we learn Sheila is an ace at Jeopardy.
Half the episode is given over to the mostly disastrous GLOW Pilot taping. I don’t really want to spoil any of it as it would just be me deadening funny jokes, but the highlight is Cherry and Tamme’s hilarious/horrifying tag team match in front of a stunned studio audience. The Battling Biddies motivate themselves to go through with the match with a pre-match pep talk. “It’s not racist if the black girls came up with the idea, right?” You know if you have to say that out loud, there is something very wrong. GLOW the series has created strong humor from going to places that are so wrong, yet so right. And they are smart enough to be in on the joke about how something is politically incorrect or how ill-conceived something is. The writers are on the funny side of the joke, something that the producers of the original GLOW wrestling never quite managed to achieve. There’s also some other great character subplots. Carmen has a panic attack and can’t wrestle. Sheila provides the entrance themes on her Casio keyboard, but she only knows one miserable song. And Marc Maron gets comedy mileage out of dead-panning the horrible match announcing.
We also get a solid preview of the Debbie-Ruth feud with Ruth debuting her Evil Russian, Zoya the Destoroya. My favorite subtle joke of the episode has Ruth taking off her Russian fur hat and her 80s mullet-fro is in the shape of the hat.
BOTTOM LINE: This is possibly my favorite episode of the season. I highly recommend it. After this episode you will be a fan of this show. You will be signed on for the rest of the season, and seasons to come, guaranteed.