GLOW Episode 5 "Debbie Does Something" Review

Chris: Really? Alex Riley is giving the deep insight (not making a euphemism, I swear) into the world of professional wrestling? That’s like Tim Tebow giving you football advice or Tim Tebow giving you broadcasting advice, or Tim Tebow giving you baseball advice, or Tim Tebow giving you advice about being subtle about your religion. All joking aside, Alex Riley (Steel Horse) introduces a great point about how it takes every participant in the ring to tell a story and deliver quality matches and wrestlers’ feelings about each other in real life is left in the dressing room. It’s an impressive thing to do because there’s always someone at your work that you can’t stand and avoid at all costs but you can’t do that in pro wrestling, if the booker tells you have a match and possibly an entire storyline, it doesn’t matter how you feel about that person, you still go out and try to get each other over with the crowd and deliver. Some of the greatest matches were performed by wrestlers that either hated each other or are ambivalent about each other. Look at Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, they started out as friendly acquaintances and the began to hate each other but they were getting booked more frequently against each other and they’re matches just got better and better. But a good face is only as good as the heel, Dusty Rhodes wouldn’t have been a household name still to this day if it wasn’t for the 4 Horseman, Hulk Hogan wouldn’t have the money for lawyers to bankrupt Gawker if it wasn’t for Iron Sheik, and you wouldn’t have Jerry “The King” Lawler” if you didn’t have the probably thousands of guys he refused to put over in Memphis. Wrestler cameos in this episode include the aforementioned Alex Riley as Steel Horse, Joey Ryan as Mr. Monopoly and his wife Laura James playing his valet, and Frankie Kazarian and Christopher Daniels playing the unnamed wrestlers.

Joel: This might be my favorite episode of the series so far. We get a handful of great moments where the setup we’ve been seeing is starting to payoff. Since the beginning of the show, things haven’t really been working out for Ruth. And here we get the first moment where she does something really good in wrestling, the bit at the patio furniture opening with some improvised Soviet based heel work. What I really love about this is that her success here is marked by getting people to boo her. Ruth is a character who desperately wants to be liked, but getting to see her face as something she’s trying to accomplish work, I love that it’s to a chorus of boos from the audience.

But the real meat of the episode is centered around Debbie. I’ve been unsure how I felt about Debbie up to this point. One one hand, she’s the only person in the group that didn’t pursue this wrestling opportunity, and in the first episode she learned that her husband was sleeping with her best friend, and now has a baby to take care of on top of that, so I’ve been willing to cut the character a fair amount of slack. This episode however, finally addressed my issue with Debbie head on. She thinks wrestling is stupid. This isn’t a “fake vs. real” issues. She understands wrestling. She know’s what it is and to her, what it is, is dumb. This had created several moments in earlier episodes where she understood wrestling but didn’t really get it, one example being last episode where she wanted her character to have a valet. And the issue arises here because people are starting to pass her by. Ruth has gotten noticeably better, and Debbie has not. Her opinion on wrestling itself is a block that she can’t get past. Which leads us to Carmen taking Debbie to a wrestling show.

As a fan of wrestling there’s something fantastic about seeing somebody “get it” for the first time. Once you get past the whole “fake” issue, and are focusing on what makes wrestling work it’s a great thing. Most wrestling fans will have a handful of go-to matchest when trying to get a friend to “get it.” And I absolutely love how it worked in this episode. It’s never one think. We got the moonsault and Debbie was impressed enough with the athleticism, but that was just part of it. It takes a few matches, a few storylines, it’s a gradual build. And the show took the time  to show that here. The comparison to soap operas was the thing that sealed the deal, but there build up to that point mattered as well.  We got to see Debbie really “get” wrestling for the first time. And getting to watch that roller coast is one of my favorite parts of wrestling, and my favorite moment of the show so far.

Alexa: Though we’ve gradually gotten to know some of the secondary characters at this point, Debbie was still a bit of a mystery until this standout episode. You can’t help but sympathize with her given that she’s raising an infant son while her skeez of a husband has an affair with her best friend, but we haven’t really gotten to know her as a character beyond that. As Joel points out, she’s the only member of the group that had this opportunity handed to her, and she hasn’t really bought into the whole wrestling aspect. To her, it’s a chance to do something for herself while her personal life is falling apart. And there’s nothing wrong with that being a benefit of this experience, but it’s rewarding to see wrestling become something more for her, to see it finally click. The show has focused a fair amount on wrestling’s athleticism thus far, but Debbie’s realization that wrestling is partially a soap opera explores another layer. It’s as much about storytelling as sport, and the story provides the stakes. Ruth understands that, and it’s why the Russian adversary character she develops during the Patio Town event is so smart in the show’s late Cold War-era setting. As the importance of stakes in the wrestling ring becomes clearer, I get the sense the stakes will start to rise in the show overall as well.