GLOW 2.10: "Every Potato Has a Receipt"

Chris: First off, we finally get the Chavo Guerrero (Chico) cameo that was promised. Not enough can be said about the work he’s done with the actresses and teaching them wrestling so they look as great as they do in the ring in this show. I found myself feeling like I would really like to see how this wedding episode would actually look like when it aired much like the show within a show episode. Weddings on a wrestling show are a weird tradition going back to Macho Man and Miss Elizabeth. It’s a tradition that doesn’t happen all that often but never has a wrestling wedding gone smoothly and GLOW proudly continues that tradition even without the battle royale. I enjoyed the back half of season two, the first half was alright but so little of it had to do with putting the show together or wrestling. And I understand that the first half was focused more on the drama and relationship aspect of the show but it all made it slow and at times made me question if GLOW was even a comedy anymore. However, the last half of the season really picked up and reminded me of why I fell in love with this show. The finale did a great job showing their progression in the ring as well, I predict one of the girls is going to pull off a Canadian Destroyer by the end of season 3.

Joel: There are a few unwritten rules that permeate throughout all of wrestling. Signature poses before moves turn them into super moves. Referees are made of glass. And there will never be a wedding in a wrestling ring where something doesn’t go wrong. It’s good to see GLOW following in that time honored tradition where an advertised wedding goes completely off the rails, and the bride ends up marrying someone entirely different that the original intended groom.
Of course a good deal happens in the season finale beyond wedding shenanigans. The biggest moment of the show, plot wise at least, is the official cancelation of the GLOW TV show, and the birth of GLOW the live stage show in Vegas. Over the past two seasons we’ve gotten a lot of detail about the creation of a wrestling show. We have had storylines about the wrestlers developing their characters and coming up with different storylines. We had a moment where Debbie finally “gets” wrestling when she realizes the whole thing is a big giant soap Opera. We got Sam’s vision of what the show was going to look like on television complete with camera setups. And this season we even got a full episode of the show itself, complete with non wrestling moments including plot points and music videos. But even today, there’s a great deal of wrestling that’s never done for a camera. Independent wrestling promotions to this day will put on shows wherever they can find space, from high school gyms, to bingo halls, to sometimes people’s backyard. These aren’t wrestling promotions that have the advantage of a new episode coming out every week driving forward feuds, and character evolution and general plot points. These are wrestling shows that exist only for the people who are in the room at the moment it’s happening live and yet the same things have to happen. A hero and a villain must be established in the match. A motivation for each character must be defined as well as their relationships with one another, and perhaps with additional members of the locker room as well. It’s exactly like the wrestling than happens on TV presented to a national audience, but at the same time’ it’s a different beast all together.
Of course getting a spot to put on a show in Vegas isn’t exactly putting on a wrestling show in the local community center, but this new Vegas journey will undoubtedly shake up the show next season. The dynamic has changed and there’s an entirely new set of expectations to adapt to. I’m looking forward to seeing how this show, these characters, and this story will continue to evolve in the third season.

Alexa: This episode features pretty much everything you could want out of a season finale. The team believes this could be their last show ever, so they pull out all the stops both in terms of storyline and wrestling. The in-ring wedding is a dramatic development for Britannica in the show-within-a-show and for Rhonda in real life. Bash stepping in last minute to save Rhonda from deportation (and from marrying a total creeper) was an out-of-left-field move that will likely have significant ramifications going forward. Bash obviously cares about Rhonda, but I don’t believe for a second he’s secretly been in love with her this entire season. Whether he was just being impulsive because he’s grieving and afraid to be alone or whether he’s perhaps questioning his own sexuality after losing Florian and learning Florian was gay remains to be seen. But I think we can expect some really interesting character development from Bash next season - and by extension from Rhonda as well now that she’s caught in the middle of whatever he’s going through. I have to take a minute to commend Chris Lowell for his outstanding work this season. He had some rich and unexpected material to mine, and this episode is the culmination of that. He communicates a multitude of subtle, conflicting emotions when he impulsively declares his love for Rhonda, and the scene in which he breaks down while having his house scrubbed clean is downright heartbreaking. He’s proven he’s so much more than the show’s comic relief, even though he still excels tremendously in that area. But back to the wrestling - the whole battle royal was fun but the highlight for me was Debbie, Carmen and Sheila taking on Carmen’s brother and his friend. Watching him and Debbie improvise moves in the ring and seeing the audience respond so favorably to their ideas was awesome. And I loved the twist of Ruth swooping in to take the crown after everything she’s been through this season. One of the things I love most about “GLOW” is it’s unapologetically unpredictable. I assumed another network would pick up the show, but the GLOW-moves-to-Vegas twist was totally unexpected and opens the door for a lot of exciting material next season.