Awesome / GLOW (2017)

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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Season 1

• When Ruth tries to convince Sam to hire her for Glow in the first episode, she's ambushed by Debbie over Ruth's affair with Mark while she's in the middle of cutting a mock promo in costume. As the two flail at each other in the middle of the ring, Sam begins daydreaming of a potential wrestling match, set to Separate Ways by Journey
• Sam takes a backhand from Goliath Jackson, a professional wrestler, and not only does he get back up, he makes fun of him.

  Sam: A fucking backhand? What am I, some mouthy housewife?
  Goliath: You want me to hit you like you're a real man?!
  Sam: Whatever you gotta do to get the fuck outta here!

• Bash attempting to convince Carmen's wrestler father that he's her boyfriend (and thus let her hang around the wrestling gym). Goliath sees through it, but it's sweet of Bash to do this for a girl he's just met, mostly because he likes her.
• Debbie and Ruth's training montage from episode 7 shows them going from loathing the sight of each other and scared to take bumps to trusting each other - at least in the ring. Their demo match later in the episode gets the entire group cheering.
• The climax fight: first Edna and Ethel Rosenblatt show up on their walkers complaining about their hearing loss, later to the theme of Soviet patriotic music with Vicki Viking and Melrose in themed costumes carrying the Soviet flags as Zoya the Destroya and Fortune Cookie enter and deliver a Curb-Stomp Battle to the Rosenblatts, soon Zoya double-crosses Fortune Cookie. It looks as though Zoya won until Debbie in the audience challenges her. Two awesome moments come out of this:
  • Liberty Belle's statement:
    I'm a proud American Mother and I refuse to raise my children in a world without freedom. I'm ready to kick your Soviet ass all the way to Siberia!
  • Debbie gets to tell off Mark:
    This is too silly for you, you can leave.
  • Later to the tune of Pat Benatar's "Invincible", we see Zoya and Liberty Belle have really improved on their wrestling since we first saw them. Including Debbie's first real top-rope crossbody.
• To a lesser extent: Welfare Queen battling and then conquering the crown away from Liberty Belle.

  America, you have turned your back on me long enough! You've ghettoized my people, trapped us in an endless cycle of poverty. Not anymore. Tonight, I take back what I deserve!

• The tape of the pilot being shown:
  • Bash races through a TV studio with the VHS to make it to the time slot.
  • The women are all together in a living room, talking of their expectations of the show when finally...
    "It's GLOW! The Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling!"

Season 2

• Reggie stands up for Ruth, in front of the cast and crew, to Sam after he shames Ruth for filming a "cheesy, girly" main title sequence of the cast in Viking Funeral after he claims he never slaps his name on something he didn't direct; she points out that he did that with the pilot, how Ruth directed 99% of the episode while he was out.

  You know Ruth directed the pilot. She saved your ass. You should thank her.

  • After Sam fires her, Reggie tosses some folding chairs around, a Call-Back to her anger about not being cast as Liberty Belle.
  • Debbie works on getting some more power than what Sam's contract grants her. Which leads to....
    Sam: Are you kidding me? You want to be a producer?
    Debbie: Oh, no. I am a producer.
• Ruth brings Zoya back in action by "kidnapping" (actually an audience member) Liberty Belle's little girl. It's a quick cover on her part after an emotional breakdown on the part of Welfare Queen, and gets her back in the spotlight.
• Sam steps up as a father to Justine by behaving much more maturely, getting her to be more honest, and making civil overtures to her mother. By the end of the season, Justine is headed back to Sacramento with her mother, but she and Sam now have a much healthier and more honest relationship.
  • He pretty much manages to stop Justine from running off to New York with Billy by appealing to her rebelliousness and telling her that move would make her a follower.
• The aftermath of Ruth getting sexually harassed by Tom Grant isn't pretty, but it ultimately turns into a moment of awesome for Sam. When Ruth tells Debbie about it, Debbie's response is cold, unsympathetic and acidic. And when Ruth tells Sam? He goes to K-DTV the next morning and smashes up Tom Grant's car.
  • When Glen (who was also involved) shows up at the finale to tell the wrestlers that their characters are owned by the network, Sam (who called Glen a "spineless coward" to Ruth) physically holds his shoulders back to deliver the bad news to the girls. Bash then tells Glen to "get the fuck out of my gym".
• The Team Power Walk at the end of "Nothing Shattered" where Sam wheels Ruth out, both flanked by Debbie and Bash. Everyone is looking at them and Bash is winking. All set to the Missing Persons' "Destination Unknown". They are ready to give their all for a sinking ship of a show.
• Debbie asserts herself as producer when Kurt and his partner Chico Guapo try to confront Carmen about stealing a move from him. She pretty much defuses a conflict that involved Sibling Rivalry, men in a women's dressing room filled with half-dressed women, and barbs at women's wrestling.
  • She also works in the appearances by Kurt and Chico Guapo into the finale.
  • Later after disrupting the final fight, the men are challenged to a fight where it ends with Liberty Belle versus Chico Guapo, with her tossing the muscular professional wrestler off the ring. She did a castador with a crossbody.
    • He didn't do to shabby himself, he did a backflip on the ring!
    • Another point of awesome for both of them (but especially Debbie, who's only been wrestling for a year, and almost entirely in fully-prepped matches) is that they pull it off with no rehearsal time, calling moves in the ring and working off each other on the fly.
  • Sam has a trick up his sleeve: Zoya ziplines herself onto the ring (Ruth was behind the scenes with Sam) and wins the crown.
  Awwwww! You love to hate Zoya!
• One of the school dads (Ray) runs a chain of strip clubs and is Yolanda's boss and he has an idea after viewing the finale: make GLOW a Vegas show.

Season 3

• Sheila as Liza Minnelli in the fifth episode, "Freaky Tuesday." She has a vision of a wolf while dehydrated on the camping trip in "Outward Bound" and sheds the wolf persona for good by throwing her costume on the campfire, as it was getting in the way of her being taken seriously as an actress.
• After putting up with Bash's crap for a part of the mid-season, to the point where he tells her she is disposable, Debbie takes the chance to launch "The Reason You Suck" Speech at him after finding out he has a sore throat affecting his vocal chords.

  Do you have a sore throat? (Bash gives her a Duh look) I'm sorr—Please, rest your voice. That's so smart. In fact, you know what? You don't have to talk at all. I'll just...What I wanna say is this: Um, you are a dickhead, and I don't trust you anymore. And Sam may have run off to LA, but I am still here. And I brought my fucking kid. So there's not a single day I will not be in your face. And I have very strong vocal chords! I wish more men would go on vocal rest.

• Arthie coming out as gay, after the fire at the benefit gig and the homophobic graffiti. It wasn’t like the others didn’t already know it, but it represents her as publicly identifying with Yolanda and no longer trying to deny anything about herself. The proud look on Yolanda’s face says it all.
• Geena Davis, at age 63, absolutely rocking a barely-there showgirl outfit.
• Every single second of Ruth and Carmen's final match in 3.10, "A Very GLOW Christmas." Special mention goes to Ruth backflipping off of the ropes.
• Carmen as the Ghost of Christmas Future is a menacing, amazing presence.
  • Complete with an Undertaker Shout-Out.