Headscratchers / GLOW (2017)

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

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Season 1

Backup Liberty Belle

• At the filming of the pilot, what exactly was Ruth's contingency plan if Debbie hadn't decided to play Liberty Belle after all? It looks like her script would've ended with a heel-to-heel battle, with the winning heel taking the crown, which would've been pretty anticlimactic.
  • She and Debbie planned the final fight together, so if Debbie had refused to join in the filming of the pilot, Ruth probably would have scripted a completely different fight. (She must have scripted a few with the other girls offscreen) If you mean, had Debbie changed her mind and not come out of the audience to "challenge" Zoya as Liberty Belle, well then that would be Debbie's fault, and Debbie would probably get her ass kicked by the rest of the cast after the taping. In any case, Zoya winning would probably still fulfill Sam's idea of the money being in the chase. Viewers could come back to see Zoya finally defeated.
  • They never had a real argument before the show. Debbie only ever said that she was moving in with her husband again, she never said anything about not doing the show anymore. Everyone else just assumed that it was an argument when they were just having a quick planning talk.

Why were you here, Sheila?

• What was Sheila doing at a casting call to begin with? She seems completely uninterested in looking or behaving as anything other than herself. She won't even let people look at her when her wolf outfit isn't perfect. How was she ever going to play a role that didn't cater exactly to her pre-existing persona?
  • Even wolves need a way to feed themselves. This was probably her best shot at a job that wouldn't make her completely change her persona while she was working. Even if her wrestling persona isn't quite what her real persona is, for the most part she still gets to act and look the way she wants and needs to.

Sheila's wigs

• If Sheila has been wearing her wolf outfit for five years and never even lets people look at her outside of it, why is she still wearing a wig every day? Wouldn't it be easier and truer to her character for her to dye her own hair black and style it directly?
  • Probably her natural hair simply doesn't have the right texture. If it was pin straight, styling it the way she wears her wig would take ages and most likely wouldn't have the same effect.

Liberty Belle's favorites

• Why would the All-American Face Liberty Belle say one of her three favorite Americans was The Ace of the Boston Celtics Larry Bird. This is 1980s Los Angeles, the Lakers and Celtics feud was in full effect and no way do you get Cheap Heat by saying anything nice about The Celtics.
  • She was supposed to be somewhat ignorant and arrogant, after all she said that Jesus Christ is an American....
  • It's a racial joke. As I understand it, Larry Bird was the only big white star of his era, and basketball fans who only wanted to root for a white guy loved him. Liberty Belle is basically a parody of conservative WASP America of the 80s, so having her say that she's a big Larry Bird fan in spite of the Celtics not being her local team is a joke to the Netflix audience that her character is targeting a somewhat racist demographic.

Season 2

Ruth's broken leg

• Why have none of the girls brought up the fact or even argued that Debbie broke Ruth's leg on purpose? I thought it was kind of telling that Debbie didn't come to the hospital and her behavior (even Keith noticed). It seems weird a show about them all bonding and growing wouldn't even acknowledge this and be like, "yo Debbie, you seemed a bit coked out or a bit overly aggressive... was it intentional?"
  • There's a couple of things at play here.
    • 1. Debbie isn't very close to the other girls, other than Tamme. Even then, they only really connect because they are the only two mothers in GLOW. This means that the other members of GLOW might not feel like they can talk to Debbie about what happened without it coming off as an attack. This is important because:
    • 2. Debbie is a producer. She doesn't have the other women's backs. She cares only about herself. She negotiates a better contract for herself, but not for anyone else, and worst at all she chews Ruth out for refusing Tom Grant's advances. Also, her cruelty to Ruth over the past two seasons has shown the people around her that Debbie is no one to trifle with and that she is not afraid to cut down even her closest friends when they cross her. No one else wants to taken the scapegoat position that Ruth previously had, so the girls won't risk angering Debbie.
    • 3. Debbie knows how to play the entertainment business game and is the star protagonist of the show. Bash is probably intimidated by her and Sam just doesn't want to put up with it or just doesn't have the energy. (Though, there's a plothole there as far as "Why didn't Sam make a comment on the coke usage?" It was his stash that Debbie was jacked up on; he could probably recognize when someone else is on it, and should let Debbie know she can't be pulling that kind of shit in the ring.)
    • 4. Sam, Bash and the girls may feel that it's best to let Ruth take the lead on this incident, since she and Debbie have extensive history. Ruth and Debbie's argument in the hospital was a huge turning point for their relationship. Debbie has blatantly said she will not stop giving Ruth shit and Ruth has decided she's done eating the shit that Debbie piles on her. Debbie can still be angry at Ruth if she wants, but season 2 has really shown that as far as Debbie's marital and emotional problems are concerned, Ruth sleeping with Mark was only the smallest peak of a massive iceberg. The other girls know Ruth and Debbie have a pre-existing relationship. So they're looking to Ruth for guidance. If Ruth had pointed a finger at Debbie, I have no doubt the other girls would've jumped in.
  • At any rate, this is probably all setting up some future subplots to play out in season 3. This is an issue that NEEDS to come up with the other characters in the next season. Characters other than Ruth need to push and call Debbie out on her past actions, and she needs to acknowledge that if she doesn't let go of past transgressions, her own emotional instability and anger will destroy her. That either Debbie gets a wakeup call and comes to terms with how things are now and trying to grow or she goes further down the path of violence and addiction just to numb herself.
  • Hurting someone on purpose is the worst thing you can do. In men's wrestling, Debbie would have gotten beat up or worse at the least for what she did. But in the context of the show none of the girls or anyone involved is really steeped in the culture of it, so it kinda makes sense that no one would know that Debbie needed to be brought to wrestlers court and dealt with, though Carmen (whose brothers and dad are wrestlers themselves) should be well aware of that standard. Ruth and Debbie have beef far beyond the scope of the show, and the girls all know it.
    Now, if Debbie had lost her shit and broken Tamme's or Arthie's leg and then didn't even show up at the hospital, I would wager that some of the more hot-headed girls would have kicked her ass or otherwise fucked her shit up, but considering that she and Ruth had that blowout fight (you know that Bash told Carmen and Rhonda about that when he got back to the hotel), Debbie came to get Ruth's clothes and had that talk with Sheila, and then she and Ruth were treating each other cordially afterward, they probably just decided to follow Ruth's lead and let it go.
  • It's also possible that the girls didn't realize it was intentional. Maybe they suspected it, but Bash had warned them that they were doing riskier moves without enough time to properly train, and chalked it up to being a product of this.
    • As I recall, all of the girls treat it as an accident and never once mention the possibility that it might have been intentional, so they apparently just didn't realize what really happened. Even Ruth seems to think that it was a simple accident. If any of them even suspected, we would have heard them discussing it.
• Another question: why did none of the girls have any hesitation to work with Debbie again? Actually hurting someone (in a way that seemed fairly purposeful) in a submission is wrong. I can think of a handful of wrestlers who get talked about for hurting people accidentally (Seth Rollins and Sasha Banks get shit regularly for being “dangerous” despite the fact other wrestlers stick up for them.) I also have no idea how the other girls haven't jumped or exiled Debbie yet, much less Sam and Bash realizing how obviously intentional it was, given their history. Intentionally snapping your coworker's leg so they'll be out of work for two months is just as psycho if not even less understandable than infidelity, so Debbie's high horse thing makes even less sense to me.
  • Most of the crew are doing what they usually do when it comes to Ruth's and Debbie's complicated relationship: they just stay out of it. They give little nuggets of advice from time to time but unless they've asked to contribute input they usually avoid getting involved, especially seeing as Ruth and Debbie's conflict stems from issues in their lives outside/before GLOW. That said, if Ruth wanted to have Debbie punished/told off, she would have said as much to Sam in private when also asking him to re-hire Reggie, but whether Sam and Bash would agree to that is up for debate. And it might just be REALLY tricky trying to reprimand the star of the show.
  • They girls never voice any suspicion that Debbie did it intentionally, so they believe it was a simple accident. They all know that there's a degree of physical risk in their jobs and just put it down to a job hazard. They all know that they're beginners and so don't have the professional judgment to deem someone as being "dangerous" for botching a move. Also, Debbie seems to be one of the more skilled wrestlers in the show and does some of the most elaborate stunts, so I don't think they really believe that Debbie is incompetent and prone to future errors. They all seem to think that it was just a freak accident that could happen to any of them.
  • Literally just watched S2 for the first time, and they *do* outright voice suspicion that it was on purpose. Ruth herself accuses Debbie of it during their argument, but also while waiting the girls talk about it, and one asks the others 'wait, you don't think she did this on purpose, do you?' with the others looking at her with a 'no shit she did it on purpose' look. As said above though, its likely they decided to keep out of it after hearing Ruth tore into her about it and the two made some kind of peace after, but they definitely had their suspicions that it was deliberate.

Firing Reggie

• Was that the right choice to fire Reggie? Why not stage a walkout? Because I think the right thing for the colleagues to do would be to all resign in protest, which would probably give Sam no choice but to re-hire Reggie because it would be the cheaper and faster option to keep his actresses happy.
  • Reggie had some valid complaints with Sam's directing, starting from when her Liberty Belle character was taken from her and given to Debbie. After Sam fired her just to punish Ruth, she had very good reasons to knock some chairs over and bounce, and not many reasons to try to convince Bash or Glen to try to convince Sam to change his mind. When Sam asked her to come back, he owned up to being a shit-head and told her that she'd be doing it for Ruth, not him.
    • And you have to remember, Sam redeemed himself in the interim between Reggie's dismissal and re-hiring by helping Cherry get released from that cop show, and later vandalizing Tom Grant's car following his unwanted advances on Ruth. Sam can be a total bastard, but he also knows that can happen when he's under stress, owns up to it and takes responsibility for his actions, and will come through for people when it really counts. He's kind of sexist, but he also doesn't actually think that the girls are inferior or incapable. Sam has a good heart buried beneath layers of grumpiness.
  • The sickout option would be a very risky bargaining move, because you have to take context into account. Ruth was a young woman in the 1980s. That kind of bargaining power was not as accessible to them, and would never have occurred to her. Look at what happened to Debbie when she advocated for herself on the set of the soap, and look at what happened to the whole show when Ruth rejected Tom Grant's advances. Sure, it may have worked...but it also would have really messed with Sam's ego and he would have never stopped punishing Ruth for it. If he wanted to, he could have blacklisted all of the girls so they'd have a hard time finding work in acting afterward. He probably would have rehired Reggie and fired her instead. These girls all needed this job. The risks would outweigh the reward.

The Tom Grant issue

• Not sure I follow Debbie's "victim blaming" logic here. Wouldn't the backlash be worse if Ruth were to lead Grant on, get his hopes up and then shut them down?
  • Debbie is saying that Ruth could have flirted with him without shutting him down completely. I think she mentioned a few excuses, like being on her period. I think Debbie believes that Ruth could keep it running long enough that Grant would set his sights on someone else or that in the future Ruth would have enough leverage that Grant couldn't just bury her. Obviously, whether Debbie is being realistic is not established.

Cherry's lead role

• How did Cherry land her lead role in a television show without the producers realizing that she's a hopeless actress? Didn't she have to audition? It's not like they formed the show around her to cash in on some pre-existing fame regardless of her ability.
  • The producers must have dropped acid when deciding to pick her. Sam clearly thought so too, when he was making the phone call to demand they release Cherry from her contract.
  • Cherry was probably good at the audition because she could read the lines and do the stunts. But she was having trouble the second she was actually in front of the camera, trying to recite the lines from memory and do it convincingly. Very often in an audition, you are reading the lines from a script in your hand. Sometimes there is a prepared (memorized) monologue, but not always.
  • Cherry has a history of being a stunt double, which was useful for the role, and she is slim and conventionally attractive, traits that have been desirable for actresses especially leading actresses.

Ruth's improvised finale

• Since Ruth didn’t know in advance that Sam planned to have her zip-line into the ring at the last second to snatch Brittanica’s bouquet away from Machu Picchu, why was she co-directing the show-within-the-show’s finale in full Zoya drag?
  • This mirrors events that actually happened when the real G.L.O.W girls started their syndicated run in Las Vegas. They actually had to stay in character all the time, even when they went to the shops. Plus, at the beginning of "Every Potato Has a Receipt" when they were promoting the finale on the radio, they all answered viewer questions in character. Ruth was in character, even though she was directing, as if she had to go downstairs for any reason. In order to keep it authentic for the audience, she would have to do so in character. And just because she wasn't fighting, it doesn't mean she may not have made an appearance. After all, we've seen the fictional G.L.O.W. throw out the script a few times on the fly, like the season 1 finale wherein Sam had Tamme abruptly steal Debbie's crown at the last minute to create a "Welfare Queen vs. Liberty Belle" story, and subsequently when Ruth randomly picked up a random girl to sway the audience's sympathy to Liberty Belle and created the whole "kidnapped Savannah Rose" storyline.

Justine and Feminism

• In Season 1, when gushing about Sam's script The Wrath of Kuntar, Justine namechecks about how the script is admirable for detailing the problems with Second Wave feminism (or "women's lib" as described in the show). But in Season 2, Justine gets in trouble at school for starting a protest against an assignment from Home Ec where two girls are "married" off to one guy and Justine described it as "regressive"...it's arguably feminist of her. So what happened?
  • The first instance was Justine gushing over her father’s work, which had previously been her only way to feel close to him, echoing views that she knew he had so he would approve of her. The second was Justine acting and thinking as herself, no longer needing to pander for his approval.

Season 3

Good candidates for adoption?

• Keith says that the woman from the adoption agency said that he and Cherry are "good candidates" for adoption. Really? Outside of GLOW, they have trouble finding work, and GLOW is an unreliable source of income. They're currently residing in a hotel room at a casino. They don't seem to have a significant family support structure in place, particularly if they plan to continue living in Vegas. Other than the fact that they're not homeless criminals, what could Keith have told the agency rep that would convince her that they're "good candidates"?

Back to the Bitties

• Why are Stacy and Dawn the Beatdown Bitties again come season 3? Wasn't their whole reason for becoming the Toxic Twins that they got tired of playing old ladies?
  • The only possible explanation I can come up with is that if the Biddies no longer existed, Tamme couldn't play one as a cover-up for her back-pain.

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