GLOW Season 3 Review: A Soaring Triumph (With a Suckerpunch or Two)

Warning: This review contains spoilers for Season 3 of GLOW. 

The first two seasons of GLOW are some of the strongest seasons of television in recent memory. With that comes high expectations. Tack on a significant location change for its third season, and GLOW could have buckled under the pressure.

Fortunately, the show’s third round is a success. In fact, GLOW Season 3 is near-perfect.

Make no mistake: this season looks and feels different from the first two. It’s darker and weirder, sacrificing wrestling time for more character-driven stories.

While previous iterations have focused primarily on former friends/current wrestling mates Debbie (the divine Betty Gilpin) and Ruth (the equally luminous Alison Brie), the rest of the show’s rich ensemble gets more attention this go-round.

This sometimes works against it, given the breadth of its cast, but for the most part, it’s a good thing to see some supporting players come into the spotlight.

GLOW Season 3 also deals with an increasingly ambitious set of topics. There’s significant focus on female bodies, sexuality, racism, and homophobia.

The show also explores the realities of balancing professional ambition with a satisfying home life, and almost everyone seems to be having an existential crisis. 

Despite the flash and sparkle of Vegas, the challenges of real life are still ever present. GLOW Season 3 Episode 1, “Up, Up, Up” sets that tone in its first scene as the Challenger crash plays out on the eve of GLOW’s Vegas opening.

The initial episode of the season makes it abundantly clear: this season isn’t going to be easy for our gorgeous ladies of wrestling; in response, some of them are going to buckle, and some of them are going to work through their discomfort and grow.

For a season full of strong episodes, it is tremendously hard to pick highlights but a few stand out more than the rest.

GLOW Season 3 Episode 5, “Freaky Tuesday” is the most irreverent episode this season, channeling some of the silly energy of the first seasons, and allowing the ladies to trade roles for a night. The results are hilarious and ultimately revealing.

Donning another wrestling identity for the day allows the women to reflect on what they find challenging about their normal characters and how they are perceived by the others in the group.

Jenny and Melrose’s friction after Jenny is offended by Melrose’s racist portrayal of her character, Fortune Cookie, begins a necessary conversation about cultural appropriation and racism.

The follow up to this episode, GLOW Season 3 Episode 6, “Outward Bound” is another season highlight. The camping weekend is full of confessions and confrontations, leaving us with a better understanding of all of the women of GLOW.

This season has several MVPs. Betty Gilpin and Alison Brie continue to do career-best work. It helps that Debbie and Ruth are at a detente this season.

Gilpin is simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious as she grapples with being far from her infant son and finding professional relevancy and fulfillment as a producer.

In GLOW Season 3 Episode 2, “Hot Tub Club,” when Debbie finds out her son has taken his first steps while she was away, it’s as though a million different expressions pass over Gilpin’s face.

She’s jealous of her husband and his new girlfriend, proud of her son, guilty, and full of self-hatred. That’s all played in a matter of seconds.

Gilpin’s at her funniest in GLOW Season 3 Episode 7, “Hollywood Homecoming.” Upon realizing that Bash is on vocal rest and can’t argue back at her, Debbie takes advantage of the situation and finally speaks her mind, pushing back on his increasingly dictatorial behavior.

The speech is a long time coming, and Gilpin nails it. (And truthfully, frazzled, indignant Debbie is my favorite Debbie).

Gilpin’s main counterpart, Alison Brie, shows extraordinary shades of vulnerability.

Her character, Ruth, has always been the more fragile of the two, and as the season goes on, Ruth, caught up in the malaise of doing the same show night after night and watching all of her friends move forward in their lives, feels increasingly adrift.

Ruth, overwhelmed with self doubt, takes a step forward before taking several steps back. After a conversation with Debbie leads her to the revelation that she is, in fact, in love with Sam and just scared, she finally makes a move.

In GLOW Season 3 Episode 9, “The Libertines,” there’s a brief moment where we see Ruth’s fire return. Upon realizing that she won’t be cast in the movie Sam is directing, we see Brie’s entire body language change.

Ruth shuts down, the color drains from her face, and she retreats fully inward. 

In a flash, Ruth shuts down her burgeoning relationship with Sam (Marc Maron) and seems almost mortally wounded by yet another professional rejection. The sadness in Brie’s eyes is palpable, as is the uncertainty. 

On a related note, while I had previously expressed some concern over how the Sam/Ruth romance plot line would be handled, I am relieved to report that the show moved their relationship forward in a way that made sense.

I was surprised to find myself wanting the two to work it out, and I’m curious as to if — or how — they’ll make their way to each other next season. 

With that said, the true epic romance of GLOW is the one between Debbie and Ruth, and never has that been more clear than on this season. While they share common roots, their paths have diverged in meaningful ways and they have profoundly different ways of processing the world. 

At the end of the day though, despite all of the hurt that exists between them, they love each other. GLOW shows how this comes out in different ways.

It’s not coincidental that Debbie decides to move her infant son to Vegas after Ruth suggests it, or that Ruth finally feels empowered to give her relationship with Sam a try after Debbie encourages her.

Nor is it that surprising that the final scene of the season is of Debbie running after Ruth in an airport (how’s that for a subversion of a major romantic trope?).

Debbie wants desperately to take care of Ruth and create a professional “Eden” for them, asking Ruth to be a director on her new TV network. Meanwhile, Ruth takes that as an affront, only really hearing the part of Debbie’s job offer where she mentions that if Ruth was ever going to be a successful actress, it would have happened by now.

The fact of the matter is that while these two love each other, they don’t always know how to love each other in the best way possible.

That’s actually a recurring theme in much of GLOW, as various characters navigate how to best love their partners, their friends, and themselves, but my favorite story where that comes out is the one between Debbie and Ruth.

Chris Lowell also does his most interesting work to date on this season. Lowell’s Bash experiences his own kind of spiral. Over the season, he becomes more dictatorial, agitated and distant, alienating his wife, cast and business partners, Sam and Debbie.

It’s a far cry from the Bash of Seasons 1 and 2. 

One of the most emotional parts of the season comes in the finale, GLOW Season 3 Episode 10, “A Very GLOW Christmas.” Following a threesome where he finally gets to act on his homosexual urges, he breaks down to Debbie.

This moment is poignant for multiple reasons. Debbie and Bash have been at odds all season, but in this moment, she’s the only person he feels he can speak to. He explains:

She watched me kiss him. She watched me touch him…Joe, Paul, whatever. And I thought you know, maybe it’d be okay, because Rhonda was there too, but it was so much worse because I liked it. I liked it so much and she watched me like it. I’ll do it again, I know I’ll do it again. If we stay here…I’ll lose everything you know. I can’t, I can’t…I want to stay married to Rhonda. I want to be the son my mom wants me to be. I don’t wanna die. Just tell me what to do, okay? I’ll do anything. 

Lowell’s devastating performance in this scene is the best of the season, and that’s saying a lot given the overall strength of this cast.

There’s so much to enjoy about the third season of GLOW, and after the developments of this season I’m incredibly eager to see where they go in Season 4 (which has yet to be picked up. Just say yes, Netflix!) 

There are so many stories that demand further exploration. 

Stray observations:

• Geena Davis is woefully underused as is Kevin Cahoons, who plays drag queen, Bobby Barnes.  The show underdevelops both of them (though Davis does get a killer showcase in GLOW Season 3 Episode 9, “The Libertines.) 
• Arthie’s journey to fully accept and own her sexuality is one of my favorite developments of the season. Handled incredibly sensitively and beautifully acted.
•  I was happy to see that Carmen’s past crush on Bash was addressed and impressed by the impact actress Britney Young was able to make during her brief screen time. I have a soft spot for Carmen since the beginning, and I sincerely hope that she’s part of the future evolution of GLOW in Los Angeles.
• While I am satisfied with the season, there were a few plotlines that seemed to go nowhere. For example, Debbie’s eating disorder dominates a full episode and is never mentioned again and Cherry’s gambling debts are resolved in two scenes. 

What did you think of the third season of GLOW? What surprised and delighted you? And most importantly, which Freaky Tuesday swap did you enjoy the most? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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GLOW Season 3 is currently available for streaming on Netflix.

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