It Still Stings: GLOW’s Cancellation and Unexplored Potential

Editor’s Note: TV moves on, but we haven’t. In our feature series It Still Stings, we relive emotional TV moments that we just can’t get over. You know the ones, where months, years, or even decades later, it still provokes a reaction? We’re here for you. We rant because we love. Or, once loved. And obviously, when discussing finales in particular, there will be spoilers:

Netflix has canceled a lot of shows. There’s something to be said about the streaming service’s proclivity for creating imaginative and entertaining series and canceling them too early, all while lesser shows get renewed for seemingly endless seasons. Unfortunately, GLOW fell victim to Netflix’s pattern of cancellation; and it’s an understatement to call GLOW imaginative and entertaining. The show follows the “Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestlin,” a real-life wrestling team from the 1980s, as they became a niche television hit. The show takes some liberties with the characters and its adaptation of history, and turns it all into a strong piece of media that explores feminism and sexuality expertly. If this sounds like a compelling, one-of-a-kind show, that’s because it is. It’s also exactly why its renewal for a fourth season and eventual cancellation hurt so much. After greenlighting its final season in September 2019, Netflix changed course in October 2020, saying the show would no longer continue due to the COVID pandemic.

When the show opens, we see aspiring actress Ruth Wilder (Alison Brie) at an audition, delivering an intense monologue. As she finishes, teary-eyed, she exclaims that she doesn’t see roles like that for women often. The casting directors reply by saying she was reading the man’s part. It’s funny, frustrating, and a bit on the nose, but the line serves its purpose. It drops us head-first into a world where the struggle women are facing in the entertainment industry isn’t going to be pushed under the rug, and won’t be sugar coated. Ruth is defeated and feeling hopeless about the state of her career, or lack thereof, a complete foil to who we meet next: her best friend Debbie Eagan (Betty Gilpin). Debbie is a mother, and once had a successful career on a popular soap opera before getting written off. Two completely different women ended up in the same place, desperate enough to pursue a job as insane as female wrestling, all so they could have a chance to succeed.

Created by Liz Flahive (Nurse Jackie) and Carly Mensch (Weeds, Orange Is the New Black) along with Jenji Kohan (Weeds) as executive producer, it tracks that the female characters are messy as hell. We find out in the first episode that Ruth is sleeping with Debbie’s husband, an extremely uncomfortable revelation. To drop this bomb in the middle of the pilot is a bold choice; setting up the viewers with an innate sense of distrust towards the main protagonist isn’t necessarily a mistake, but it is risky—and realistic. GLOW never tries to act like its characters are perfect. As rare as it is to get a full cast of complex female characters, GLOW gives us just that.

GLOW felt like magic at times. On paper, it was an ‘80s period comedy-drama about female wrestling. At its core, it was an unabashedly candid look at female empowerment, rage, and sexuality. What starts as a story about Ruth and her desire to be on a level playing field with men in the industry becomes a story about her need to create a female-dominated space. As she joins the wrestling world, we see that her struggles and motivations for wanting change are valid, but the women she meets present different perspectives that help widen her goals. Every single woman on the team comes from a different background, and instead of focusing on the struggles of a white woman learning to understand feminism, we get to have an ensemble cast of diverse voices to do that.