let’s talk about this part of the Finale Scene
source: netflixglow
I genuinely think Debbie almost, almost got Ruth to agree to their (very straight) “Eden”/TV show. But she genuinely screwed it up by saying that Ruth was never going to make it as an actress (“If you had you would have right now).
Besides it being a tremendously terrible thing to say to the love of your life best friend, I think it exposes HOW MUCH Debbie is unaware about Ruth’s insecurities about their relationship.
Remember, we get introduced to Ruth and Debbie in S1E1 in the context of Ruth as a failing actress, and that original failure haunts Ruth even now (though shes in a successful show with some moderate artistic control). Its also kind of telling because in Debbie’s head, she’s the loser in this relationship, the one who gets cheated on, the one who has to act like a dumb blonde and seduce businessmen to get her way. I think Debbie genuinely thought she was doing Ruth a favor, like - "look at this sinking ship with Sam and his daughter thats LITERALLY nearer to your age than you are to him - do you want this? Or do you want me?”
Also a few episodes prior, Debbie clearly wasn’t there for Ruth the way Ruth was for her. Ruth tries so hard to make Debbie smile and laugh and be Okay with living, and exhale every once in a while. When Ruth brings up how lost she feels, Debbie glosses it over to a monologue of her own wants and desires. Debbie isn’t a good friend in that moment either.
Bringing back to this scene, that’s why Ruth hits her back with the “you know me better than everyone” because Debbie DOES. she knows how much it shaped Ruth and still delivers the slap in the face at that crucial turning point, and Debbie should have known better.
Okay, speculating on where we'll be going from here in S4 (if Netflix doesn’t cancel it):
- Ruth is going to probably not succeed as an actress. Not because she isn’t great, but because she literally spends more time, as we have seen in the past few episodes, investing in Sam and doing the emotional labour for him to reconnect with his daughter. She’s going to confront that reality that Debbie so savagely put out and she’s going to feel angry as hell that Debbie was right. She’s going to stall meeting Debbie again for a while.
-Debbie, whose breakdown has been hinted to heavily in S2 and S3, is going to descend into her work and getting “ratings” and succeeding in an all-male environment. Ruth who? She’s going to try to be a good mom, cry into some hard liquor about not ACTUALLY being a good mom, fuck some guys rinse and repeat until an inevitable breakdown.
I’m going to write another meta about how for Debbie Eagan her story hasn’t been about a crumbling marriage and/or motherhood, it’s been about how she forcibly reshapes her desires and ambitions to succeed in the glitzy misogynist arena of show business. It’s clear that she’s supplementing money and power for the lack of fulfillment in her life, and how Ruth was the only thing she latched onto as an alternative for this hollow life. (lol I’ve said too much)
But GLOW has been always about community, about sisterhood and how women come together to overcome structural issues and hardship and that’s why I think EVEN IF you don’t care for DebbiexRuth romantically (lmao what were you watching) then you’d have to admit a reunion where these two MAKE THEIR PEACE is thematically, narratively and emotionally justified for the show.
Tl:dr Debbie Eagan should know better but let’s rationalise these actions by speculating on her psyche