#glow 1x08

[beardedbarba]

sam is being a dick but he’s doing it to try to cheer up ruth help

[blooddisco2]

[beardedbarba]

IT'S THE WAY THAT THE ONLY PERSON RUTH COULD THINK OF TO CALL WAS SAM

[beardedbarba]

fuck you sam

ruth is being hilarious

[beardedbarba]

vindication for my dislike of ronda: she thinks roger moore is the best bond

[spotlightsaga]

Kevin Cage of @spotlightsaga reviews... GLOW (S01E08) Maybe It's All the Disco Airdate: June 23, 2017 Ratings: @netflix Original/Privatized Ratings Score: 9.75/10 TVTime/FB/Twitter/Tumblr/Path: @SpotlightSaga **********SPOILERS BELOW********** I don't like to start reviews or articles at the end of an episode and backtrack... And if we did that here it would start everything on such a dark tone, which would make it extremely hard to recover. One of our biggest priorities is to match what we write in these articles to the emotion that is evoked from the screen. 'GLOW's 'Maybe It's All the Disco' literally bounces through a myriad of emotions, each one felt with an incredible intensity. We just got through the last episode literally fawning over the writing of Rachel Shukert, even nominating her work as a writer for our end of the year Spotlight Saga Awards that we'll be polling across TV Time and other social media outlets (obviously TV Timers' votes will weigh the heaviest 💯)... But here we are again, just one episode later, doing the exact same type of fawning over 'GLOW's 8th episodic entry, not only with Award Worthy writing by Nick Jones, who made our list last year with OITNB S4E07 'People Persons', but also powerhouse, natural director Sian Heder, who literally captures everything that Jones has written and is able to find the perfect way to funnel each emotional bullet-point from scene to scene... Leaving the audience feeling the exact way that Ruth must feel as the credits role. It's brilliant. It's 'GLOW' showing that it's only going to continue to get better & better... And for that, Nick Jones is the first writer to make back to back yearly SS nominations for Achievement in Writing and Sian Heder gets her first Achievement in Direction nom from us, directly after an episode of 'GLOW' that we didn't think could be topped. Tanya Sterling, don't think we've forgotten about you. You're editing here was a marvel. As far as 30-Minute 'dramadies' this year, 'GLOW' and FX's 'Baskets' are taking the cake. Each series has done phenomenal work capturing as much of these characters and their growth, both in life's often tricky timeline and existentially... As well as giving us solid story arcs to sink our teeth into, all in such a short period of time & low number of episodes. See, Big 4 Networks, you don't need 22-25 episodes to make such a monstrous impact! Netflix and FX are literally schooling those fools! The camaraderie of these women is really taking center stage. At first it was like a hodgepodge of diverse misfits, none of which complimented the other in any way. Now, here they are breaking Sheila the She-Wolf (Gayle Rankin) out of her shell by celebrating the birthday that Sheila never wanted to celebrate in the first place. All of this is spearheaded by Jenny aka Fortune Cookie (Ellen Wong), who nabs a huge chunk of the episode's spotlight by taking us through her family's past in Cambodia 🇰🇭, and showing us exactly why she's so desperate to hang on to any part of American Culture that she can, having been deprived of things like birthday parties herself. It all suddenly makes sense, and it was so heartwarming to see just how much Sheila has warmed up to Ruth (Alison Brie), even looking to her for a 'way out' and clutching to her for dear life at the beginning of their amazing scene in the roller rink. Sheila has been so 'stone-faced' and comically dry, that seeing the women ban together and make her feel important, putting a smile on her face, even getting her on roller skates and participating with everyone was one of my favorite scenes of the series so far. Rankin is very close to clinching a piece of my heart forever as Sheila in this series. Obviously, not all is peachy and smiles & skates. Rhonda (Kate Nash) and Sam (Marc Maron) are on the fritz. Sam is embarrassed that their relationship has gone public and in true Sam Sylvia fashion, he treats her like shit after a friendly conversation about Bond films... One that goes a little awry when 'A View to Kill' & the pigeon double take in 'Moonraker' come up. Sam even makes her wait outside so they don't walk in together, even tho all of them are already very much in the know that they are screwing. The cherry on top is when Sam then scolds her for coming in late. He plans on breaking up with her, and goes out venue shopping with Ruth when Bash (Chris Lowell) goes MIA, for reasons only Carmen (Britney Young) knows at the time... Leave it to Cherry Bang (Sydelle Noel) to pull it out of her, though. Should be interesting to see just how she uses this newfound information in the very near future. As Ruth tags along with Sam, while he venue shops with the likes of a space owner played by Brooke Hogan (yes, the infamous daughter of Hulk Hogan and star of the VH1 show that you probably don't remember), Rhonda is doing exactly what her character Brittanica would do... Think things through. This gives her the home court advantage and she breaks up with him upon his return to the hotel. Sam is left stunned & ironically vulnerable as she breaks it off while he's completely nude, dropping the bombshell that she DID actually like him. Upon hearing this news Sam attempts to salvage the relationship, but Rhonda is ahead of him... And she's right. Sam doesn't like Rhonda, not the way she deserves to be liked & loved, anyway. His sudden change of heart is brought on by the terrifying idea of infinite loneliness, so shouting out that he had 'period sex' with her, in an attempt to prove some sort of love or loyalty, simply won't cut it. The great part about seeing all this asshole-ish behavior from Sam through most of the episode? It doesn't last. Sam IS an asshole, don't get me wrong, but that doesn't mean he's a completely unlikable one. One of the biggest 'drama bombs' of the season is dropped when Ruth discovers she's pregnant after literally setting up a chemistry set in her bathroom just to find out, positive or negative. It's a gut-wrenching moment, an impossible one. We've seen Ruth slowly mend things with her former best friend and main event opponent, Debbie (Betty Gilpin)... As we have also seen Debbie patching things up with Mark (Rich Sommer), sort-of anyway, at least making something we could refer to as progress throughout this episode. Imagine destroying all of that and more by adding the extra slap in the face that not only has Ruth slept with Debbie's husband, she's also now carrying his baby. Just as Ruth accompanied Sam on his venue hunt, Sam accompanies Ruth on a mission so distressing & so polarizing among the human race that we can only look at Sam in a different light. Ruth is terrified, but very sure... She's having an abortion. Sam adds some much needed levity to the situation and improvises as Ruth's husband at the abortion clinic. In turn, Ruth faces her traumatic experience and swivels back & gives Sam a 'Zoya The Destroya' line as she heads to the procedural area... "In Soviet Union, abortion is the only thing there is no line for." Her fading smile, sad doe eyes, & nervous laughter provides one of the most poignant & affective scenes in the entire series. She heads back, lays down, assures the doctors, assures herself, and fades into the blue-skied nothingness painted onto a single tile of the clinic's grid, dropped ceiling.