Bash still hasn't got the money for the venue for the debut of the TV show. Birdie, his mother, holds the purse strings and she has cut him off. He has spent hundreds of thousands so far and she refuses to give him another dime. Debbie suggests that they should have a bikini car wash. She's confident that they can raise the money easily.
They give the car wash idea a go, at the Dusty Spur. There's an awkward moment for Ruth when Mark, Debbie's husband, the guy who Ruth slept with, the guy who got her pregnant, shows up to get his car washed. He is still trying to salvage his marriage to Debbie. Ruth gets out of the way as quickly as possible. Sam is a little stunned to learn that Mark isn't more handsome. In the end the car wash only raises $287. They need $9,000 to rent the venue.
When they learn that Birdie is throwing a fund raiser for women addicted to crack the women of GLOW decide to crash the event. The plan is to do a little fund raising of their own. They claim to be from WAD, Wrestlers Against Drugs. Bash gets them in the door, even though they aren't on the guest list. They mill around for a while. Debbie and Ruth have a moment when they start talking privately about what happened to their friendship. The silences and the looks they gave one another in this moment said at least as much as their words did. Powerful stuff.
Sam sneaks off and hangs with some guys at the fundraiser and does some coke. He tells them about the movie he wants to make only to learn that someone else made a very similar movie. It is called Back to the Future. He's emotionally crushed.
The women of GLOW take turns talking to the assemblage of fundraiser attendees. They talk about how wrestling helped them get off of crack. Most of their presentations are unintentionally funny. The exception is Ruth. She uses her fling with Mark as material and talks about how crack ruined her friendship with her best friend. It gets to Debbie. It also gets to Birdie, who wasn't moved by any of the other presentations. The checks start rolling in. Birdie admits to being moved and finally understanding for a moment what it is that her son loves about wrestling. She agrees to help him with the venue.
Justine wanders upstairs and finds Sam passed out. He wakes up. He still feels crushed about his movie idea and goes on about it to her. She tries to talk him into not giving up but he is very down on himself and life in general. I had a bad feeling about where this moment might go and I was partially right. Sam ogles Justine and then starts to kiss her. She freaks out and then drops an atom bomb of a revelation on him.
Even without the revelation, what he did felt very wrong. I was hoping he wouldn't try something like that. As the scene developed I had a bad feeling he was going to go there. I was whispering to myself, "Please don't," over and over. And then he did. I wonder if I will think of this scene the next time I hear that Perry Como song: Magic Moments.
I've probably said it before (about other ones) but this was the best episode to date. There have been plenty of good ones but the emotional impact of this one was heavy. There's a little humor in this one but it is the emotional moments that really moved me this time around; not just the words but the facial expressions and the wordless moments with Ruth, Debbie, Sam, Justine, and Birdie.
I'm hopeful that the next episode will be more upbeat that this one. I don't expect everything to go right for Ruth, Sam, Debbie, and the others but hopefully it will have fewer emotional gut punches than this one did.
No comments:
Post a Comment