After several weeks of hype and hoopla, the trailer for Netflix’s new series GLOW has arrived. The show features Alison Brie as a struggling actress who gets a break when she’s bathed in the eponymous GLOW, which stands for “Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.” It’s based on a true story, and as the photos we shared from the show a couple of weeks back suggest, the show is another post-Mad Men show that goes for exhaustively perfect period detail; in this case, it’s the ’80s, when the real GLOW was founded. Brie is as charming as ever, and the show looks, y’know, fine — not amazing, not terrible, just… fine.
The plot appears to tread a familiar path, following Brie as she moves from skepticism about the concept into discovering that wrestling gives her a sense of empowerment, and that the crew of misfits she’s working with have become like a family, etc. The bumps in the hero’s journey comes in the form of skeptical TV execs and a bitchy blonde antagonist (“She’s the alpha, you’re the omega,” whispers a fellow wrestler to Brie, shortly before the latter is floored by a crunching clothesline.) But if you just believe hard enough, then you can overcome anything, etc etc etc.
Really, though, the key takeaway here is the drug-carrying robot that appears at 1:24. I mean, it’s a robot! With drugs in it! Why didn’t we end up in that future, instead of the one with Roombas, ransomware, and ridiculous internet-connected juicers? We’ve been cheated, goddammit.