User Reviews

Unlike the real life story of the 1980's female wrestling league known as "GLOW", this television series of the same name produced by Netflix, mostly focus on the fictional story of Ruth Wilder (Alison Brie) a struggling actress trying to capture fame by performing in a weekly series about female wrestlers. However, in this Season 2, episode 4, entitled 'Mother of All Matches', Ruth's singlehood career story takes a backseat, in order to tell the two of the biggest supporting characters in the show, Tamme Dawson (Kia Stevens) & Debbie Eagan (Betty Gilpin)'s family related stories; which also happen to fall upon, the same day of their big title match is supposed to aired. Without spoiling the episode directed by Mark Burley & John Cameron Mitchell too much, the show faithfully presents the fact that a lot of the gimmicks and characters in wrestling in the '80s were based on stereotypes that would be considered incredibly tacky and racist by modern standards, but were considered acceptable targets at the time, even if it's not true. The show also takes a closer look at how the wrestlers cope with playing these controversial reprehensible villains characters, while showing highly flawed individuals struggling with playing the just heroes without degrading themselves. The writers including Kim Rosenstock, Liz Flahive, Carly Mensch & Marquita Robinson did this, by showing how much good intentions work even if it's exploitation; Tamme honestly is willing to do just to put her son Ernest (Eli Goree) through college. Because of that, you really do feel for her, despite her in-ring heel persona of being a lazy arrogant woman who abuse the welfare system. As for Debbie; her in ring character is supposed to be the all-American humble good housekeeping wife, but outside of the show, her home life is a total wreck due to a recent divorce. That yard sale scene where she goes off on a potential buyer of a picture frame due to the woman pointing out that her son's face resemble her ex-husband Mark (Rich Sommer). You really do see her despair through Betty Gilipin's acting. Debbie really did think that getting rid of the past things would help her child. I like how near the end credits, it reveal that the yard sale crisis really didn't. While, in other Season 2 episodes, you might hate Debbie for her aggressive quest for more power & fame. By the end of this one, you really do feel a lot of pity for her. You see this, during the small chitchat exchange on motherhood between the two characters backstage before their big fight. In the end, both actresses really made this wonderful character study episode so extraordinary with their performance. Especially real life pro wrestler Kia Stevens who is not as well known for her acting. After all, she was best known for only playing silent monster heel characters like Awesome Kong in Total Non-Stop Action/Impact Wrestling. Who knew that she had this amazing acting range!? Her body & facial expressions were spot on, whenever her character has tell the expose the truth, waiting for the so-called disapproval reaction from her son or trying to hold it together in the ring when the crowd is booing her. It's suspenseful and emotional. As for the wrestling action, the in ring clash between their characters live up to the over the top cartoony epic hype from the opening moments of the episode. The seasonal stunt work from Stevens, along with the amateurism other performance from the other actresses were still well choreograph. Much better than any real-life GLOW match up. You can tell that Betty's stunt work really has improve since the first season. I also dig the Meta climax of the match as it calls back to the beginning of the episode when Dawson visit the drive thru window. Even the on the call 'save face time' daughter kidnapping storyline was somewhat interesting to watch, even if it's highly borderline insane and unrealistic. Nevertheless, one thing that I really didn't found this episode good at, was making me laugh. None of the jokes throughout it, were not that funny. Honestly to tell you the truth. Most of them like the joke about everybody in the college mistaking Ernest for another black student and the whole yard sale happy montage felt somewhat jarring upsetting to view. Overall: Even with the lack of comedy and absence of the majority of the cast, this episode is decent enough to take home to your mother. It's worth watching.

I personally thought "Mother of All Matches" was a real treat if just because it gives complete focus to two specific characters: Tammé and Debbie, "Welfare Queen" and "Liberty Belle" respectively. The episode isn't as much about their big match later that night as it is about their motherly roles during the day. Tammé couldn't be any different than her character on the GLOW show, a strong, hard-working mother who sacrificed and dedicated her efforts to raising her son well and seeing he made it to college. Good grades and a solid upbringing, defying the odds and giving love and support to her son, the offensive character of Welfare Queen-some supposedly lazy mother-of-many-children sucking life from the government without a care, throwing shade at the audience as they boo-Tammé merrily and proudly accompanies her son to Stanford, proclaiming her boy as a scholar, while he kind of somewhat wishes she'd dial it down a notch. But what I especially was fond of was how he ultimately cherishes and respects his mother, which is why Tammé fails to tell him of her current occupation as a character he'd probably find reprehensible. We know that such a character would certainly be held accountable by those behind her creation, but within the context of the show, set during its specific time, GLOW hits a fantastic note through the incredible sympathy it produces for Tammé, especially at the end of her match when the Belle character brings out an apron from fast food, gaining a crowd chanting her to "get a job". With her son, Ernest (Eli Goree), looking on from the stands, refusing her pleas to stay at Stanford; Tammé is overwhelmed with grief that he has to witness her fully embody the character when he knows she is far from some abuser of any system. Kia Stevens is just such a wonderful revelation on GLOW, getting some focus on the show allows her to charm us and all the more admire her when pulling into a drive-thru (later important for when Belle ridicules Welfare Queen) for some quick food, talking to a fellow hard-working African-American woman who had been on the job for ten hours. Then when in the ring after a nice, little conversation with Debbie before their match talking about their kids, later having to fulfill the workings of the "crown change"; Tammé holds it together despite disapproval from her son who can barely watch as the audience around him jeers her, eventually retreating from the ring when the rejection gets to her. And then Ruth-in her Russian heel Commie character, takes a little girl fan of Belle, just as the crowd is about to turn on the Liberty character because of their sadness for Welfare Queen-thinks on her feet, reading the crowd, and opens a new storyline...she "kidnaps" Belle's daughter!

Debbie's marital troubles and divorce has truly been a major storyline outside the ring (and behind the scenes of the show), often serving as a nuisance as she tries to develop her career as Liberty Belle. The episode splits the two stories in two halves: Debbie's selling off all her house's furniture and furnishings (except what was in her baby's room) in order to dump memories of her husband and marriage. This stems from her husband's secretary calling Debbie about the name of their bedroom mattress. Clearly a bone of contention (the marriage's dissolution and her husband's infidelity a major cause of it), whenever he tries to seemingly hurt her (which he often doesn't intentionally do so), Debbie responds in overt fashion to strike back. But when Mark tells her at the end that he just wants his own house to resemble hers so that the baby can better be acclimated without much discomfort it reminds her how overreaction can only be a detriment to her life. But the adultery and marriage's end has greatly impacted Debbie's life and trying to recover has not been easy. One of the episode's highlights is her coming apart to a potential buyer of a picture frame, in tears when discussing her son's face changing to resemble Mark's. And her realization that the crowd is about to revolt against her when Welfare Queen flees in tears, Gilpin's performance gets the point across...she's barely holding it together outside the ring so the fans loving her is important to her.

The wrestling match between the two is actually better than what you would see on the show itself, but this isn't about the performance in the ring as much as the behind the scenes stories of the ladies who portray the characters.

An episode without Sam just did not seem right. The show was missing his snark and dismissive attitude. But they somehow managed to tell a good story across the half hour, much like they do every single time.

If you weren't a fan of Welfare Queen and the actress portraying her you were after this one when you saw the struggle that she goes through in and out of the ring.