Television, the Drug of the Nation

Unfortunately, unlike in my worst losses column, not all of my teams have sports victories worth celebrating here, so we have four proper entries, with some backups in each.

Sorry, Knicks. I considered their vanquishing the Bulls in the ’94 second round, but, well, the Bulls didn’t even have Jordan, and the Knicks still barely eked it out. The ’99 lockout year finals run was pretty cool, and definitely a fun happy-to-be-there moment but it was so weird and I have just general good feelings about it and not really strong Sports Feelings.

And as for the Bills, well, you can forget about it. I wasn’t really a fan yet at the time of the big early-round playoff victories, like the comeback against the Oilers in 1993.

Moving on then to the actual choices.

New York Rangers ’94 championship

This is always, for me, the positive flip side to the Knicks’ 94 loss. I don’t remember this series nearly as well, but I do remember exactly where I was when it happened, listening on radio at my paternal grandmother’s apartment in the Bronx.

Islanders fans mercilessly teased Rangers fans on Long Island with a “1940” chant, denoting the last year the Rangers had won the cup, and in one fell swoop, that jibe was erased from their playbook and us Rangers fans had the upper hand (and still do). On top of that, the Rangers swept the Isles in the first round.

This team had everything, and possibly even more satisfying than the Stanley Cup finals was the previous round where the Rangers came back from a 3-2 deficit to the hated Devils, who finished the season with the second-best record, after Mark Messier guaranteed victory in Game 6, a guarantee that really meant something and is well-remembered among Rangers fans.

Broadcaster and lifelong Ranger fan Howie Rose gave one of the all-time calls in Game 7 of that series, when the Rangers broke a 1-1 tie with 7.7 seconds left in double OT, scored by a 24-year-old left winger who had only played 12 games and scored 4 goals for the Rangers, all season, exclaiming, “Matteau, Matteau, Matteau!.”

Fluke championships are great in their own way, but the Rangers championship was everything you could want in a title-winning year. They were the best team in the league, taking home the President’s Trophy with 112 points.

They had legends. Mark Messier, one of the all-time greats, who had left the shadow of Wayne Gretzky to lead a long-suffering New York Rangers team to the promised last, showing he could win one on his own.

Brian Leetch, the American offensive defenseman, who was the best player in franchise history.

And rounding out a redoubtable core four of stars were left-winger Adam Graves and goalie Mike Richter.

My only wish is that I could have been just a couple of years older to better appreciate this magical year.

2003 NCAA Men’s Basketball Final: Syracuse defeats Kansas

This was the fucking best. Right in the middle of the years when I cared about Syracuse basketball as much as any other team, they delivered the ultimate prize.

I don’t care about the Bills anymore, but football was never my favorite sport. Part of the reason I fell off was simple lack of interest, but also the violence of the game began to bother me more over time, and I’m not really sad about leaving it behind.

I don’t really care about college basketball anymore, and that, on the other hand, does make me quite sad. The NCAA tournament was one of, if not, my favorite sporting event of the year, and I buzzed the entire week before it began, trying to work through the bracket, assessing the regions and the seedings, and, of course, making predictions. I then stared at nothing but the TV for the four days of the first weekend, my favorite time of the tournament, frantically flipping through channels when there were up to four games on at a time, upsets around every corner, and the starting 64 (none of this 68 bullshit) were knocked down to 16.

I lived for the tournament and I equally lived for Syracuse basketball. For about a decade and a half, between around 1995 and 2011, I lived and breathed the ‘Cuse, and while I didn’t even mention them in my worst losses column, regular upsets to lower seeds, like Vermont and UTEP, drove me mad.

I didn’t feel anything for the Bills in their playoff game earlier this year, but if Syracuse reached the back end of the tourney, I would still make a point to tune in and root for the Orange. But I don’t care like I did once, largely because of my general frustration with the institution of college sports (anything more on that is a matter for another time).

I remember almost every game of the wild, magical ’03 run fairly well. The ‘Cuse were a #3 seed with one transcendent player, freshman Carmelo Anthony, a sophomore who was already the soul of the team, Hakim Warrick, a freshman point guard, Gerry McNamara, and some other parts.

I had the mixed blessing of having to follow Carmelo for years with the Knicks, and he gave fans a combination of highs and lows, from a scoring title and a 50-win season to, well, everything else. But I can never dislike Carmelo because of the 2003 championship.

Well before dv-ring sports was a thing, I video taped Syracuse’s Elite Eight game vs. Oklahoma because I had to go a show with my family, and I remember imploring my parents to keep the radio off when we were in the car and then spending the next couple of hours in my downtown dorm room jumping up and down in what ended up being an anti-climactic blowout that sent Syracuse to the Final Four.

This was a truly amazing, pure sports victory, that still means a lot to me despite the fact that I haven’t been following Syracuse or college basketball much for years now.

Contender: The 6 OT game – Syracuse defeats UConn 127-117 in the 2009 Big East tournament quarterfinal in longest Division 1 college basketball game ever played.

I watched this live. I did not remember it being a 10 point victory, nor that UConn was ranked #3 while Syracuse was ranked #18. I do remember that Johnny Flynn played almost the entire game – all but three minutes, and it will always be my enduring memory of Johnny Flynn despite his megabust of an NBA career. It was one of those games where everyone involved talked about what an honor it was to just be a part of the game, but really, it was better to win it. Syracuse remarkably never led during the first 5 OTs.

2008 Wimbledon: Rafael Nadal defeats Roger Federer 6–4, 6–4, 6–7^(5–7), 6–7^(8–10), 9–7 

It’s been called the best tennis match of all time. Jon Wertheim, tennis writer for Sports Illustrated, wrote a book about it.

It’s weird to talk about now, since Nadal and Federer, not to mention Novak Djokovic, who had just appeared on the world stage in 2008, winning his first slam at the Australian Open (he wouldn’t win another until 2011) are still battling over slams routinely – between the three, they’ve won the past 13 majors, and they’ve had ups, downs, and more ups between them since.

Maybe that reduces the importance of this match from the current perspective, but when it’s all said and done, this will signal the passing of the torch from Roger to Rafa, when Rafa came and beat Roger at his home base. Of course, Fed would win 8 more majors after this, so it’s hardly like the end of his career was nigh, but this changed the dynamic of the relationship. Rafa lost to Roger in the 2006 and 2007 finals, getting better between each go around. He had been putting bigger beatdowns on Roger in the French Open finals the same years, leading to his most humiliating defeat of Roger then and to this day in the 2008 final at Roland Garros 6–1, 6–3, 6–0 (the line is still stunning to behold; it’s one of the few times I’ve truly seen his will broken).

I believed that Rafal Nadal could win in 2008, but this was Roger’s court – he had won 5 straight at the time, and seemed totally unbeatable on grass.

Rafa jumped out to a two set lead, and my confidence was buoyed, only to see Roger crawl back, winning sets 3 and 4, ready to take his rightful place once more.

And then, as darkness fell over the All England Club, the climatctic fifth set, which didn’t have a tiebreaker of any kind until 2019. went into overtime, only to see Rafa triumph at 9-7, capturing the summer double of the French Open and Wimbledon for the first time since Bjorn Borg did it in 1980.

The joy was sweet. Rafa has given me many of my favorite sports memories. He’s probably my favorite athlete of all-time, and frankly, he’s simply won a lot more than most of the teams that I root for.

I don’t remember watching the exact beats of this match as well as I think I should. This was a long time ago, but not so long ago that I was a kid. I was a fully formed adult and yet I don’t have the same exact sense memory of where I was as I do during the 1994 Rangers victory or the 2003 Syracuse victory, even though I do remember watching it at home on Long Island.

But this was the match where Rafa became a legend, where he went from young upstart to on par with Roger, when he went from a great of the time to a great of all-time and it’s a touchstone for tennis fans everywhere.

Contender: Rafael Nadal defeats Daniil Medvedev 7–5, 6–3, 5–7, 4–6, 6–4 in the 2019 U.S. Open final

I’m not sure this one is going to stand the test of time quite honestly, but it’s relatively fresh in my mind, gave Nadal the key slam he needed to get to 19, one behind Federer, away from the French, and could be seen as the changing of the guard, as Medvedev, one of the leaders of the class of tennis players born in the ‘90s, pushed Rafa to the absolute limit before Rafa put him away.

July 31, 2015 – Mets defeat Nationals 2-1 AKA the Wilmer Flores game

The Mets are, overall, better known for their losses than their wins, but unlike the Knicks, they actually have won some big games and series over the years. In baseball, it can be hard for regular season games to stand out, as the season is a grind, but the absolutely magical 2015 run had several, and one in particular, that stood out, even above any individual post-season game that year.

Whoever was scripting the 2015 MLB season did a great job with the Mets, because the arc was edge-of-the-seat compelling. After a rocky season start, everything came into place over the course of July, complete with one big trade – that for Yoenis Cespedes, and one big non-trade – keeping Wilmer Flores. It’s not as if Mets fans were so enamored of Flores’ contributions on the field. But he was a career Met who has put his heart and soul on the line for the team, and as Mets fans sometimes (myself included) have an inferiority complex about whether players actually want to be here, to see someone cry over the possibility of leaving tugged at the heartstrings.

And then in a game played on July 31, right after the trade deadline passed and Flores knew he would likely be with the team for the duration of the season, he finally had his signature moment as a Met, hitting a walk-off home run in the 12th inning to break a 1-1 tie in a game against the then-division leading Nationals. They went on to sweep the three-game set, wrenching the lead from the Nats, and took it all the way to the World Series from there.

Contenders: 2012 Johan Santana’s no-hitter – I was at a concert and didn’t see it, so I couldn’t really put it here, but it’s a big moment in Mets history. 2015 NLCS sweep of the Cubs – the Cubs would get their World Series the next year, but this decimation was amazing and stunning. The first two rounds of that post-season were fantastic but there was no one game or moment, partly because they were such relatively easily won series, as the Wilmer home run.

“Donna” by Richie Valens hit #2 on February 23, 1959.

Ah, yes. The other Richie Valens song. It’s easy (for me at least) to forget just how young Richie Valens was when he perished in a plane crash on The Day the Music Died. On February 3, 1959, Valens, Buddy Holly, and the Big Bopper were killed when their plane crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa. Valens eventually won a coin toss with guitarist Tommy Allsup, a member of Holly’s band, for a spot on the plane.

Valens was all of 17 years old, two months shy of his 18th birthday. He released just three singles in his short career. “La Bamba,” which would go on to be his signature song, was released as the B side to “Donna” and would only reach #22. It would hit #1 almost 30 years later when covered by Los Lobos for the Ritchie Valens biopic of the same name starring Lou Diamond Philips in 1987.

“Donna” was thus Valens’ biggest hit, at #3, when Valens died in February 1959, and moved up one more spot after the tragedy.

“Donna” is a teenage love ballad, refreshingly for once actually sung by a teen, to Valens’ high-school sweetheart, Donna Ludwig.

The song is affecting, far more so than its immediate predecessor at #2, teenage love ballad “16 Candles” by The Crests which thanks to its proximity and similar subject matter provides a natural comparison. While the Crests presumably still hold the favor of their sweetheart, Valens pines for his lost love, the titular Donna, who wanders where she has gone, and what he’ll do by himself, all alone, now.

Valens’ voice doesn’t have nearly the sheer strength of Johnny Maestro’s (of the Crests), but the combination of the sweeter, reedier voice, and bare instrumentation makes the tenor of the lyrics come through much stronger.

The “Oh Donna”s, four of which both start and end the song are my favorite part, where Valens’ holds out the “oh” for just the perfect amount of time, about two seconds a piece, so simply, but conveying his feelings of love and longing towards Donna in just those two works, before any other lyrics arrive.

Rating: 7.5 – Valens’ yearning comes off as heartfelt, bringing me into the song emotionally.

What was #1? Lloyd Price – “Stagger Lee”

Was #2 better than #1? Yes.

The Crests’ “16 Candles” hit #2 on the chart on February 9, 1959.

The song may be most recognizable for having given the name to John Hughes’ seminal Sixteen Candles in 1984 (we’re way farther from the movie now (35 years) than the movie from the song (25 years) which is somewhat depressing).

The Crests were a group that hung around, with a whole lot of minor hits, throughout the late ’50s and early ’60s, a couple of top 20s, and one really big hit, “16 Candles.”

Wikipedia claims The Crests were the first interracial doo-wop group, and while that would be hard to verify, they’re certainly the first successful one, with thee African-American members, one Puerto Rican, and one Italian. One of those African-American members was Luther Vandross’ sister, Patricia, who left before “16 Candles” was recorded. The Italian member was Johnny Maestro who had the lead on “16 Candles” and would go on to have a #3 hit with “Worst That Could Happen” in the late ’60s.

The song seems to be credited as “Sixteen Candles” some places and I have no idea what explains the disagreement.

The “Happy Birthday Baby” introduction is far and away the most well-remembered and memorable part of the song. Maestro’s voice is sweet and mellifluous; carrying relatively mundane lyrics. The song is a paeon to a girl upon her 16th birthday; she is the singer’s “teenage queen,” and the “prettiest, loveliest, girl” he’s ever seen. Really deep stuff. Everything is pretty generic doo-wop, and nothing stands out sans the intro. There are the requisite back up singers, but they don’t really add a lot to this song, as it’s all Maestro’s show. The title is also better than the song.

Rating: 5 – It’s not actively bad, it’s just thoroughly meh, and pretty much unmemorable outside of the “Happy Birthday Baby” which is easily worth a full point. I really would like a song built around the “Happy Birthday Baby” segment. Some producer, get on it.

What was #1? Lloyd Price – “Stagger Lee”

Was #2 better than #1?

“The All American Boy” by Bill Parsons (well, not really but we’ll get to that in a moment) hit #2 on February 2, 1959

Okay this is a strange one and I swear I’ll soon get to the point where I’ll stop going back to the first #2 here in comparison but indulge me one last time as we start hitting every archetype for the type of artists we’ll see here.

First, Bobby Day, a very famous mostly one-hit wonder. Second, Everly Brothers, a very famous duo with many hits. Third, Connie Francis, a very famous pre-Beatles singer who is largely forgotten. Fourth, Bill Parsons, a man without even a wikipedia entry. Huh?

Well, the thing is Bill Parsons didn’t actually sing or play on the song at all. The only reason he’s credited is due to a mix-up by the record label. Bobby Bare, who has a fair-sized wikipedia and a long track record in the ’60s and ’70s as a successful country musician, actually wrote and recorded the song. Parsons and Bare together recorded some music, with Parsons on one side of the record, and Bare on the other.

As Bare told Billboard magazine: “Bill had just gotten out of the Army. He had a thing he wanted to record. So, we went down to King Studio in Cincinnati, and I played bass on his thing. We had about fifteen minutes. I said ‘Let me put down this thing I’ve been working on.’ So, I did.” 

“That same day, they wanted to make a copy of it.,” Bare continued “The guy who was paying for it went to a company there to get an acetate made. It was Fraternity Records. When they heard the two records. They asked who was singing, and the guy told him Bill Parsons – which it was on the back side of that record. So, they put it out with his name on it. It scared him to death. He didn’t even know the song.”

It was Bare’s first success, but claimed by Parsons, who would lip-sync the song on television while Bare was in the army.

I can only imagine what would happen had this deception come more recently, though, I suppose we have the Milli Vanill situation for that in another 30 years.

Now, for the song itself. “All American Boy” is a spoken word story loosely based off the tale of Elvis Presley about a boy who learns to play guitar and rises to fame.

Bare begins by letting the audience know that, like him, they too can be an All American Boy (presumably the men, anyway) if they buy a guitar and follow these steps.

In fact, only a year ago, Bare explains he bought a guitar, learned to play, Johnny B. Goode, for example, only to irritate his dad, who told him that if he kept up with the racket, he’d have to leave. He moved to Memphis, played his tunes, and attracted the attention of a talent agent, who said he could make this All American Boy a star. He became that star, getting all the girls, driving a big car, only to be called to service by the army.

There’s a jazzy little ’50s early rock tune playing in the background but the song largely rises and falls on vocal performance, which at least juices the relative most out of a song that’s just okay. His enthusiasm seems sort of by-the-numbers though, there’s nothing approaching real passion or emotion.

Rating: 5 – It’s fine. There are plenty of spoken word tracks I adore. The story because the All American Boy mix up is a sight better than the song itself.

What was #1? The Platters – ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”

Was the #2 better than #1? No.

We enter the year of 1959. The first #2 single was a single still relatively well-known today, the second a band relatively well-known today. Our third is a pre-Beatles superstar who I doubt all by the biggest music fans of the era under 60 recognize or could possibly name a song by.

Connie Francis had 14 Hot 100 era top 10s, including two #1s. Growing up Italian in Newark, New Jersey, she also became fluent in Yiddish growing up in a Jewish area. She tried her hand as a recording artist in the mid-50s without success and was considering a scholarship to NYU when she finally broke through. She was a big star from 1957-1962, slotting in nicely in the first period of the Hot 100.

“My Happiness” is a pop standard dating back to the mid-19th century. The most famous version to date had been published in 1948, with lyrics by Betty Peterson Blanco. Francis’s version hit #2 on January 19, 1959.

The Jon and Sondra Steele rendition of “My Happiness” had been Francis’ favorite song when she was 8, and she cut the track in November 1958 at age 20.

A sad, slowed down, ballad of longing, “My Happiness” begins with Francis’s voice followed by a light, casual drumbeat. The song enjoys the backing of an orchestra which goes somewhat underused but pipe in after each line of each verse, most notably with trumpet. The titular happiness is her love, who she longs to be with over four verses and one non-verse (I’m not sure if it’s technically a chorus or a bridge, or if these terms even make sense with this song structure).

The percussions really buildings into that chorus, which, following the first two verses, is the dramatic peak of the song, where Francis’s longing is felt at its strongest, letting her show off her vocal chops on “But I’ll hold you again / There’ll be no blue memories then” before she descends to the final two verses, which display a relative lack of intensity.

Rating: 6

I was prepared to issue a lower rating; the song isn’t particularly exciting and passion-stirring in any facet, lyrically, or musically, or vocally, but after listening to it several times in a row and finding I actually liked it more and not less, I decided to bump it up a little. It’s hardly a great, but the whole, with the light orchestration, the sweet vocals, the simple lyrics, is greater than the sum of its parts.

What was #1? The Platters – “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”

Was #2 better than #1? Yes.

“Problems” by the Everly Brothers hit #2 on December 15, 1958.

If Bobby Day was a well-connected largely one-hit wonder, The Everly Brothers were one of the monsters of pre-Beatles rock-and-roll. While much of what we think of as early rock comes from a blues background, The Everlys, Don and Phil, were country-tinged, and indeed sit in the Country Music Hall of Fame as well as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They have two pre-Hot 100 #1s, “Wake Up Little Susie,” and “All I Have to Do is Dream,” one Hot 100 #1, “Cathy’s Clown,” and two other pre-Hot 100 #2s, “Bird Dog” and “Bye Bye Love,” but this is the only time we’ll be seeing them here.

“Problems” was written by the married duo of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, who between the two of them, wrote a number of the Everly Brothers’ biggest hits, as well as “Rocky Top” and “Love Hurts.”

The sweet harmonies which mark the Everlys work more generally are apparent here.

A number of simple guitar flourishes between lines really make the song and its shortness keeps it in and out before it’s possible to get tired of.

It’s halfway between country and rock, and the lyrical content fits right in with the country genre. All of the singer’s problems (including with his car, and in class, so likely he’s a teenager) are caused by his inability to know whether his love is true, presumably whether his girl is cheating on him.

The lyrics don’t feel trite despite their simplicity (the word “problems” is repeated 17 times in under two minutes) probably because of the universality and the similar simplicity of the musicality that accompanies them.

“Problems” is sweet and heartfelt, which allows us both to relate to the singer but also consider the problems in their relative teenage context which keeps the song from being too much of a downer. His problems are with his car and teacher, so hopefully he’ll get over it in a couple of weeks.

Rating: 8

I did not know this song particularly well and was impressed though not terribly surprised considering the quality of the rest of the Everly Brothers output. The song is a triumph of simplicity and hits exactly the right amount of melancholy.

What was #1? “To Know Him, is to Love Him” – The Teddy Bears

Was the #2 better? Yes.

Let’s get started.

There are only two #2s in the year of the very first Hot 100, 1958, but thankfully for our purposes, while there will surely be some duds, and many, many long forgotten songs, the first ever #2 is a solid if not spectacular classic still remembered quite well today.

That #2 is, of course, Bobby Day’s “Rockin’ Robin,” which reached the marker on October 13, 1958.

“Rockin’ Robin” was Day’s only solo hit, though he had his hand in a number of other successful record ventures. As leader of the Hollywood Flames, he sang #11 hit “Buzz-Buzz-Buzz,” and he wrote “Little Bird Pretty One,” which would become a #6 hit for Thurston Harris and most notable “Over and Over” which would be the Dave Clark Five’s lone chart-topping single in the U.S.

The lively, mid-tempo, early-rock-and-roll jam evokes memories of being in a Johnny Rockets, or presumably, in an actual ’50s malt shop with your best girl. The tune’s most distinguishable element is its “Tweedle-lee-deedle-lee-dee” vocals and similar variants which open the song and back the refrain. The lyrics are impressively literal, being about a robin that is making rock-and-roll music with its tweets, inspiring different birds from all up and down the block to cheer it on and join in. It’s short, sweet, and upbeat and makes you want to dance at the hop in a way that adults might not quite get, but which avoids challenging their social mores in any meaningful way. It has the sound, but more importantly the recognizability to instantly confer a sense of the late ‘50s in a movie or TV program.

The song is best associated in recent pop culture with the scene in The Office in which Andy Bernard’s phone, which rings to a self-made a capella version of “Rockin’ Robin” is hidden in the ceiling by Jim, leading Andy to punch a wall and go on to anger management. Watching in hindsight though, it’s perplexing that there are no consequences for Jim for taking someone else’s phone and putting it in the ceiling, which seems wildly unprofessional.

Rating: 7.5

I started with 1-10 rating system and already broke the rules with decimals, but so be it. The hardest song to judge is the first because it sets the standard. And “Rockin’ Robin” is certainly a standard. It’s so solid I could set my watch by it. It’s reliable, rollicking, and a very sound tune, but doesn’t rise above that. It wouldn’t get me excited to hear it come on a jukebox. I reserve the right to rejigger the entire rating system later but for now here we are.

What was #1? “It’s All in the Game” by Tommy Edwards

Was the #2 better? Yes.

We’ll be hearing from this song again, confirming that it’s an apt choice as the first ever Hot 100 #2, but that’s for another day.

Number Ones are great. There’s no doubt about it. They’re the best, they’ve topped the charts, set the records, and gone as far as they could go. They’ve reached the pinnacle for popular music and can have no regrets. But everybody talks about them; and they don’t need someone else in their corner.

The true underdogs are the #2s. They’ve often got everything the #1s have but they just couldn’t make it quite over the top, for a variety of reasons. A little too strange, a bad quirk of timing, a powerhouse occupying the #1 spot. For but a quirk of fate, they don’t reach the pinnacle and thus get left out of all the trivia and nostalgic remembrances. Well, not here. An ingenious writer at Stereogum has been chronicling all the number ones of the Hot 100 era, which begins in late 1958. Here, we’ll do the same for the number twos. I’ll rate every one from 1-10 as well because, it’s a good idea.

(To get technical for a second, this means songs that peaked at #2, so if a song hung around the second spot for a couple weeks on the way to the top, or stopped at second on the way down from the pinnacle, we’ll leave it alone.)

Our first #2 coming up.

GLOW is a very good show. GLOW isn’t a great show, but it’s important to appreciate the very good shows. The great shows get all the love, and with good reason; they take big swings and they hit TV baseballs out of the park with those swings; The Americans is a great show. BoJack Horseman is a great show. Great shows make you stop and think, they run through your brain over and over while you’re in the shower, while you’re waiting for a train, while you’re walking down the street. Minute details and plot points, memorable lines. And that’s great.

But there would be maybe five shows a year, in a good year, if all we watched are great shows. And more than that sometimes we don’t want a show that’s going to keep us up at times. We want a show that makes us smile. A show that’s well constructed, that does everything well, while not necessarily absolutely blowing us away in any particular aspect. A show that can provide a weekend, or a week, or couple of weeks of joy, depending how fast we binge it, and GLOW, if you’re into that sort of thing is perfect for bingeing.

GLOW is exactly that show. There’s nothing spectacular about GLOW, but it does everything pretty well, and that makes for a show that’s a lot of fun, goes down really fast and easy, and while you’ll probably forget about it a couple of weeks after you finish off the season, you’ll be equally excited to remember it again when you hear the next season’s release date.

GLOW has a decent sized cast, with eight or so character who get served with at least some significant amount of story line, but Debbie, Ruth, and Sam get by far the most. Debbie and Ruth’s frenemy relationship is at the core of the show; and the show does a great job of portraying neither of them as the villain in their relationship, with both sides (aside from, of course Ruth’s inexplicable first season initial decision to sleep with Debbie’s husband) as sympathetic and understandable. Their relationship bounces up and down, back and forth, and evolves over the course of the second season, and doesn’t feel as if it’s treading over the same ground, even as they find new reasons to alternatively be chummy and at each other’s throat.

Sam grows up a little bit. The show threatens to go with the obvious relationship angle between him and Ruth, but swerves, which is a welcome reprieve from a fruitful friendship turning into a less-interesting romance.

Ten half-hour episodes does unfortunately mean that not everyone gets the type of fleshed out story and characterization that Ruth, Debbie, and Sam get, and that’s maybe the biggest shame, because another of other characters getting lesser chances in an episode or two to shine, like Justine, Cherry, Bash, and Welfare Queen, who all have potential for more. The next tier of characters doesn’t get a ton of solo time, but even in their small ensemble moments they generally feel like people and that’s a credit to the general dynamic, acting, and writing of the show. Carmen was the one character who was part of the second tier of characters in the first season, was particularly underserved relatively this season which was a little bit of a shame.

Overall, GLOW is fun and breezy. It’s not laugh-out-loud funny but it’s light on its feet and generally makes you feel good after watching it, while having the gravitas handle serious moments with real well-established pathos. How much more can you ask?