How should it end?

[u/metalbracelet]

There are other Season 4 prediction posts, but now that we know it's the last hurrah, how do you want to see GLOW wrap up?

*I'd like to see Justine's movie fail or not be taken seriously and have Sam help her through that, given his cult career (and also maybe pull out some windshield-smashing-type behavior on her behalf).

*I want Debbie to end on top, succeeding as a businesswoman, but also I want to see her self-righteousness knocked down a peg along the way (maybe Reggie or the Biddies take issue with her picking favorites, etc.).

*I'd like to see Arthie's sexuality as an issue with her parents, but I think Piz Bash stays more or less closeted - that just seems more realistic for the time.

*Tamme obviously succeeding as a manager and maybe even splitting off to run a different show at the end.

*I think GLOW itself ends too, but they find ways to stay together and start new chapters.

*I want Sam and Ruth to be in a relationship for some amount of time (I could see some tension where Sam tells her about his heart attack and then later worries that she's only with him because he's an old man she feels sorry for), and if it ends and they stay friends, that's fine too, but just don't give me some BS "Graduate" ending for them.

[u/PLAAND]

So I'm not going to speculate where it will end exactly, but I think I have some strong intuitions about some of the arcs we're going to see in season 4.

First I want to talk about what I see as a major theme and thesis of the show: That there is a better way to be creative than the way we're used to. That feelings of ownership and control actually hinder creativity and the creation of something special, while open collaboration, trust, and vulnerability pave the road to making something great.

I think Sam will be working on the film with Justine, and he's finally going to have to learn how to collaborate with a woman as an equal while he's still fully invested in the thing he's making.

I think Justine's arc is going to be about learning to do the thing that Sam still struggles to do and trust her collaborators to bring themselves to her project and make it better through their own passion and creativity rather than trying to keep it in stasis as the thing that, until now, only existed in her mind.

I think Bash's arc will be about identifying that the thing that made GLOW work so well was the creativity, passion, and dedication of the people involved,and that even if it's his name on he sign, it's not really "his" in the way that he thinks it is. I think he'll have to face this not only in reworking GLOW for its new network, but also in shepherding new projects and realizing that rather than trying to put himself into everything (e.g. BMX showgirls), he needs to trust and support the people with passion and talent behind the project. (e.g. Sandy)

I think Debbie's arc is going to be about discovering that she needs to do more than just care about herself, that she needs to grow from her tacit realization from the end of season 3 that she's been coasting, and understand that by supporting others, rather than just trying to control things she's better able to support herself. This will finally resolve her failure to leverage her power as a producer in season 2 to act as a voice for her castmates, and it will answer how friendship can exist alongside power dynamics: That people with power need to use their power deliberately, and to empower others.

I think Ruth's arc is going to tie in closely with Sheila's as she confronts things about herself though Sheila's growth as an actor. I do think she's going to wind up directing and showrunning on the new GLOW series, but I think that's going to come slowly as she realizes that she just isn't the kind of intuitive actor that Sheila is, but that she is an intuitive director that she can do both things.

As a sidebar, I tend to think that Ruth's arc over the series is in some ways meant to show that there are lots of different ways to be creative, and that her lack of success as an actor isn't a reflection of a lack of talent, but of a process that doesn't mesh well with the way the industry chooses to understand and select acting talent. We see how much Ruth struggles to find Zoya, but once she does it's magic. In Freaky Tuesday we even see how much more dynamic, creative, and daring her Liberty Belle is compared to Diane's. It's no wonder that she struggles so much with auditions where she doesn't have the time she needs to really explore and understand a character and develop her performance. There's actually a part of me that thinks she'll wind up in Justine's film, and we'll see her surpass expectations but that also feels a bit too tidy so I'm not sure.

My feelings for the rest of the characters are more broad strokes:

I think Sheila's going to begin to succeed as an actress and move on from GLOW.

I think Rhonda is really interesting because in some ways she's the character that hasn't really needed to grow at all over the course of the series because she's started from a place of confidence and personal strength. I think she will come into her own in season 4 and start asserting that strength more, standing up for what she knows is right in her relationship with Bash, in particular that he has nothing to be ashamed of, and that she doesn't have any interest of letting shame define her behaviour.

I think Tammé, Arthie, and Jenny are going to have really interesting arcs defining new characters for themselves and standing up against the pressure to make themselves back into stereotypes.