All of ‘GLOW’ Has Been Building up to That Liza Minnelli Moment

After two seasons of bodyslams and breakdowns, we’ve come to learn a lot about the characters of GLOW. The show’s built around the interpersonal drama between Ruth (Alison Brie) and Debbie (Betty Gilpin), and episodes have shown that Tamme (Kia Stevens), Carmen (Britney Young), and Cherry (Sydelle Noel) all have lives outside the ring. The show gets even deeper in Season 3, especially in the give-it-all-the-Emmys episode “Outward Bound,” and one previously mysterious character finally gets a real show-stopping moment.

I’m talking about Sheila the She Wolf, a character that spent Season 1 and 2 walking a tightrope between being a sight gag (she never took that wolf costume off) and a fully realized character. That’s no shade to the performance, because Gayle Rankin always made the She Wolf–a character that could have easily veered into cartoon territory–work within the otherwise grounded comedy. And after letting all the other characters have their moment, Sheila finally gets her big character arc in Season 3–and boy howdy is it flashy.

The match is lit in Episode 4, “Say Yes,” and SPOILER ALERT if you aren’t there yet. In that episode, Sheila gets caught in the crosshairs of drag performer Bobby Barnes (Kevin Cahoon) while she’s working the crowd. “Who let Bob Mackie read Jack London?” says Barnes, reading Sheila and, in a way, connecting with Sheila. After all, it took dressing up as Barbra Streisand for Bobby to have the courage to sing in front of a crowd. The connection is cemented later when Bobby tries out his act on deeply closeted GLOW producer Bash (Chris Lowell), doing a number in full Liza Minnelli drag. The performance is profoundly moving: it showed Bash something he was terrified of, but it showed Sheila–stealthily watching from the shadows–something she could be. Backstage, Bobby asked Sheila where how long it’s been since she washed that wolf hat/wig/cowl. He takes it off, puts it on a mannequin head, and begins to brush it out–slowly and respectfully.

It’s a powerful moment that, and you don’t know this at the time, sets up some real razzle dazzle in Episode 5!

Through a confluence of events (Tamme doesn’t want anyone to know she’s having back problems and Debbie wants to tank the night’s show), all the wrestlers trade roles. Tamme gets to wrestle with a walker as one of the biddies, Melrose does a super racist job as Fortune Cookie, and Debbie and Ruth swap allegiances and wrestle as Zoya and Liberty Belle, respectively. With everyone scrambling to get a new gig, Sheila–who has never been playing a character–is faced with a crisis. Jenny, nerded out for her take on Britannica, applies the pressure to a clearly anxious Sheila: “Are you gonna change or not?”

She does. And y’all. It. Is. A Moment.

With a quick change provided by Bobby, Sheila emerges, completely unrecognizable as a new character. Her name?

What’s fantastic about this moment, in addition to the way Rankin completely changes up everything she’s been doing as Sheila for two and a half seasons, are all those reaction shots. The show treats this as the gleeful “WTF” moment it is. The audience is right there with Bash and Sam (Marc Maron)–and it’s fantastic.

What’s even more fantastic, though, is that the show’s been building to exactly this all season. Sheila taking acting classes, her giving Sam serious notes about his script, her connection with Bobby–it all adds up to this over-the-top moment, a moment you never would’ve predicted. It’s like if 2+2+2=11, but like if you discovered 2+2+2 really did equal 11. Because an 11? That’s the number Rankin’s Sheila as Liza is turned up to.

She doesn’t turn it off once, not while sauntering down the stairs in an excessive Z-formation strut, and certainly not while in the ring. Sheila never breaks character, holding onto her martini glass throughout the match and sticking to the new kayfabe that she’s a tipsy Liza.

It’s a standout moment for Sheila, for Rankin, and for GLOW as a show. It took until Season 3 to get Sheila to this moment, but this sudden change doesn’t feel delayed or rushed at all. It feels right, like the exact right set of circumstances emerged to push Sheila forward, on her own terms and in a way that she could embrace. And she doesn’t just go from wearing a fur vest all the time to wearing a sparkling minidress, either. Her transformation from Sheila the She Wolf to Sheila the Person concludes in Episode 6 when she burns that costume.

Ruth asks her, “Why did you do that?”

Sheila replies, “It was getting in my way.”

Stream GLOW "Freaky Tuesday" on Netflix