Move over Ready Player One, Netflix is looking to regain its title as the preeminent peddler of ‘80s nostalgia with a new trailer for season 2 of GLOW. The sports comedy about the short-lived women’s professional wrestling league was a welcome entry during the usually slow summer TV season. The series blended the comedic campiness of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling with more dramatic fare, a successful formula utilized by executive producer Jenji Kohan’s Orange is the New Black. The result was a hit for the streaming service that’s set to return in June.

The series offered starring roles for both Alison Brie and Betty Gilpin, as a pair of struggling actors whose friendship is on the outs, and who discover a second chance in their career and some catharsis for their personal lives inside the ring. The series also boasted a terrific supporting cast of characters, nearly all of whom, by the end of the first season, had developed their very own outrageous wrestling persona. Throw in a great role for comedian and actor Mark Maron, and anticipation for season 2 is undoubtedly high.

The new trailer doesn’t offer much in terms of footage from the new season or much of a hint at the direction the story will head, but when you’re using Michael Sembello’s ‘Maniac’ to make a charmingly tacky music video with your cast, you don’t really need any actual footage. The result, then, is a smart, self-aware premiere date announcement that captures the tone of the series perfectly and still makes room for Maron’s floundering filmmaker Sam Sylvia to come in and burst everyone’s bubble.


The reference to Flashdance is certainly appropriate in this case, and it makes for a fun advertisement that doubles as proof of the cast’s ability to lip synch with the best of them. Mostly, though, it’s another example of the tone the series has set for itself, and the way co-creators Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch deftly incorporate the camp of Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling as a backdrop to what is a much larger, more personal story.

As it turns out, viewers have a bit longer to wait for GLOW season 2, which premieres almost a year to the day of season 1. If anything, the ‘80s-set dramedy will get summer TV watching started on the right foot.

GLOW season 2 premieres on Friday, June 29 on Netflix.