What a joy it is to watch GLOW. The show's second season confirmed that it is among the best on television, and offered rich portraits of every character it introduced last year. 

GLOW is about the relationships between women, and what's at stake when those relationships are tested. Just as crucially, the show is about how wonderful those relationships can be when they work. 

Part of what makes GLOW such an easy, smart pleasure is its insistence on episodic storytelling. Despite its home on Netflix, each episode of GLOW tells a story that is in some way wrapped up by the episode's end.

That doesn't mean the show doesn't offer its audience the occasional cliffhanger -- there's one this season that's quite effective. What it does mean, though, is that the show has a structure that many of its counterparts on the streaming service lack. 

It's also a relatively lean 10 episodes, which means that it has just enough time to tell a deeply effective story and then get out of its own way. There's little fat to be cut here, even if it does mean that we don't get a ton of time with every character in this loaded ensemble. 

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On a show where every episode works, Season 2 offers three standouts that are worthy of mention for wildly different reasons.

GLOW Season 2 Episode 4 offers a delicate portrait of two mothers, Tamme and Debbie, at two very different stages of their lives. 

For Tamme, the episode gives her a chance to come to terms with the uneasy stereotypes at the heart of Welfare Queen, the character she plays inside the ring.

Here, the show was courageous enough to leave things largely unresolved. Welfare Queen is an offensive stereotype, and it's also given Tamme steady work she enjoys. Both can be true. 

At the same time, the episode takes time to remind us that Debbie's life is falling apart, so much so that she feels the need to sell off all of her furniture. Betty Gilpin's performance in this episode and all season long is so smart and nuanced.

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Debbie is falling apart, but she never feels maudlin. She's a real woman who's lost everything.  

GLOW Season 2 Episode 8 is remarkable for entirely different reasons. It presents a half hour of the show as an audience would view it.

The show is weird and devoid of wrestling, as it's being aired at two in the morning after it's been shafted by the network. Instead of wrestling, it features music videos and extended skits. It's hilarious and a perfect example of what a show can do when it allows itself to be purely creative. 

GLOW Season 2 Episode 10 is also extraordinary, in that it seems to give every character a moment without feeling particularly effortful. GLOW seems like an easy show to make, and that's a testament to how impossible it must be.

These three episodes stand out the most, but there are scenes in every episode that are basically perfect. 

There's an awkward and lengthy encounter between Ruth and a network executive who wants to take advantage of her. 

The scene is necessarily horrifying, and the show doesn't shy away from how terrible this kind of encounter is, even as it serves as a sad reminder that very little has changed since 1985. 

Allison Brie is at the peak of her powers here, showing subtle signs of fear throughout, even as she's forced to play along. Gilpin and Brie are the two most towering forces on this show, and every moment between them is charged. 

During one scene later on in the season, when Ruth and Debbie finally have it out over the turn their friendship has taken, both actresses are playing anger and sadness simultaneously, even as the power subtly shifts between them. 

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Marc Maron, who was surprisingly effective as a sleazy but good-hearted producer in the show's first season, is just as good here, even if he's given slightly less to do. His connection with Brie works wonderfully, in part because it seems like Ruth and Sam are compatible in ways that don't make any sense on paper. 

The show deservedly gets credit for the complexity of its women, and it's becoming clearer and clearer that the relationship between Ruth and Debbie is ultimately this show's core. 

Even so, the men here are wonderfully complicated as well. Maron's Sam Sylvia is a misogynist. He treats women differently than men and is often incredibly vile in his language toward his entirely female cast. 

At the same time, Sam wants to be a true friend to these girls. He likes the things about them that are weird or unconventional, and although he relegates them to stereotypes in the ring, he rarely relies on those stereotypes outside of it. 

Shockingly, the season's other huge standout is Chris Lowell, who's Bash is given a substantial increase in screen time in this second season and a really solid arc to play. 

Lowell's comic timing has always been perfect -- his announcer's voice is perhaps the funniest thing on a very funny show -- but his story has real weight this year, and it works so well in part because he's the last person you would expect this level of depth from. 

The show also pulls off a great trick, ending one chapter and starting another -- one in which the wrestling at the show's center isn't televised at all.

GLOW Season 2 Episode 10 could have been a series finale, but thankfully it won't be. This is one of Netflix's very best shows and a wonderful argument that more TV isn't always better. 

In 10 tightly scripted, usually half-hour doses, GLOW delivered a season that was close to perfect.