Last season on E!’s hit reality series Total Divas… I don’t really remember, to be honest. The problem with a show like Total Divas that serves as complementary material to a weekly, multi-night series of live entertainment like the WWE’s Raw and Smackdown brands, in addition to the PPV events, is that when you take a break for a significant amount of time, fans have moved ahead with the live shows and everything we know about the real life people and it becomes hard to settle back in. But the far greater advantage that Total Divas specifically has is that it is the greatest show on television (please use that in an ad, E!).
So as I try to dig through the layers of scar tissue left by True Detective and with what little I know about the WWE based on sporadic viewing, I vaguely remember that Eva Marie’s family hilariously and gloriously crapped all over her dreams to marry her BRO of a boyfriend, while Nikki Bella and her breasts were hopelessly devoted to marrying John Cena and locking up his seed. Ariane and Vincent were back together despite the fact that he cried after mean, old Hugh Morris yelled at him for sucking at wrestling, while Trinity and Jimmy Uso kept fake fighting for the sake of scripted drama. Brie Bella was upset with Daniel Bryan for becoming too famous, and Nattie… poor, poor Nattie.
With that in mind, let’s go to my pre-Season 2 Total Divas Power Rankings and start fresh by trying to remember which of these girls are best and worst off the top of my head.
1) Trinity – She was far and away my favorite personality from the first season, because her and Jimmy make such a great couple. What I’m going to try to do for Season 2, though, is establish some sort of consistency with their names, so I’m not referring to Trinity by her real name and Jon Fatu by his wrestling name. We’ll go with all wrestling names from here on out so nobody is confused. Trinity is now Naomi. Got it? Good.
2) Brie Bella – She’s always the voice of reason, but that’s mostly because Nikki is such a vapid, arrogant nightmare of a person. I mean that in the nicest way possible, though.
3) Nikki Bella and her breasts – I’m still hoping for a little more depth from Nikki, because the “Hey look at my tits” and “John better marry me or else… just kidding, I won’t leave him” wells will be dry soon enough.
4) Nattie – Even though she’s the girl who busts her ass to live up to her wrestling bloodline, her spazzy, pathetic behavior from Season 1, whether drunk dialing Steph McMahon 22 times in one night or thinking that Eva Marie was trying to sleep with TJ, makes her so generally unlikable.
5) Ariane/Cameron – I guess I’ll start referring to Ariane as Cameron, too, so no one is confused, even though her pop career name is still Ariane and I really hope she keeps recording music, because it’s painfully awful. Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, how about less Vincent and “bomb dot com” this season and more being an adult who doesn’t cry every two seconds? Thannnnnnnks.
6) Eva Marie – She’s the f*cking worst.
“The Divas division has pretty much blown up…”
Those are the words that poor, poor, undersexed Nattie greets us with to start the second season, explaining that the Divas are in every show and PPV, as they should be. It’s an interesting way to begin the show from the wrestling perspective, because we spent a lot of last season watching the ladies get bumped from various shows and find out their PPV fights were being dropped. So maybe things are getting better, or maybe Nattie is just trying to convince the Kardashian fans that what she does is worth watching instead of logging into a Kardashian message board and arguing over which of Kourtney’s nips looks fake.
Oh Yeah, There’s A New Girl
Mark and Sean, who have one of the best jobs in the world in basically bossing this gaggle of grapplers around, informed the Divas that two of them are going to get to go to Afghanistan to see the troops. It’s during that meeting that we meet Summer Rae for the first time on Total Divas, as she had previously slapped her way into our hearts in the Season 2 teaser. Mark informed Summer that because she’s been working so hard and improving so much, she’s being paired with Eva Marie, which makes no sense, because Eva Marie is like the exact opposite of someone who works hard and improves. In terms of athletic performance, if Summer Rae is a Nike sneaker, Eva Marie is a sock with gum and poop stuck to it.
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But The Claws Are Already Out
Because we need to be reminded that the Bella Twins live in fear of other attractive female wrestlers stealing their thunder, Mark suggested that maybe Eva Marie and Summer Rae will wrestle in a tag match against them. That led to Nattie comforting Nikki by saying that they’d need to have wrestling talent for that, and while that seems mean, it is 100% accurate in Eva Marie’s case. Everyone laugh at Eva Marie, because she deserves it.
Anyway, now that they’re tag team partners, Eva Marie said she has Summer’s back in the feud that Summer just established by sensing the tension between her and Nattie. Also, we know they’re going to hate each other, because Summer slapped Nattie in the Season 2 teaser, so can we please just get to the slapping already?
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Eva Marie Is The Most Dishonest Honest Woman
Even though her dad hilariously told her boyfriend Jonathan (AKA Scott Stapp Lite) to f*ck off when he asked for permission to propose, because he had already proposed, Eva Marie decided to elope with him. So now she’s Mrs. Scott Stapp Lite. It would be disappointing if we didn’t expect it from Eva Marie at this point.
This really isn’t a big deal, because Eva Marie can do whatever the hell she wants, but it helped transition the episode’s plot to what really matters – the Bella Twins.
EVERYONE PAY ATTENTION TO THE BELLA TWINS
What we can actually take away from Eva Marie’s revealing ring is that Nikki and John Cena apparently split up. Nikki moved out of the Most Boring Expensive House in Florida and back in with her mom, and now it’s even worse for her because everyone is getting married except for her. Obviously, we know from centuries of documented reports and cases that women have to be married by the time they’re 30 or they will be forced to go back to their home planet of Boobulon-12 to slave away in the engagement ring mines. If we didn’t already feel so terrible for Nattie, we’d say, “Poor, poor Nikki and her breasts.”
As it turns out, Cena is also apparently a teenage girl at heart, because on Nikki’s and Brie’s birthday, he texted Brie and told her to tell Nikki to have a safe time at her party. Next, he’s going to leave a mix tape in her mailbox and create a fake MySpace profile to befriend her and keep an eye on her.
Cameron Thinks That Nattie Wants Vinnie
Most of the girls and Vinnie went out for the Bella Twins’ birthday, and naturally everyone went “Brie Mode,” which is what it’s called when they drink too much, because HAHA BRIE IS SO CRAZY. Nattie ended up getting pretty drunk and tried to dance on Vinnie, which made Cameron really jealous and they took it outside to the street to settle their beef. They almost got arrested for screaming at each other, which would have been great, because all of these women need to be locked up for their own good.
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Things Got Pretty Awkward At Comic-Con
An adorable young WWE fan asked Nikki where John Cena was, and that’s just the thing that she has to deal with, working in the same company as her ex-boo, who can only talk to her through song lyrics written on the pages of her favorite magazines and sent to her sister by his friend’s friend. God forbid these two ever talk to each other in person again.
Eva Marie’s Dishonesty Is Coming Full Circle
Eva Marie’s entire family was coming to visit her in Orlando, so she can either tell her that she denied their wishes and married Scott Stapp Lite anyway, or she can make her husband pack up all of his stuff and pretend like he doesn’t live in the same apartment with her. Of course she went with the latter, because nothing says, “Babe, I love you and your nose ring” like forcing your husband to live in a hotel for a few days. Although, I’m the kind of guy who always loves random hotel stays, because I can pretend like I’m a spy or something on a serious mission, but that’s just me, an adult male in his 30s.
(Also, for as critical as I am of Eva Marie and Scott Stapp Lite, I should probably remember that they live in the same city that I do, since I totally recognized their apartment complex when they showed it. Unless they do that thing that the Kardashians do and show a different place so people don’t piece things together and stalk them. Whatever, it’s only the first episode of the second season and I am going off on way too many tangents.)
Nikki Is Now “The Third Wheel” And We Are At Lonely Spinstress DEFCON 1
As expected, the time that we spent with Daniel Bryan in this episode was the best, because his downhome, simple man attitude clashed with Nikki to comedic results every time. This time, Nikki tagged along to go registry shopping at a store that has handmade goods, which didn’t sit well with Nikki at all, because as Daniel pointed out, they didn’t have any Louis Vuitton. But then, while looking at a pair of baby shoes, Nikki whined that she was never going to have a baby and Daniel agreed and I laughed until I died, and my spirit rose from my body and peed on me from laughing so hard. Naturally, Nikki left because she’s so sad and lonely.
Eva Marie’s Family Saw Right Through Her Crap
Something that sort of flew under the radar the last time that Eva Marie’s family met Scott Stapp Lite is that her dad, who is so clearly easily excitable and potentially always angry, has had three heart attacks. So there’s a good chance that when she admitted to him that she’d already married to the guy he hates, he could have exploded like one of the bad guys from Iron Man 3. Fortunately, because this is only an hour episode, Eva Marie’s brother already knows that they’re married through his keen detective skills and the fact that he noticed Scott Stapp Lite’s black wedding band (of course it is).
So Eva Marie’s answer to the question, “Did you two get married?” was “Technically, on paper, yeah.” This girl is just amazing. Meanwhile, her dad’s reaction wasn’t as nuclear as I’d expected, but it was still pretty great, because her brothers have such great personalities. Honestly, if the WWE made Eva Marie’s story that she’s an overprotected Girl Next Door with a secret bad girl side, and she’s constantly trying to hook up with wrestlers while her bumbling brothers have their backs turned, she might turn into my new favorite Diva.
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But Just As One Relationship Crumbles, Another Is Reborn
Cena finally grew some peas and texted Nikki – it’s better than leaving dead squirrels on her car hood or whatever – so they can get together for dinner and squash their problems. Brie, bless her cruel, antagonistic heart, told Nikki that maybe he’s going to propose, which is like the meanest thing in the world, and of course I laughed and laughed at it. The show ended with a cliffhanger, though, because we don’t know what happened after Nikki showed up to meet John in his Bar Mitzvah suit at the end of the pier and mumbled, “Well I’m here.”
So let’s go ahead and wrap this up with the most cold-blooded moment of the episode:
Damn, yo, these kids gots to grow the f*ck up.
Total Divas Power Rankings After Episode 1
1) Naomi – She and Jimmy were barely in the episode, but when they were, they were the best. Also, from the teaser for next week’s episode:
Again, Jimmy is the best.
2) Summer Rae – She might be paired with Eva Marie, but she’s not as soulless and just plain lost in this world. She seems cool and actually cares about the wrasslin’.
3) Cameron – When Vinnie is in an episode and he’s not the worst thing in the world, you know that someone is pushing their awfulness to a new level.
4) Brie Bella – She was just kind of there this week, dealing with Nikki’s crap. At least we got some QT with Daniel Bryan thanks to her.
5) Nattie – This is one of those weeks that I’d have a threeway tie for last place if one of the Divas hadn’t gone above and beyond. Nattie’s being mean to Summer and I don’t like that.
6) Nikki – No matter what happens, we’re in worst case scenario with the self-proclaimed No. 1 Diva, because if Cena doesn’t propose, she’s miserable and mean to everyone, and if he does ask her, she’s going to be extra mean to everyone as Mrs. Cena. Maybe we could get an Overboard situation where she gets amnesia and learns the true meaning of happiness from Kurt Russell’s white trash family.
7) Eva Marie – Even her family hates her.
