When we last checked in with Total Divas… okay, let’s make our New Year’s resolution for this running feature to just be honest with each other. I don’t remember what happened in the midseason finale of Total Divas, so I’m just going to assume that Brie and Nikki Bella were fighting about something, while Nikki and her breasts were also at odds with John Cena over his lack of desire to get married again. Meanwhile, everyone hates Summer Rae for no reason, Eva Marie is trying desperately to make us believe she isn’t shallow and her presence isn’t pointless, and Nattie… poor, poor Nattie is treating her husband like crap. Also, Rosa really needs to have sex, while Naomi is sane, so she is technically boring.
Sound about right? God bless the world’s most formulaic “reality” series. But E! and the WWE weren’t content with what they had, so we’re getting a little new blood in the second half of the third season. Beloved former Divas Champion Paige is joining the cast beginning with last night’s episode, “Her Highness,” and it could either be great for us or terrible for her.
First thing’s first, though…
Pre-Episode Total Divas Power Rankings
1) Naomi – I have a bad feeling she’ll be quietly forced out of the show this season, as she’s too naturally charming and sweet for the show’s terribly fake drama.
2) Summer Rae – She doesn’t really do anything except stand around and let the other Divas hate her. That sucks for her.
3) Cameron – I don’t think she’ll vanish as quickly as Naomi, so long as she keeps luring in “star” “power” like Ray J. But if she does keep doing that, she’ll be back in the rankings basement in no time.
4) Brie Bella – She’s cool, I guess.
5) Rosa Mendes – I feel really bad for Rosa when I watch her limited screen time.
6) Eva Marie – She can’t force us to like her, no matter how poorly they try to manipulate her father’s cancer story.
7) Nikki Bella – I’m terrified to see how bad she’ll be as her role in the Divas division progresses.
8) Nattie – She deserves credit for her terrible divorce plotline being the main thing that I remembered from the last episode, because that crap was impressively awful.
Can Nikki Bella ever win in this relationship? Can she never ever win?
Ah yes, this is where we left off – our third dramatic cliffhanger involving the worst tag team in the WWE, John Cena and Nikki Bella. Brie had sort of an intervention with Cena, telling him that if he’s not going to marry her twin sister and/or put a baby in her belly so she can finally fulfill her dream of being a really wealthy mother, then he should get to stepping. On Total Divas, relationships are a competition, so while Nikki has tapped out to Cena’s relationship terms, she still doesn’t get why he’s jumping over the ropes and running away from their match. Was that analogy stupid? Yes, but not nearly as bad as her huffing and puffing that she just can’t win.
Nikki agrees to part ways (for now) and see how her life is without Cena in it, but the really fun part is that she still doesn’t know that Brie, her mom and Bella Rob Kardashian are the reasons that Cena looked like juiced up Droopy Dog while telling her, “If you love something, let it go.” Is Brie going to tell her? Nope. And that’s awesome, because there’s a camera in her face and Nikki will watch it eventually. As always, I love how dumb this show is.
Paige is here to talk about Nattie’s boobs… suck it
A while back, I went to a NXT show to cheer on the greatest wrestler in another promotion, and it was also when I saw Paige for the first time. I didn’t know a thing about her (or NXT, for that matter, which is stupid considering it’s in my backyard) but it took me a whopping three minutes to realize, “This girl is going to be a star.” So to see her show up on a behind-the-scenes look at the WWE is awesome, because I’d love to know more about her wrestling background and how she’s developed her strong charisma, and generally what it’s like for a 22-year old woman to be competing in the WWE.
Except that behind-the-scenes show is Total Divas and the first thing she said in front of a camera was, “Look at these!” referring to Nattie’s boobs. Even worse, her role on the series is to be Nattie’s new BFF and cheer her up in the wake of her destroying her marriage to Tyson Kidd. For those keeping track at home, here’s where Nattie currently stands with the rest of her BFFs on the show:
Eva Marie – Hated her for being a sex symbol with no wrasslin’ experience, currently neutral.
Naomi – Uses her as a human shield for her in-home domestic arguments.
Cameron – Do they even know each other?
Brie Bella – Contractually obligated to speak to each other once a week.
Nikki Bella – See above.
Rosa Mendes – Rejected her bisexual advances, caused her to have a complete meltdown.
Summer Hate – Hates her with the passion of a thousand burning suns; however, she refused to file assault and trespassing charges against her.
This isn’t a good sign for Paige, especially considering she’s so young and has already received a huge push, while Nattie’s strategy for success is drunk dialing Steph McMahon.
The Most Awkward Moment of the Episode
This is a scripted reality series that has directors, editors, writers and everything else a TV show needs to run smoothly and have as few mistakes as possible. So it looked pretty stupid when Nattie and Paige wrapped up their forced conversation, said goodbye, walked the same direction, and then Paige asked, “Oh, you’re going the same way?” All that was missing was the boom mic operator sipping his coffee next to them. (And of course they edited it out of the end of the above clip.)
Let’s check in on Nikki Bella’s alcoholism
She drank two bottles of wine by herself because she was so upset about Cena dumping her. She revealed this to Brie as they went to get ice cream or something, so this was definitely Brie’s chance to jump in and come clean. She didn’t, though, because of reasons so obvious that I won’t react to them just yet.
The WWE’s “party scene” is legitimately depressing
Paige took Nattie to a random apartment for a “party” that featured Fandango, Bad News Barrett and a bunch of random people, which led to a brand new segment I like to call, The Dumbest Joke that Nattie Made this Week!
“It was a real motley crew, and I’m not talking about the band.”
LOL SLOW DOWN, CARROT TOP! Anyway, the real hilarity ensued when Paige told Nattie that she was eating a brownie with drugs in it. She didn’t specifically say which kinds of drugs that Nattie might have ingested, but this is TV so all drugs lead to a young Helen Hunt sprinting through a second story window. Anyway, I’m sure the WWE came down hard on the personalities who were at this party that featured drugs. I’m assuming the punishment is the same as, say, texting and driving.
The best part of the drug brownie party? Nattie and Paige agreeing to keep the incident between them. In front of a camera. For a TV series. This show is a f*cking cartoon.
The only thing worse than regular Nattie is Nattie that just ATE ALL THE POT
The WWE drug tests its employees “like, every other week,” according to Nattie, so she was freaking out because she ate two bites of a pot brownie and then experienced some symptoms of marijuana use that she read about on the first site that showed up in a Google search. What she could have done was go to Steph, tell her that she attended a party that featured at least three other WWE employees, and she took a brownie from a plate without knowing or suspecting that it had marijuana baked into it. Instead, she told Paige to keep it a secret and then talked about it in front of other people.
I’d complain yet again about how dumb this show thinks we are, but at this point I really want Nattie’s new angle to be that she’s addicted to weed and needs to go to a counseling center. It could be run by Dr. Isaac Yankem, who had arguably the best worst ring promo in WWE history.
Quote of the Episode
“You can call me a crazy cat lady, but I don’t ever want to be called a stoner.” – Nattie
We were a Zack Morris appearance away from the cast and crew of Total Divas stopping to tell us, “There’s no hope with dope.”
Brie Bella came here to kick ass and make terrible segues and she’s all out of asses
This week on The Bellas Have Serious Discussions Over Food and Drinks at a Fancy Restaurant, Daniel Bryan drew the unimpressed ire of the Bella Mom when he described how he keeps his napkin on the table to catch all of the food that falls out of his beard. That led to Brie’s most amazing segue to date: “That’s crazy… you know what else is crazy? This whole situation with John and Nicole.” At this point, I am 98% positive that Total Divas has fewer writers than the actual WWE (as I assume the WWE has one writer named Todd, and he’s really tired all the time and starts each new idea with, “I don’t know, how about…”).
Suddenly Brie feels like she “did the wrong thing” by gathering Bella Mom and Bella Rob Kardashian, with his high and tight Macklemore hair, to talk some sense into Cena, and this is all swirling down the drain that leads to the most obvious thing in the world. The entire Bella family is hilariously bad at playing make believe, so everything leading up to Brie revealing to Nikki that they sabotaged her relationship (complete with awesome, serious background music) was magnificent. But this was the best part of it all…
Bella Rob Kardashian was talking during this scene, and they didn’t even think to move the plant from the table. Anyway, Nikki was incredibly mad at Brie, which led to an awesome family shoutfest, but it is also oh soooooooo convenient, considering SummerSlam was about to happen and that was also the point when they turned against each other in the ring. Funny how that worked out, right? Like, just as Nikki said she hates her sister in real life, she sided with Steph McMahon in the ring. Amazing.
So what about the weed addict Nattie and her pee test?
When she’s not driving a car with her phone in one hand and fingers in her mouth, she’s on camera driving like an a-hole, cutting people off and purposely running her car into a dumpster so she doesn’t have to take a drug test. Just when you think that Nattie couldn’t possibly get any lower or become worse of a human being, she faked a car accident ON CAMERA FOR A TV SERIES because the WWE won’t ever be the wiser. Worst of all, she made Cameron an accomplice to pot-fueled stupidity. Actually, worst of all was that fans outside the arena said they’d wait 15 minutes to take a selfie with Nattie. Maybe they should be drug tested.
You wanna know why Paige is the best in the world?
Because she made the whole thing up and there was never any pot in the brownies, and she made Nattie look like the biggest shmuck in the history of mankind. This was on pace to be the worst episode of the series and then they used the most obvious punchline imaginable, and yet it still worked, because Nattie is an insecure, narcissistic nutjob and her reaction was everything that we could have hoped for and more. So where does that leave Paige on Nattie’s BFF list? She’s a “little bitch” according to Nattie, who is a grown adult.
Nikki Bella and her breasts are going bad
Again, it was really great how reality and fiction collided for the convenience of the WWE’s lone writer, Todd, who desperately needs a day off. But if this whole dumb personal beef between twin sisters gave us anything of value, it was Summer Rae acting legitimately shocked when Nikki turned on Brie in the ring.
Even if it also gave us my nominee for the Worst Move of 2014…
On the second half of this season of Total Divas…
Brie and Nikki make up, because they revealed that in the season teaser. There’s no point in even trying to fake suspense on this show. They just ruin it every single time. Also, Rosa develops a crush on Paige and kisses her, so perverts have that to look forward to, even if Rosa needs to be slapped with a giant fish every time she has an original thought. And Brie Mode, which is a term for binge drinking that the WWE has embraced in merchandising, hits England. Hopefully England hits back.
Post-Episode Total Divas Power Rankings
1) Paige – If her role is going to be that of Loki, pranking everyone on the series, I am going to fall madly in love. What she did to Nattie was art.
2) Naomi – Her only role in this episode was losing to Paige in a match. Again, I think we’ve seen the last of her. If true, I’ll have to come up with a fitting tribute.
3) Summer Rae – The joy of Summer is that even when she doesn’t have a line, she makes the most of her screen time by overreacting to nothing.
4) Cameron – She gets bonus points for calling Nattie out on her stupidity. But she still shrieked a lot.
5) Eva Marie – Very little Eva Marie is always the best. Unfortunately, I also know that means she’s due to have a few more episodes devoted to her emotional “growth.”
6) Brie Bella – She was very wrong for interfering in Nikki’s life, but she was also right to force both Nikki and Cena to shit or get off the pot.
7) Rosa Mendes – Barely in this one, but I cringe at what’s ahead.
8) Nikki Bella – I can already see her ego exploding with her big moment on the horizon of Total Divas. She’s going to be a dreadful mess through these remaining episodes.
9) Nattie – Even though she’s awful and an embarrassment to herself and the company at this point, I am all for making her the victim of hilarious pranks in each episode.
