The most fascinating aspect of Total Divas to me is the writing process. I’d love to sit in on a session to see what goes into putting just one episode together, because I’m willing to bet that each episode’s script includes notes like, “Not enough boob in this scene; please add more boob ASAP” and “Instead of Nikki and Brie talking at home, have them talk at a restaurant because it shows that they’re socialites… also, more boob.” It’s downright distracting how repetitive a lot of the aspects of this show have become, and mostly I’d love to know how one of the women feels about the way she’s being portrayed. Not the character, but the actual person.
Also, do these women gather around a new copy of the script so they can see what new adventures are in store for their characters – Is Eva Marie going to reconsider a tribal face tattoo after she learns about Romanian orphans? Is Nattie going to start beating Tyson Kidd to flip the national domestic violence conversation on its head? Is Rosa Mendes going to start a relationship with her vibrator and claim that she’s the spokesperson for tech love? – or do they all just blindly appreciate the screen time that they’re given and move along? With each new episode, I become more and more intrigued by the terrible storytelling, and it may become my life’s quest to uncover and rescue the basement filled with chained up children typing out each episode.
That is, until I discover that Eva Marie has been writing each episode all along, which would be the least surprising revelation of all-time.
Pre-Episode Total Divas Power Rankings
1) Naomi – While she’s almost always my favorite, I sometimes have the hardest time remembering what she even did the week before. I wish I had that problem with Nattie.
2) Summer Rae – The show’s “villain” is not a villain. She’s just a movie star that recently finished filming The Marine 36: This Is What Platoon Would Have Looked Like If Oliver Stone Had Balls.
3) Cameron – She has just been hanging out this season, not really doing much. I appreciate that.
4) Brie Bella – She’s just a lady trying to focus on her future while her husband’s neck heals.
5) Nikki Bella – She’s just… something. I don’t even know what her point is anymore.
6) Rosa Mendes – The result of when someone says, “Are we sure that these women are grabbing their own breasts enough? Let’s add someone who grabs everyone’s breasts just to be sure.”
7) Eva Marie – Still pretty awful, but not nearly the worst anymore.
8) Nattie – Absolutely the worst.
Nikki Bella Wants to be Someone’s Mom
How are we supposed to even take her or this show or life in general seriously at this point? Nikki Bella might as just wear a t-shirt that reads: “Eyes Down Here, People.” The exact words out of my mouth when this scene opened: “Oh hey, tit.” I won’t feel bad about something if it’s part of pointing out the obvious. There are late night Cinemax films with more subtlety.
Anyway, it’s nice to see the writers getting the Bella Twins’ weekly argument in a restaurant out of the way in the opening minutes of this week’s episode, “Scared Straight,” and boy were Nikki and Brie fighting over something serious. Is a seal a fish? Nikki doesn’t know, but she does know that people often equate the vagina with a fish smell. She’s so witty and clever, that Nikki Bella. I also tried to remember the last time that I made a vagina/fish smell joke, and it was easily way back in high school. That’s when it hit me – Nikki Bella is the Big Johnson t-shirt of WWE Divas.
Daniel Bryan is Not John Cena, Okay?
As long as Brie is married to Daniel and Nikki is desperately clinging to the idea of marriage with John Cena, the two men are always going to be compared to each other, both in and out of the ring. When it comes to injuries, though, nobody can compare to Cena, because he’s a “superhuman freak of nature” or whatever, and he recovers from his injuries in a matter of seconds. Daniel needs to be more like him and stop being hurt so that Brie doesn’t have to worry about supporting him as a deadbeat. But before we get any further into that, I’d like to thank E! and the WWE for bringing this guy back into our lives this week:
The WWE needs to induct him into the Hall of Fame immediately.
Back to the injuries, Cena thinks that stuff like acupuncture and holistic treatments are dumb, because he gets healthier faster than anyone on Earth, so Daniel Bryan should ignore what he prefers and look into drinking rhinoceros placenta every morning for added spinal girth. Nikki, on the other hand, is worried that Daniel won’t make any money, so Brie will have to support him, too, and that’s messed up, says the woman trying to marry Cena’s wealth.
Ultimately, the real scare came when Bryan dropped his fork while eating because of a pain in his arm, so he finally agreed to meet with the WWE doctor and get to the bottom of his pain and numbness. It turns out that Daniel has nerval ultra nerval nervosis of the cubic zirconia tunnel nerves, or something basically like that, and he needs surgery. Daniel wants us all to stick our quack medicines in a pipe and vape it, bro, but the reality is that he just needs to have this quick and easy procedure so he can get back in the ring sooner than later.
Brie won’t force him, though, because she believes in “Eastern medicines,” while the Bella mom said something about Steve Jobs, because she has to remind us that she reads books and is a wise, older woman. So will Daniel end up getting the surgery? We may never know.
BRO, DO YOU EVEN SHOOT GUNS?
There was a break-in and shooting near Eva Marie’s and Jonathan’s home in Orlando, and they’re going to need to be more specific, because there are break-ins and shootings in Orlando every day. I have a good idea of the general area that they live in, and it’s probably 10 minutes from where I live, which is terrifying enough since someone could read this to Jonathan and he could find me and beat me up. But to act like Orlando is suddenly unsafe is pretty hilarious, because i’ve been too terrified to leave my home for years.
Bottom line, Jonathan wants a gun for home protection, because his two cannons just won’t cut it. Naturally, because it’s convenient, Eva Marie doesn’t want a gun in her home, but she’s willing to meet Jonathan half way and go to the local gun range to FEEL THE RAW POWER AS SHE FIRES OFF BULLET AFTER BULLET. That’s where they meet this fine gentleman, who offers this very appropriate piece of advice: “Don’t shoot anything you’re not supposed to.”
It’s funny because someone shot and killed some people in a gun range recently. But seriously, it’s nice to see that there’s a new fool-proof way of putting an end to those instances. Now, when you think “home protection,” you’re probably imagining a handgun or maybe a shotgun. Not for Jonathan’s home, though. We’re not talking handguns. We’re talking MOTHERF*CKING GUNS.
And if you thought the gun instructor was coming across as a dumbass before, his final quote is the big winner of the week: “You’re ready for the apocalypse.” I’m not a gun hater by any means, but anyone who thinks the apocalypse is something that is happening soon probably needs to go smoke some medicine with Daniel Bryan and chill out.
Unfortunately for Jonathan’s big picture of home safety, Eva Marie isn’t down with keeping a firearm in their home, which causes Jonathan to respond with the very mature and reasonable: “I really don’t know why you hate America and the second amendment.” Eventually, Eva Marie hits the road with the matter left unresolved, so when she finally returns home, there’s a handgun waiting for her in their bedroom. That leads to a chorus of “BABE! BABE! BABE!” and a very upset Jonathan looking like this:
But because the episode was almost over, Eva Marie forgave Jonathan while they ate some tacos. That’s how love works, folks.
Cameron’s Brother is Getting into Some Real Trouble
Now that Cameron is back in Orlando at NXT, she has more time to hang out with Eva Marie when she’s not on the road with the WWE, and they’re so excited about this.
Their whole relationship is remarkable, because we’re not even a year removed from Cameron passing nude photos of Eva Marie around to everyone in the WWE’s backstage area, but apparently that’s the kind of betrayal that can be forgiven and forgotten, while Summer Rae should be shunned for eternity for caring about the well-being of everyone who has to face Eva Marie, who refuses to learn how to wrestle (the scene with Cameron showing Eva Marie her bruises from practicing was pretty hilarious in terms of irony). It all makes perfect sense, so long as you put no more than zero seconds of thought into it.
Just as Eva Marie asks Cameron a very important question about how the aspiring Divas were doing at NXT – God forbid we talk about actual wrestling business on this show – Cameron’s mom calls and lets her know that her 15-year old brother is hanging out with a bad crowd and doing terrible things like not answering his phone and sitting on a curb. That causes Cameron and Vincent to hop the first flight to Los Angeles so they can find her brother and get to the bottom of his shenanigans. And just look at how this young punk treats his big sister.
Shameful. Cameron responds by hosting a “Scared Straight” intervention for her brother, and it features this guy, whose name is Tattoo, because he has tattoos all over his face.
It worked. I quit my gang this morning. So long, Los Burritos. Always remember to respect and love your moms, and “capitalize on that sh*t.”
Rosa Showed Up a Little Late this Week
ROSA’S GIANT BOOBS KEEP FALLING OUT OF HER SHIRT. Stay tuned for more important updates.
Meanwhile, All Across the Roads of America
As I was writing this morning’s recap, my dear friend David D. brought to my attention that no one on this episode was wearing a seatbelt while driving. Combined with my already insanely irrational hatred of how all of the Divas in this gaggle of A-holes drive with their cell phones in their hands, I’m losing my mind. It’s only a matter of time before someone on this show gets into a serious car accident and ends up with serious injuries. But what’s really interesting about this idea is that some of the Divas and their men are actually wearing seatbelts, but in a stupidly irresponsible way.
Exhibit A: Here’s Brie, driving her injured husband around, not wearing a seatbelt at all.
Exhibit B: Here’s Vincent driving Cameron around as they look for her brother, and it appears that neither of them are wearing seatbelts.
Exhibit C: Here’s Eva Marie driving Jonathan, and she’s not wearing a seatbelt.
Exhibit D: Here’s Jonathan driving Eva Marie and not wearing a seatbelt…
… but wait a second! Upon further review, they are wearing seatbelts.
They’re just not wearing the straps over their shoulders, because damn that beeping noise, am I right? Oh, you probably can’t hear me with your faces sticking through the windshield. But trust me, that beeping noise is the worst. If only not wearing your seatbelt was a crime in a place like Florida, where Jonathan and Eva Marie live.
Post-Episode Total Divas Power Rankings
1) Naomi – She was on this week’s episode for two seconds. That might be generous.
2) Cameron – Sure, she might be a cartoon character who thinks that being friends with Ray J is something to brag about, but she handled that drama with her brother admirably.
3) Brie Bella – I love when her entire role in an episode becomes pointless because the issue is unresolved.
4) Summer Rae – Nowhere to be found this week. Probably because she was doing more awful things like practicing and getting better in the ring.
5) Nikki Bella – Default success.
6) Eva Marie – She’s still not capable of expressing seriousness or sincerity, even in a transparently forced hot button topic like guns, but she gets a whole bonus point for trying.
7) Rosa Mendes – Ugh, I don’t even want her ranked this high, but she’s not the worst of the pack.
8) Nattie – Her only scene in this episode had her dominating a conversation in which Eva Marie asked Jimmy Uso and Titus O’Neal for advice on what to do with Jonathan, and she even said, “I’m asking the men first.” But Nattie is shrewd and crafty in getting her screen time, so naturally she wedged them out and offered her own terrible advice.
On Next Week’s Episode of Total Divas…
Nattie cries because Tyson Kidd won’t body slam her on the bed and have his way with her. I assume it’s because he saw her hair.
