True story time: Yesterday afternoon, at some point during the Dallas Cowboys’ latest reminder that Jerry Jones will probably end up murdering someone in front of a live TV audience, I suddenly felt exhausted. I thought to myself, “Well, the good thing is that I can go to bed early tonight, since I don’t have to worry about True Blood recaps anymore,” and I curled up into a ball on my racecar bed and slowly drifted away to Sleepytime Palace. But then, as if a greater power had been trying to pull me back, my eyes popped open and I startled Erin Heatherton and Karen Gillan by shouting, “Aw crap, Total Divas is back tonight!” Okay, maybe it didn’t happen exactly like that – I have a waterbed, not a racecar – but the truth was there on my TV, staring me in the face… Total Divas is back for Season 3.
We could scream to the heavens, “WHY GOD, WHY IS THIS SHOW STILL ON AND YET YOU TOOK THE SWAN AWAY FROM US?!?!” but we all know the answer. In fact, we’re a big part of the problem. The truth is that this WWE scripted garbage truck fire is just too entertaining to look away from, even if it is for all the wrong reasons, and now the addition of Rosa Mendes only means that Nattie will be driven closer to insanity, so that should be hilarious at the very least. Enough chatter, though, because there’s drama to be analyzed, including Eva Marie’s family’s hatred of her Scott Stapp lookalike husband, so let’s get on with the show.
Pre-Episode Total Divas Power Rankings
1) Naomi – Always the most level-headed and wonderful of the Divas on this show, unless she’s recording music videos. Please, no more of that.
2) Summer Rae – Here’s to hoping that we get less of the inexplicable group hatred of Summer this season, and simply let her be the best of the Divas (on this show).
3) Brie Bella – When your sister is Nikki Bella, you’re always going to seem way cooler than you actually are.
4) Nattie – Poor, poor Nattie.
5) Cameron – She’s responsible for Ray J being on my TV last season, but she’s still not as bad as…
6) Nikki Bella – Hooray, let’s get into some more garbage storylines about her relationship problems with John Cena, shall we?
7) Eva Marie – Not good at wrestling, speaking or interacting with other adult human beings, but she somehow made it out of last season as a nonsensical “face,” because Summer Rae was written as the scripted reality series heel.
NR) Rosa Mendes – She’s new, so she has to earn respect on this list.
Hey, Did You Know that Wrestlemania is a Big Event for Wrestlers?
Another season, another montage of the Total Divas cast members explaining how cool it was to be at Wrestlemania this year. I watched Wrestlemania and couldn’t tell you how the Divas competed or who won if you put a gun to my balls, but congrats to all of the competitors nonetheless, and I look forward to fast forwarding through all future segments like this in the coming episodes. Man, we’re not even 30 seconds into an episode and I’m already annoyed by the lack of originality on this show.
Great, This Episode is All About Eva Marie and Jonathan Coyle
For those of you who may not have been following this series from Day One, or especially the love affair of Eva Marie and Jonathan Coyle, here’s the short story – they eloped and didn’t tell her parents, who basically hate him because he wears hooded sweatshirts with nothing underneath and he has a nose ring. Right off the bat in this episode, Eva Marie and Jonathan, AKA Scott Stapp 2.0, decide that they want to have a real wedding now, presumably because you don’t get free sh*t from your friends and family for eloping. The first step in that is taking pictures for a Save the Date mailer. This is what they looked like…
… for a Save the Date photo…
… to send to her family…
… that is already furious with them for eloping. I wasn’t prepared for this, you guys. But don’t worry or get offended, because Eva Marie has a perfectly good excuse for such a risqué photo shoot: “When Jonathan and I are 80 years old, I want to look back and be like, ‘Yes, we were hot.’
As I watched the opening of this episode, I started wondering if I’ve been too tough on Eva Marie and Jonathan, since they’re just a couple of kids trying to make it big in this sports-entertainment business, and also because he could pop my skull like a zit with one squeeze. Nope. Not having that thought ever again after this nonsense.
Introducing Rosa Mendes, the Diva You’re Already Very Familiar With
The good thing about adding a new Diva, at least for Nattie, who already struggles to get any screen time or a Divas Championship shot, is that Nattie will be there to “greet” her as if they’re best friends in the world. Basically, Nattie is the Hooters hostess of Total Divas. The first thing that Rosa tells us when she’s introduced is that she’s 34-years old but looks like she’s 24, so basically she’s already narcissistic at an elite level.
But just as Nattie has feuded with newcomers like Eva Marie and Summer Rae, she needs to feud with WWE Divas veteran but show rookie Rosa, and the topic at the core of their misunderstanding is a very serious one – sideboob. Nattie, who did an entire rape fantasy segment with her husband last season, doesn’t think that Rosa should be wearing a dress that shows one-quarter of the side of her breasts. Homegirl is going to lose her hypocritical sh*t when she gets Eva Marie’s Save the Date in the mail.
Nattie isn’t thrilled to be assigned to help Rosa make her return, and she wants a Divas Championship match for it. So AJ or Paige has that win to look forward to when the time comes. In the meantime, Nattie has to take Rosa under her wing, which means that we’re in for Nattie becoming jealous of her, as she already has with Eva Marie and Summer Rae, and they’ll end up yelling at each other over it. If there’s a scene in which Nattie thinks Rosa is flirting with Tyson Kidd, I am going to sue the writers of this show for plagiarizing themselves for the 50th time.
Titus O’Neil is the Best. THE. BEST.
Let’s forget that Naomi and Cameron were basically limited to talking about pancakes and Eva Marie’s nipples in this episode, or that Titus O’Neil showed up to complete the Sassy Black Friend Showcase that breaks up the monotony of another adventure in trying to make us like Eva Marie. Titus O’Neil is wonderful and should have his own talk show, on which he talks sense into stupid, young couples that are about to make hugely wrong decisions.
This Week on ‘Adventures in the Bella Twins Going to Restaurants and Texting Other People While Talking to Each Other’
Look, I’ve had about enough of Nikki Bella’s problems with John Cena. Everything is convenient and transparent drama with these two, and it’s not interesting at all. It’s demeaning to the other stars of the show that they are constantly taking the back seat to stupid, stupid stories like Nikki wanting to freeze her eggs because she’s afraid of being alone and childless at 40. “Deep down inside, I know that John’s the one, but I NEED TO COMPLAIN THAT HE DOESN’T WANT TO HAVE BABIES!” You know what would be hilarious? Nikki getting pregnant and then realizing that her career with the WWE is basically over for the next two years. She obviously doesn’t want that to happen, so cut it out with the biological clock stupidity. Why can’t Nikki and John just be happy with each other? They’re actually at their best when Nikki is trying to make him less of a macho douchebag. It’s the only believable thing that they do.
Instead, the drama during the limited screen time shared by Nikki and John this week involved her scheduling an interior designer visit at the same time that a nurse was coming by to draw blood for her whole egg freezing thing. WOW, WHAT A F*CKING COINCIDENCE! “Gee, maybe I can have the blood drawn in one room, while I trick John into going into another room with the designer,” Nikki says while the rest of the gang runs from room to room while being chased by Old Man McGillicutty in a werewolf costume.
The one thing that I loved about the stupidity between John and Nikki this week was how John gave Nikki a strange, knowing look every time she spoke, so they should just do that. Like, have John be suspicious of everything, to the point that he looks like the Overdramatic Chipmunk in every scene.
The Best Part of Any Episode is Eva Marie’s Family… Until Now
The scenes with Eva Marie’s father and brothers are as fake as any other on this show, as we can all tell they’re yelling for the sake of the camera, and they probably all think that Scott Stapp’s nose ring is as cool as they come. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not fun. Granted, they’re at their best when they’re all pissed off at Eva Marie, because a father’s love can only be stretched so far when his daughter is constantly making stupid, contradictory decisions about “what’s best” for her life and career. So to see them suddenly fine with Eva Marie and Jonathan, and especially their softcore engagement/they’re-already-married photos, was a huge disappointment.
It was bad enough that the show’s writers suddenly forced the rest of the Divas to side with Eva Marie, whose in-ring presence poses a threat to everyone around her, as she lacks the professionalism to keep training on a regular basis, but now her family wants us to think all is well. For a show that vaguely pretends to be endorsing strong female role models, this season premiere should be airing right before Farrah Abraham’s new series, Doggy Stylin’ and Profilin’.
Hold Up, Did Someone Mention God?
Jonathan wasn’t raised Catholic and won’t change his religious views just to please Eva Marie’s father, who was under the impression that a “traditional” wedding meant that it would be in a Catholic church and in front of the big man upstairs. In this rare case, I’m going to side with Jonathan on this one, because it’s pretty ridiculous for someone to ask a bro to up and change his whole view on God for the sake of a wedding. But at the same time, as a person who lived in fear of fathers for many, many years, just do what the guy says so he’ll like you, Jonathan. Big deal, you have to stand and kneel a few hundred times and mumble along with a prayer that you’ve vaguely heard people say in the past (no disrespect meant to my huge Catholic following, obviously). Do you know what happens after a Catholic wedding ceremony? A Catholic wedding reception. Drink up, fella.
Rosa Got a Boob Job
This show is about empowering young women by providing them with positive role models, according to Nattie, who (again) starred in an entire scene about a home invasion/rape fantasy last season, but here are Rosa’s new boobs.
A Tale of Really Poor Story Layout
In between the hotel room scene in which Rosa tries to seduce Nattie or something and Brie telling Nikki that she had front row seats to look inside her vagina, Eva Marie is coping with her father’s battle with prostate cancer. She’s genuinely upset (or at least as genuine as she can be after she posed for the cover of Hustler’s wrestling edition for her Save the Dates) that he’s still undergoing treatments, so she’s dedicated to convincing Jonathan that he should convert to Catholicism for the sake of making her father happy. This had a very slight chance of being a sweet, touching series of events, between Jonathan seeming to really care about Eva Marie’s opinion, and Eva Marie wanting to make her father happy.
But to sandwich it between two hilariously crude and pointless scenes is perhaps the greatest example of how hilariously bad this show’s writing and editing is. It’s mind-boggling.
The Best Scene of the Episode
Rosa conveniently walking in on Eva Marie and Naomi making fun of her was amusing, especially when it led to her crying before her big return match with Nattie. I hope that Rosa’s whole angle throughout this entire season is that she can’t stop crying and everything sets her off. Like, if she sees a bird in a tree, she just starts crying because a bird pooped on her once as a child, or if she sees a bottle of water, she starts crying because water is what makes tears. It’s way better than her talking about her big, new boobs. Kind of.
Post-Episode Total Divas Power Rankings
1) Naomi – She got to talk about pancakes and play a Mean Girl this week. At least there was no music video.
2) Summer Rae – Nowhere to be found, and she still managed to piss off the other girls, because she was filming The Marine 37: Semper High Five, Spring Break Bros.
3) Cameron – No Vincent means a good episode.
4) Brie Bella – Always the voice of reason, although not nearly enough Daniel Bryan.
5) Nattie – Poor, slightly tolerable Nattie.
6) Nikki Bella – So painfully overdramatic and useless to this series that it’s not even funny anymore.
7) Rosa Mendes – I don’t know what to think of her yet. More on this in a second.
8) Eva Marie – As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’d love to identify with her as a human being dealing with real issues, but you can’t start with “I’mma make deez sexy wedding pictures because we so sexy” and then jump to daddy issues. Doesn’t work that way.
On This Season of Total Divas…
While the season preview video isn’t yet available, all you need is my vague description. Apparently Rosa really is trying to seduce Nattie, whose own marriage may be on the rocks, probably because her husband is a Ken doll. Meanwhile, Rosa is next up on the “Summer Rae’s my friend… oh no!” story conveyor belt, because holy crap this is formulaic, repetitive nonsense. Fortunately, it all ends with Nattie apparently trying to murder Summer Rae in the middle of nowhere, because Summer Rae would totally allow that to happen a second time, while not reporting her to the WWE or authorities. REALITY!
