Okay, let’s be honest: Total Bellas was a totally fine distraction. It was entertaining enough, it was occasionally great, and it was a nice salve on the “no Total Divas” wound for a while. But it’s over (for now), and Total Divas is back, so we can stop farting around with the Bellas and their fellas and really get down to business: The Bellas, their fellas, AND the entire rest of the weird cast of the greatest show in the history of television.
Alicia Fox and Rosa Mendes are gone, and they will be sorely missed (especially Foxy and her batshit everything) (and not so much Rosa, sorry Rosa). But we have new cast members, and we get to see what will probably be the truly insane saga of Paige’s relationship with Alberto Del Rio, even though he’s no longer with WWE and she only barely is!
This is going to be great. Let’s stop blathering and get down to brass tacks: blathering about the season six premiere of Total Divas!
WHEN WE LAST LEFT OUR HEROES: Nikki Bella suffered a career-threatening injury, Daniel Bryan retired due to injury, and Brie Bella is winding down her in-ring career with a final match at WrestleMania 32 (not due to injury).
We start the episode off in Dallas for WrestleMania week. We get a cool slow-mo reintroduction of the main players backstage at the big show, and Apollo Crews not entirely sure why he’s being filmed.
Naomi is back! And back to being identified as “Trinity,” so I don’t even know what’s going on. It’s a pretty good idea to start the first episode of Total Divas since the Divas have stopped being referred to as “Divas” with the show where that change officially happened.
OH WAIT THAT’S NOT WHAT WE’RE DOING AT ALL.
SWERVE. Haha, I gotta admit: they got me! You sneaky jerks. Everyone arrives in Dallas for WrestleMania week (again), and Brie is flying solo. Bryan isn’t needed and is having depression and anxiety issues, so he’s staying at home, and Nikki won’t be arriving until later in the week.
We see Renee Young and Lana and Rusev at the airport(!) and Naomi/Trinity talks about how it’s sad that Brie is retiring, but that means “a big spot” is opening up, so the other women will be stepping up to see who can take it. (Surprise! They’re the ones who aren’t on Total Divas, for the most part.)
“I’m Lana,” says Lana, talking in interview segments with no accent. So there’s that answered right off the bat. She says she’s done a lot of cool stuff in her life, like be in Pitch Perfect!
Man, I hope they can get Anna Kendrick for season seven. OH MY GOD we get to see a clip of Rusev’s completely awful and insanely adorable proposal to Lana! HOLY CRAP.
Okay, this is about to be the best season ever, because RUSEV AWKWARDNESS. Elsewhere, Nikki and her Tim Burton Batman neck are on their way to a function.
Nikki is dealing with the emotions of her injury and not being able to wrestle at WrestleMania for Brie’s last match. Later, Stephanie McMahon gathers the women’s roster for an important backstage meeting. She breaks the news that, starting at WrestleMania, they will no longer be Divas and will instead be Superstars, because they are on equal footing with the men. It means a lot to everyone, and they talk about how happy they are with the change.
The SUPERSTARS all go out to lunch and Eva Marie talks about how she doesn’t even know how to order the sushi roll she wants and has to text Jonathan to ask him, because she hates mayonnaise. No tea no shade no pink lemonade Eva, but I think a general “no mayonnaise” will typically do the trick.
Renee Young arrives and introduces herself to the viewers while wearing leather overalls. Renee Young LOVES overalls. Maybe it’s a Canadian thing?
Yeah, me too. Renee says she never thought she’d be working for WWE and now she’s dating the world heavyweight champion. Cue official introduction to Dean Ambrose! We also get an introduction to Maryse, former Divas Champion and wife of The Miz. Sadly, no official introduction to Miz … yet. Maryse and Nattie and the Bellas go back a long way, because they were all in developmental together.
Maryse says she hasn’t spoken to the Bellas in over three years, because at the time, they were all up for new contracts and Nikki thought they could get more money, so they made a pact to not sign until they got a better deal. They were told there would be no deal, then a week later Maryse got a text from Brie saying, “I hope you’re not angry, but we got a contract.” So it’s a bit of a sensitive subject! She considered them best friends at the time. In fact, Brie used to be her roommate.
Renee is really good friends with the Bellas (as we’ve seen in past seasons), but she didn’t know that history. Still, she doesn’t think it’s cool for Maryse to tell everyone without the twins being there to defend themselves. Uh dude, that’s exactly the right time to fill everyone in, so they know before there’s some huge confrontation. Which I’m sure we’ll get to.
The women begin making their PR rounds, including a massive appearance for a children’s hospital. For the second time in the episode, Naomi brings up that she needs to redo her hair before Mania. Also, sup Tamina.
Hope you try to fight a stranger again this season. Missed u. Paige points out that there will be 100,000 people there judging how they look, so everyone is stressing. What a bummer. Seriously, that stinks.
Brie and her mom head out for the day and Brie says she talked to Bryan this morning and he woke up happy for the first time in a very long time. Brie segues into finding out about Maryse talking “trash” about her, and she has more important things to worry about than “middle school drama” from “a former co-worker.” That was a lot of shade packed into a few sentences, Brie!
Paige and Lana and Jey Uso join Naomi in her hotel room, where Paige has offered to “fix” Naomi’s hair. Everyone agrees this is a terrible idea, including me! Paige ends up putting on “too much bleach” and cutting some of her hair, which she says is “layering.”
We cut to the next morning, where Naomi is wearing a beanie and hoodie and saying last night did not go according to plan. She and Lana run into WWE’s hair and makeup people and Naomi reveals the damage.
Apparently, it wasn’t supposed to turn out this shade of badly mottled green. Who knew? The WWE ladies are AGHAST. They say there’s no way to salvage it, and she has to get all new hair. The ladies are booked, and “every salon in town is booked.” Everyone gettin their hair done for WrestleMania week!
Later, at the hotel, Lana wants to show her WrestleMania ring gear to Nattie, to make sure it looks okay. It’s her debut match, if you recall. (And still her only match to date.) It turns out that her wedding designer made her gear for her! And it didn’t fit quite right, so said designer has flown into town to help with alterations. That’s nice! Living the life.
Lana describes her outfit as the “fiercest and most ravishing thing I could wear.”
I mean, sure. Nattie thinks it looks hot, and they try a collar and elbow tie-up and a roll-up to see if Lana feels comfortable in it. Lana is worried about her boobs and Nattie says that’s appropriate, because she doesn’t want to get a 30-day suspension for a tit flying out. Nattie points out that Lana is scared about wrestling her first ever match in front of 100,000 people and that she wants to make sure Lana doesn’t f*ck this match up, which I’m sure makes Lana a lot less nervous.
Renee, Paige and Brie go out for dinner and Brie has invited Maryse to join them, since they ran into each other at the gym earlier. Brie’s side of the story is that she and Maryse had a huge falling out because Maryse thinks Brie blocked opportunities from her.
Awwwww here it goes. Brie says “business is business,” but she couldn’t even get the Divas Championship when she came back to WWE, so how could she block someone’s contract? Yeah, totally equivalent, Brie. Brie said Maryse isn’t telling the truth. Brie claims she called Maryse and Maryse told her that she’d never let business come between them. But she LIED. Brie goes totally knives-out and says she has validated everything Daniel Bryan ever said about her. Daniel Bryan: secret asshole.
Renee Young and Paige are just sort of sitting there awkwardly for the whole thing, by the way, which makes it all so much more amazing.
Maryse chooses to bail and go have a cocktail with her loving husband instead. Good call! She thanks them for the invite. Aw, that’s nice! Paige says Maryse sounds like a crazy person, but Renee points out that it was a lot of talking in circles. Brie now claims (to Renee and Paige) that she fought for a long time for WWE to re-sign Maryse, but they finally just told her to drop it. Seems like that would be a good thing to say to Maryse instead of the other stuff you said!
Nikki finally arrives at WrestleMania and the Bellas hit up AXXESS. No word on their fellas, though. A fan manages to put into words what all of us have been feeling about Rusev and Lana for years now.
Nailed it. Nikki goes up to Brie’s hotel room to hang. Bryan has sent her flowers! Brie vents to Nikki that there’s just so much for her to deal with, emotionally, because of everything with Bryan and everyone asking where he is, and Nikki not being there, and her retirement match, and now Maryse is here with all her drama. Nikki says that’s just life, but at least Brie gets to wrestle her last match, and at WrestleMania. Brie is like, “Well shit, who can I vent to, then?” Nikki just tries to give her perspective that things suck, but at least she (more or less) gets to choose her last match.
It’s finally WrestleMania Sunday! Nattie says she feels like she’s losing her best friends, because Brie is retiring and Nikki is injured, and she helped train the twins. Lana asks Rusev if he’s nervous and he gives the best nonchalant “No, of course not” ever. Lana, of course, is flipping out. Rusev gives her one small, semi-reassuring pat on the arm and walks away, and it is the most hilarious thing.
Lana thinks this can make or break her career, so she asks Nattie for advice again. Nattie is fed up with her insecurity, but tells her that she has to seize the opportunity and make the most of it, because she may never get another WrestleMania moment. The hair and makeup lady agrees: “Put your big girl pants on and own it.” But doctor, I am Pagliacci!
Meanwhile, Naomi’s hair is fine!
Glad that C story worked out. She had to fly in her personal hair stylist at the last moment and was up until 5:00 in the morning getting everything fixed.
ICE COLD MARK CARRANO shows up in a goddamn sharkskin suit to give a pre-show pep talk to all of the Divas.
He reminds us that three years ago (as detailed in the first episode of this show!) there was a Divas Mania match that was canceled in Gorilla, and it sucked. This year, there are two women’s matches, featuring 13 women. Since this is Lana’s first match and Brie’s last match, they take their first official “class photo” of the women Superstars. He tells them all to kick ass tonight.
Everyone makes their final preparations and the 10-woman match is upon us! Brie’s team wins with the swank Yes Lock transition and Nikki Bella shows up to celebrate with the Total Divas crew. Brie looks back on her career and everything that has happened to her since she started with WWE. She says she’ll still be around as an ambassador, and even though it didn’t feel like her last match, it was. Nattie and everyone else is very emotional and Eva Marie says it was all Brie.
We then get clips of Lita introducing the new Women’s Championship and the renaming of the female WWE Superstars. The women watch from backstage as Lita unveils the belt and it may have been their first time seeing that belt. Nikki says she wants to be the longest-reigning Women’s Champion, so the division should watch out, because she’s coming for it.
And that’s the first episode! We get a preview of the season, where Brie tries to get pregnant, we meet Dean and Miz, the draft happens, Alberto Del Rio becomes a problem, and Nikki makes a comeback. It’s gonna be a hell of a season. I cannot wait.
