wrestling / TV Reports

411’s Total Divas Report 09.14.14

September 15, 2014 | Posted by Ryan Byers

Do you like Ryan’s exasperated ranting about Total Divas? If so, check out his exasperated ranting about numerous other wrestling-related topics on Twitter.

Welcome to the 411mania Total Divas review, probably the most beloved column that I’ve written for this site after having been here for the last ten years. You have no idea how deeply that hurts me.

The Devil Wears Prada is on E! tonight before the show. That’s probably the best pro wrestling lead-in since Murder She Wrote spent all those years as the precursor to Monday Night Raw. (Note to WWE Network executives: Do whatever you need to do to buy the syndication writes to Murder She Wrote. I want the entirety of my authentic mid-90s Monday evening experience back.)

Previously on Total Divas, Rosa Mendes got out of rehab, but the facility lost all of her clothes while she was in there.

We pick up where we left off last week, with John Cena confronting Nikki Bella about they mystery vials and syringes that he caught her leaving around his home. Normally I would expect the show to take the sitcom approach to this scenario, with Nikki manufacturing a ridiculous lie that she then has to preserve for the next forty minutes. However, for whatever reason, this time she comes clean immediately and tells her man that the vials contain hormones that she needs to take in order to facilitate the gathering of her reproductive cells. Cena notes that he was very worried that Nikki was bringing illegal drugs into his home. I understand that’s the same reason that he stopped living with B-Squared.

Elsewhere, Brie Bella and Bryan Danielson are packing up their Phoenix home because they’ve purchased a new place to live. Bryan is gathering his extensive kickpad collection, and Brie refers to him as a “kickpad whore.” Bryan dissects this phrase in a manner that basically makes him my voice transported into the show, point out that “kickpad whore” would mean that he has sex in exchange for kickpads. Hm, I missed that payment option when I was finalizing my last gear order on Highspots.com.

Nattie Neidhart, Eva Marie, and Nikki Bella head into Jonathan Junior’s, a swanky dinner spot that “got good reviews on Yelp,” per Nikki. Given that we’re on a WWE show, I’m surprised they didn’t drop the “Junior” and just call it “Jonathan’s.” Bella tells her friends about the egg controversy. (I was going to call it “egg-gate” in the vein of Watergate, but then I learned that a certain Japanese wrestling promotion had trademarked the name “Open the Egg Gate” to use as the title for its next show in the Tokyo Dome, and I don’t feel like getting sued by CIMA of all people.)

Eva Marie decides that if this is going to be an exposition dinner, she is also going to bring up the fact that she is trying to forcibly convert her husband to Catholicism to please her family. There are two problems with that. First, it was a waste of time, because neither that storyline nor Eva Marie generally are focused on at any subsequent point in this episode. Second, everybody at the table reacts as though this is perfectly acceptable behavior. She is trying to get him to lie about some of his mostly deeply held beliefs so that Thanksgiving dinner can run a little bit more smoothly. That is not normal, nor should it be permissible. That is the type of behavior that should, right off the bat, result in someone being flagged as a horrible human being.

At some TV taping somewhere, Rosa Mendes meets STONE COLD SEAMSTRESS SANDRA~!, making her first appearance on the new season. Sandra is going to make some new gear for Rosa, and Mendes tells Sandra that she has complete creative control because she knows that is how she is going to look as good as humanly possible. Well, if nothing else, that establishes that Rosa is smarter than Ariane, who infamously decided to feud with Sandra over her look, much to Ariane’s detriment. However, it’s all for naught, as this story of Rosa getting new gear (and, further, Rosa as a whole) vanishes from the rest of the episode.

Hopefully at some point they will do a Seinfeld-esque finish in which the two dropped storylines from this episode dovetail in an unexpected way that results in both of them being resolved, perhaps with Rosa’s new gear being evocative of the Virgin Mary and Mendes’ appearance in the gear before Eva Marie’s husband Jonathan causing him to have an epiphany that leads to his conversion. Damn, I should so be writing for Bunim Murray.

BriBry are also backstage at the same show, and Danielson is complaining about pain in his shoulder. Brie provides some voiceover explanation for the non-wrestling fan, claiming that he wrestles 20 or 40 minutes a night, 250 nights a year. That sounds exaggerated, but at least it’s better than the Flair or Hogan “fifty weeks a year, six nights a week plus twice on Sunday” nonsense that gets circulated.

Creepy Talent Relations Guy Mark herds the Funkadactyls into a side office and tells them that he is breaking up their tag team, with Trinity becoming a singles act and Ariane becoming her valet. Holy crap, we’ve got some actual continuity with something that actually did happen on WWE’s main programming. Mark says that this is because Trinity is a step ahead of where Ariane is as a performer, which Trinity agrees with. Also agreeing with that statement is anybody who has functioning eyes. Anybody except for Ariane, of course, who seems to be of the opinion that she’s just as deserving of her spot as her partner.

Ariane confides in Nattie and Eva Marie about the situation, and Nattie tries to tell her that she shouldn’t be too upset because she got called up from developmental too early and the situation therefore is really not her fault. I strongly prefer Nattie’s new “sage provider of valued advice” role this season to last season’s “freak who pisses herself and spreads Icy Hot on her naughty bits” character.

Somewhere else in time and space, BriBry are driving to their new home. They meet with a designer/decorator/he’s not really identified and talk about a lot of changes that they want to make to the building, including the décor, the floor, the gym, the carbon footprint, and whatnot. Essentially, it amounts to an entire overhaul of the house, which begs the question of why they didn’t just have something built to their specifications. It’s not like they don’t have the money for it. Bryan stresses to Brie that they can do some of the work but that they need to prioritize and do it in chunks for budgetary reasons. She somehow turns this into an argument about Bryan ignoring her wishes, and she storms off.

After a commercial, the Bellas go shopping to furnish Brie’s new home. This turns into a discussion of the prior financial argument, and, somehow, NIKKI turns out to be the rational one, telling Brie that if money is tight the couple needs to sit down and have a conversation about what portions of the project should be done in what order.

Seconds later, Nikki is shown having lunch with John Cena in Florida. If these characters have financial problems, maybe they should stop making so many recreational trips to opposite sides of the country. John asks her what sticking yourself with a syringe feels like, using one of those little cocktail swords as a visual aid. Must . . . avoid . . . obvious . . . jokes. Cena segues into more in-depth conversation on the egg freezing issue, indicating that he’s afraid of losing Nikki, because if she’s freezing her ova for later use, that obviously means that she’s contemplating a future life without him. It’s cliffhanger time, as she says that she’ll stop the process if he wants her to. Off camera, he in fact tells her she should abort this process. Wait a minute . . . probably not the best choice of words there . . .

And what’s the deal with Cena telling Nikki to quit in the middle of the process? So much for that “Never Give Up” slogan on his merchandise. Expect new “Give Up Once Your Boyfriend Says So” t-shirts to be on the market soon.

Ariane and boyfriend Vinnie are in the recording studio, talking to the team that produced her hit single, “Bye Bye,” which was reviewed as being two-thirds as good as the *NSYNC track, “Bye Bye Bye.” Some guy in a suit asks her how her wrestling career is going, and she breaks down in tears about her recent demotion. Vinnie, master of empathy, says that he’s hungry.

The twins are at a coffee shop, and Nikki drops the bombshell that she has halted the egg harvest at Cena’s request. Brie says this reeks of selfishness on the part of the champ and that she’s afraid she’s compromising too much for her boyfriend. Somewhere in there, John Cena gets referred to as a “grown ass man.” Wait a minute, there is only one “ass man” in pro wrestling . . .

 photo 200px-BillyGunn_zps2c489855.jpg

There you go, that’s more like . . .

 photo Bootyman-4-WCW_zps00ff1e23.jpg

Okay, correction, there have been TWO ass men in the history of wr . . .

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FINE. There have been a plethora of “ass men” in pro wrestling. It’s a very anally-fixated entertainment genre.

Back to the conversation between the sisters, Brie then asks Nikki the question, “If John wanted to freeze his eggs, would he do it without your permission?” Either Brie doesn’t understand how the human reproductive system works or the Rock was referring to the wrong wrestling personality when he constantly called Kevin Kelly a hermaphrodite.

The tension between the sisters mounts to the point that Nikki walks out of the coffee shop. She stops of the curb just a few feet from the building, and, when Nikki catches up with her, she openly admits that she wasn’t actually going anywhere and stopped for the express purpose of allowing Brie to catch her and restart the conversation. I found that amazingly hilarious. She was being a huge drama queen, she admitted that she was being a huge drama queen, and then she owned being a huge drama queen when called out on it. Shine on, you crazy diamond. In any event, whatever Nikki’s strategy was worked, because the two sisters make up pretty quickly on the roadside.

Back In Tampa, Trinity and Jon Uso are on a date. Trinity is conflicted, because she wants to advance her career but “feels an allegiance to the Funkadactyls.” You mean like that allegiance you felt to Brodus Clay and Tensai before making yourself the focal point of their act? Or the allegiance to poor Xavier Woods? Anyway, Jon convinces her that she should take this opportunity for herself, because being a singles star is where it’s at. Uh oh. If that’s his attitude, somebody should go warn Jimmy Uso . . . or Jey Uso . . . or whatever Uso that Jon isn’t.

In a cute little character moment in the scene, Trinity and Jon both take a moment to impersonate each others’ entrances. Their relationship is one of the few things that feels consistently genuine on this contrived show.

We’re in Phoenix again. I’m getting jet lag just by watching Total Divas. Brie walks in on a loafing Bryan Danielson, who says he has not been packing because he’s gotten results from an MRI and needs immediate neck surgery. They acknowledge that he is the champion and that this is ridiculously bad timing . . . there’s not much that’s funny here.

In San Diego, the Bella Twins visit their unnamed cousins and their unnamed children. Nikki reads to some children. This isn’t staged at all. One of the women who the Bellas are visiting refers to Nikki as “Coco,” supporting my theory that this scene was rigged and nobody at the gathering had any clue who the Bellas were.

Now it’s off to Greenville, South Carolina (allegedly) for Monday Night Raw. Brie is conflicted backstage, because she has “a commitment” in New York and cannot be in Pittsburgh for Bryan’s upcoming neck surgery. We get some clips from D-Bry’s pre-surgery speech and, goddammit, I forgot just how sad that was.

“Two days later,” Brie is calling her husband from a New York hotel room and is regretful about the fact that she spent the days before his announcement arguing with him about material possessions and apologizes for not being with him. She is also still sad that she cannot be with him on the day of the surgery. Yes, because it is physically impossible to appear in both New York City and Pittsburgh within the same twenty-four hour period.

Before you know it, we’re Phoenix again. Brie returns home and finds her husband in bed. She immediately crawls on top of him. HE JUST FINISHED HAVING HIS NECK RIPPED OPEN AND SEWN BACK SHUT. Jesus Christ. Of all of the dumb things on this show, that was probably the dumbest. They discuss his prognosis and the fate of the WWE Championship. From there, they apologize to each other about their prior disagreements regarding the house. Awww.

In San Diego, Nikki and John Cena work out. Nikki is squatting nothing but the bar and complains about her legs giving out, to which Cena says she needs to use less weight. What, is there a lighter bar somewhere in the gym? Nikki says that she’s worried about overdoing it, because she doesn’t want her ovaries to burst. Cena jokes about that not being the worst thing in the world, which causes Nikki to break down and claim that she’s going to freeze her eggs after all. Geez . . . you’d think that she’d have to pick a course of action and stick with it here. If you keep going on and off of those hormones, you’re going to wind up Chyna-esque.

Backstage . . . somewhere . . . Trinity and Ariane are preparing for Trin’s latest match. They’ve been relegated to Main Event, where Trinity and Paige go at it with the former getting the duke. Ariane acts dejected at ringside. This added not a single thing to show.

At presumably the same show (which I now note is in Columbus, Ohio), BriBry meet with a WWE doctor about the possibility of Danielson getting cleared. The news is not that great, as the injury was discovered to have been more severe than expected when his neck was opened up. Bryan will be off the road, which concerns Brie because, if he’s not work on shows, he’s not getting paid. Obviously, anybody who is a hardcore enough wrestling fan to be reading this review knows that is bullshit. However, even if you don’t know that fact, it still doesn’t make sense as a storyline because it asks us to pretend that Bryan and Brie AREN’T GETTING PAID FOR APPEARING ON THE TV SHOW THAT WE’RE WATCHING THEM ON RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT. Come on.

Ariane calls for a meeting with Creepy Talent Relations Mark. She tells him about her aspirations to hold the women’s title and tells him the only way that she thinks that she’s going to get there is to go back to NXT and re-train herself to the point that she’s ready. Mark’s feedback is that this would be a “life changing decision” that would remove her “diva” status. Believe it or not, Ariane sticks to her guns and says that she’s willing to take that chance so that she can be taken seriously as a performer, though Mark stresses again that it is a risky move. I cannot believe I’m getting ready to say this, but this decision by Ariane actually makes her into a somewhat likeable character for the first time in the history of the series, because it shows she’s willing to work hard and take her craft seriously. Good for her.

After that, Ariane meets up with Nikki, Trinity, and Jon. She mentions her plan to them, and Trinity’s first reaction is to take offense and pull her aside into a private conversation. She’s upset because she sees Ariane’s decision as walking out on her. Uh oh, this is starting to look like the go kart track throwdown all over again. Each woman thinks that the other is being selfish, Trinity because she sees Ariane as breaking up the act and Ariane because she sees Trinity as not being supportive of her career gamble. They can’t find common ground, and Trinity walks off, finishing the conversation with “I’m gonna do me and you do you.” Be careful with that stuff . . . I hear that it’ll make you go blind.

After a commercial break, John and Nikki have a conversation about whether she is pooping. This show loves feces. It’s very German. That moves into picking a date for Nikki’s egg-straction, and Cena shows that he’s supportive by agreeing to take her to the surgery and tend to her needs afterward, despite being the uber-busy face of World Wrestling Entertainment. She’s in love once more, and the relationship is saved once more. Okay, this storyline is played out now. It feels like Total Divas has been teasing and resolving Cena/Nikki breakups for my entire life.

Rather than ending on the sweet moment, the show closes on some truly bizarre stuff, with Nikki telling Cena that she couldn’t trust Brie to help her with the surgery, because Brie stared at and complained about Nikki’s vagina during her ultrasound last week, despite their vaginas supposedly being identical. Cena sells this as though it is an awkward topic that he doesn’t want to hear anything about, despite the fact that he has almost certainly seen said vagina. Besides, it’s not like we don’t all know what the Bella twins’ vaginas look like at this stage. I believe they look a little something like this:

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Overall: Though still not great television, this episode was still better than most, in large part because several of the storylines contained an element of realism. Ariane legitimately is a poor performer, so it makes sense that she would be demoted while Trinity rises. Bryan Danielson really was injured and had neck surgery, and the reactions on this show were booked as being fairly genuine. The Cena/Nikki egg-citement remains contrived, but at least they took the time to build the story across two episodes as opposed to resolving it within fifteen minutes of total screen time as has been the case with some of their conflicts. The show’s biggest weakness remains its smash-bang editing, as scenes feel like they’re not given many opportunities to develop naturally and breathe. That phenomenon was particularly frustrating this week, when they added quite a few things that were superfluous, most notably the Eva Marie and Rosa Mendes cameos early in the show.

Next week, Summer Rae returns from filming The Marine and, based on the previews, is apparently once again bullied by Nattie Neidhart.

Do you like Ryan’s exasperated ranting about Total Divas? If so, check out his exasperated ranting about numerous other wrestling-related topics on Twitter.

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Ryan Byers