411’s Total Divas Report 10.19.2014

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Backstage . . . somewhere . . . Nattie and the Bella Twins are talking about the incident in which BriBry’s home was robbed. Unfortunately, the Total Divas camera crew was not around for that one, which is one of your first indicators that the show is fake. They don’t even really play this up for laughs, they just tell the story and move on.

Speaking of the home that was robbed, that’s where we are for our first scene of the show proper, when Creepy Talent Relations Mark calls in. He tells the couple that they’re going to be guests on the Teen Choice Awards. Daniel Bryan is exactly as excited about this as you would expect him to be, which is to say not at all. Brie wants to buy a dress for the event, but her husband says “NO! NO! NO!” Okay, not really. He just says, “no.” Brie tries to explain the need to always look good when you’re in the public eye. You’re talking to a guy who takes grooming tips from the Necro Butcher . . . I don’t think that message is getting through anytime soon.

In Orlando, Jonathan and Eva Marie are moving. I was about ready to point out that it seems like they’re moving every other episode, but, before I have the chance, Jonathan says the exact same thing. They’re not just moving, they’re moving across the country, from Florida to California. The scene goes off on an odd tangent, as Eva tries to get Jonathan to fix one of her shoes and Jonathan tells her to see a cobbler instead. Eva doesn’t know what the word means and, when it’s explained to her, criticizes her husband for using such outdated language. Careful there, Eva, you’re getting dangerously close to stealing Nikki’s brain dead gimmick.

Down the road in Tampa, Rosa Mendes meets up with some guy named Chad. Unfortunately, it is not this Chad.

Rosa and Chad have a date at a children’s trampoline facility. Of course, Rosa is wearing the tightest shirt imaginable. This is an excuse to do exactly what you think it is an excuse to do. Chad reveals that he is twenty-three years old. I suppose everyone is supposed to remember Rosa’s statement from a prior episode that she is thirty-eight. Hey, wait a minute, his age matches her IQ! The first thing that Chad brings up in their conversation is his Christianity. Red flag. Red flag. They both talk about how they’re totally committed to Jesus (Rosa really likes the communion wine), and Chad says that he’s saving himself for marriage. Mendes, who just last week was going on and on about wanting to wait for the right guy to the point that she caused Gary Barnidge to blitz toward’s Summer Rae’s tight end, is freaked out by the virgin and says she needs somebody she can screw.

(My apologies for the awful, off base football metaphors in the prior paragraph. I can count the number of football games that I have watched in my lifetime on my fingers.)

Ariane and Eva Marie are picking up a trailer for their road trip. Ariane yells, “I’ve always wanted to do this” and takes a ride in the bed of the truck. They have some difficulty getting the trailer where it needs to go without running over the curb. I’d make fun, but, honestly, I don’t know that I would be doing much better. In Continuity Flaw #7,273 for the series, the trailer they pick up here is not the trailer that they’re hauling when they actually get on the road. The trailer here is an off brand, while the trailer later is a U-Haul with all of the identifying marks blacked out.

Tampa again. The Bellas and their brother are out to celebrate mama Kathy’s birthday. She is 50, which means that she had the twins at 20. Brie picks up the tab for dinner but, as she’s leaving the restaurant, she gets a call from Daniel Bryan, who chastises her because the bank sent him a text message alerting him to the expenditure. He classifies $400 for dinner as “a little egregious.” No, $100 for dinner is a little egregious. $400 for dinner means that the wait staff better have been giving you sexual favors under the table.

Stephanie McMahon meets with the entire cast backstage at an undisclosed event and tells them all that they’re going to be doing a campaign for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. This scene is ridiculous for several reasons, and I’m not even going to get into the politics of whether or not people should give their money to organizations like Komen. First of all, every woman on the show is stacked up on one couch in the most posed, unnatural manner possible. Second, Steph is relaying this as though it’s brand new information even though this is at least the second and I believe possibly the third year of the WWE breast cancer promotion, and most of these women have been around for prior incarnations. Third, this has zero to do with the rest of the episode. There are also some jokes in there about how having a mammogram is easier than being a professional wrestler. That’s not what Brodus Clay tells me.

Summer Rae and Adam Rose wrestle Fandango and Layla El, which, if I’m not mistaken was MONTHS prior to the October breast cancer campaign that was just being discussed. After the match, Summer meets up with NFL Superstar Gary Barnidge, who she has been dating. Gary’s shirt is a sight to behold here, as it looks like something that I saw projected on the planetarium wall during a fifth grade field trip. Immediately, Rosa Mendes shows up, and things get awwwwwkward. She pulls Summer off to the side and gets up in her face about stealing her man. In the process of doing this, Rosa freely admits that she and Gary were not getting along well and that he had not even been returning her text messages. If you saw their second date last week, you would know why. In any event, Rosa threatens to beat up Summer. How is THAT justified? You were done with the guy, you made it clear to everybody that you were done with the guy. He’s fair game. Yet again, Summer Rae is unjustifiably made out to be the heel of the series.

At Eva Marie’s apartment, she and Ariane are making fun of Jonathan because he has made detailed itineraries for their entire trip across the country. Only on this show is being organized a character flaw.

Now the Bella Twins are out shopping, and apparently Brie has taken Daniel’s message about not spending money on clothing to heart, because she’s wearing a pair of print overalls that appear to be a size too large and made out of the remnants of a Ramada Inn couch. The upshot of the scene is that Brie finds a new dress that would be perfect for the Teen Choice Awards but she is worried about Bryan’s reaction to her purchasing for it, so she makes Nikki buy it for her instead of purchasing it outright.

Vinny has finally met up with the rest of his crew, and the two couples hit the road. After what seems to be five minutes of driving, they stop at some sort of tractor . . . museum? This results in Eva driving a vintage tractor and five hundred selfies with farm equipment. Jonathan gets frustrated after forty-five seconds, because this is throwing him off of his schedule. I don’t know that they’ve even made it on to the interstate yet, and already they’re behind? Yikes. Eva’s rebuttal when Jonathan tries to get her to leave the tractor museum of “But it’s like . . . historical” is the best unintentional comedy that this program has provided in weeks and weeks.

Now the twins are grabbing some coffee after their shopping trip. Unfortunately, this is not Slam City, so Alberto Del Rio is not the barista. Daniel calls to question Brie’s $22.00 java expenditure. Okay, that one’s a little out of line. The girls decide that Brianna needs to discuss this with her husband. They play this up as though it’s a dramatic, tense conclusion to reach even though it’s the thing that any rational adult would decide to do after a few days of being annoyed with her partner.

After a commercial, we’re back with the road trippers. Jonathan starts to have a minor meltdown because they’re not going to make their scheduled hotel in San Antonio. The next best place to stop appears to be Mobile, Alabama, but all the hotels in Mobile are booked except for one, and they’ve only got ONE ROOM. That is somewhat implausible, but I have had some extreme difficulty finding a place to stay on the wrong weekend, so I’ll let it pass. What is truly ridiculous is Ariane acting as though she can’t believe there’s an event in Mobile that would lead to any number of people wanting to be there. Hey, you know what big even comes through Mobile on an almost annual basis? World Wrestling Entertainment! Way to slam one of your own markets there, WWE.

Rosa Mendes shows up at a restaurant and tells the hostess that she has a “reservation under Diesel.” So she’s going on a date with Kevin Nash? No, she’s going on a date with a fellow named Nate, who looks like somebody took Rey Misterio’s head and pasted it on to the Ryback’s body. He’s also wearing a ski cap indoors in Tampa, which is a pretty good indicator that he’s a d-bag. Rosa admits in a confessional that she’s giving him “sex eyes,” but he’s not getting the message. Maybe she just need to work a little bit harder. Maybe she just needed to feed . . . him . . . more. Booyaka.

Eva and company arrive at their hotel for the evening, named the Shepard House. It’s a large home that appears to have a Southern Gothic theme. Jonathan references Scooby Doo, but I’m disappointed that nobody made the obvious Wyatt Family jokes, particularly with the rocking chairs on the front porch. There’s a very odd gimmick in which notes are left all over the house for them directing them where to go and how to sleep, though they don’t give the scene enough time for that concept to really go anywhere. Even though the group is staying in this MASSIVE house, there is only one bed, and nobody likes the prospect of sharing, particularly Eva Marie. Again, the scene ends before the concept can really be taken anywhere.

Nattie Neidhart and Rosa Mendes are driving together again, and Rosa is upset because she’s heard nothing from Nate. She’s gone through three men in an episode and a half. Like the old saying goes, the common denominator in all of your failed relationships is you.

BriBry are getting ready for their Teen Choice appearance, and Brie confronts her man about his constant questioning of her spending habits. She wants some trust . . . and there’s a commerical break. The dynamic duo is at the award show when we return, and, somewhat surprisingly, Bryan outright says that he hates that kind of event. I don’t doubt that is the case, but I’m amazed that WWE actually allowed one of their performers to come out and say something like that in the middle of one of their television shows. Bryan says that being at the event made him understand why Brie felt she had to look her best, so he’s going to back off on her spending. Don’t you just love it when a TV show builds up a problem for your protagonist to overcome and then said protagonist winds up having to do absolutely NOTHING in order to solve her problem?

It’s time for a pit stop with Eva and friends. They hit a gas station in Louisiana, and everybody by Jonathan farts around looking at knick knacks. He cannot handle it and tells his wife to gather everybody else up while he puts gas into the car. Wait a minute . . . if he wasn’t putting gas in the car while everybody else was goofing off, what was he doing?

For reasons that I do not understand, Rosa Mendes has decided that she needs to take Nattie to “a lesbian bar.” Rosa talks to one of the lesbians in Spanish, and they next thing you know, they’re kissing each other full on the lips. Nattie tells Rosa that she needs to keep her mouse in the house. Wait a minute . . . based on Nattie’s use of that catchphrase in prior episodes, I’m pretty sure that the “mouse” is supposed to be a penis. Either I’m misunderstanding the phrase or Rosa Mendes is going to have some ‘splaining to do to that poor lesbian.

Somewhere in “North Texas,” Vinny is trying to sleep in the passenger seat of the truck, while Eva Marie and Jonathan are still bickering. Ariane tries to calm them down, Vinny tells her to mind her own business, and then the scene morphs to Ariane browbeating Vinny and telling him that he’s no longer allowed to talk to her. I was going to say that, if there was one man on this show I would not want to be, it is Vinny. I WAS going to say that, but then I remembered the treatment that Jonathan has gotten from Eva Marie’s family . . . so, yeah, that’s pretty much a tossup.

After a commercial break, Eva’s posse has arrived in San Antonio, which seems to have occurred over a day late. Hey, if you’re going to be in that city, can you strand Eva Marie there for a few days with Rudy Boy Gonzales? Maybe he could reach her in a way that the NXT trainers apparently cannot. Eva and Jonathan decide that they should call off the trip, hire movers to get their stuff the rest of the way across the country, and fly to California. Everybody is cool with that, and the couples apologize to each other for their unpleasant bickering the night before. Soooo, essentially they came up with a storyline idea for a road trip, shot a bunch of footage for it, realized that they didn’t have enough room the episode for the characters to make it all the way from Florida to California, and then found a flimsy excuse to call it off in the middle. All right then.

In Nattie and Rosa’s hotel room in Richmond, Virginia, Nat tells everybody that she’s concerned about Mendes’ condition. In fact, she says that she’s afraid that she’s going to relapse. There’s a commercial in there, and, once we come back, we’re no longer talking about Rosa’s issues with alcohol and are instead talking about Rosa’s bisexual tendencies. Mendes says that she’s afraid being with a man as opposed to a woman will make her relapse, because every time that she’s been with a man it has resulted in her being abused. Nattie sympathizes with her because of the substance abuse issues that she’s seen in her own family, and then they start talking about how if being with a woman is going to make Rosa happy, then she should go for it.

That was such an odd scene. I’m a bit hesitant to make fun of it, because I know that there ARE real issues with Rosa and alcoholism, and I know there ARE real issues with Rosa and domestic abuse, and I know that there ARE real substance abuse issues in Nattie’s family. However, the whole logic of being with a man as opposed to being with a woman will somehow make me relapse is just confounding. It seems so illogical . . . though maybe it only seems illogical to me because I’ve never been there before.

That is, for whatever reason, the conclusion of the first of the night’s two episodes.

Episode two on the evening starts with Rosa and Nattie buying cupcakes and getting stuck in a parking lot because their truck is just too damn big. I do love the fact that the cupcake store was immediately next door to a crossfit gym. I would imagine that those two things feed off of each other. (Pun intended.)

Eva Marie is meeting with her loving family about her wedding. It’s a bittersweet event, as everyone’s excited about the nuptials but sad about Eva’s father Barry’s cancer, which has spread “throughout his body.” At least he hasn’t ruptured a disc which fragmented into his spinal column.

The Bellas are celebrating a rare day off at John Cena’s Fortress of Solitude. In fact, Ariane and Nattie have also been invited over. Ari is looking at buying a house in California, so she enlists the services of super relator Nikki Bella. Ariane decides that she would like a place “like John Cena’s.” You mean completely sterile and devoid of any warmth?

TJ Wilson and Nattie Neidhart are meeting with a divorce lawyer. Well, that escalated quickly, as last time we saw them I’m pretty certain that they were headed towards working things out. You know, I’m not sure exactly how Florida law works, but I’m fairly confident that a joint meeting between both halves of a married couple at which both spouses are given legal advice by the same attorney is a bit of a no-no. The meeting is fairly straightforward until they get to the point of talking about the couple’s three cats, and both of them freak out when they’re advised that the felines have to be divvied up just like any other property. First, how do you NOT think about that if you’re thinking about splitting up with your spouse? Second, I know that people love their pets and I love mine, but it’s still hilarious to see things going smoothly until the freaking cats are mentioned, which is what truly makes the fact that these two people are ending their marriage dramatic.

We’re now in San Antonio with the Bellas, Eva Marie, and Nattie. Eva is advised to not have a fake tan during her wedding. Sound advice. The topic turns to Barry’s cancer, which turns out to be cancer of the Colon. Damn, that’s rough. It’s how we lost Carlito, after all.
It’s time for Monday Night Raw in Austin, and the Bellas walk by JOJO OFFERMAN of all people backstage. It only lasts two seconds but was clearly slipped in as a wink and a nod to people who have been following the program from its humble beginnings. The twins then have another conversation with Eva Marie. They try to let her know that she can come to them with any problems she may have regarding her father, but Eva doesn’t want to hear it at work. The twins come to the conclusion that Eva might be shutting down in an unhealthy manner.

We get footage of the contract signing between Stephanie McMahon and Brie Bella for Summerslam, just to remind us that this is, in fact, a television show that has some loose ties to professional wrestling.

In the Wilson-Neidhart household, the couple are playing with their oh-so-precious cats. Nattie explains that they’ve been sleeping in separate bedrooms, because that was more economical than their prior arrangement that saw her living in a hotel. They begin bickering about how they would divide their property in the event that they would get divorced. The scene ads nothing to the show.

Speaking of property, on the other side of the country, Nikki Bella is taking Ariane house hunting. Apparently Vinny does not get to be a part of this process. They meet up with a fellow named Joe, who I’m assuming is the actual realtor involved in this process so that Nikki is not practicing without a license on camera. The home is beautiful, but Ariane gets severe sticker shock when she learns that the list price is $2.7 million. Ari makes it clear that this is well beyond her budget. Nikki in response says, “Well, I just thought that with Vinny . . .” Yes, Vinny, who has no discernible employment from everything that we’ve seen on this program (unless “being Armenian” has suddenly become a vocation), is going to be the driving force behind the mortgage payments here.

BriBry are bumming around their house, and I’m pretty sure Bryan is wearing his Wyatt family coveralls. Brie mentions Eva Marie’s icy reaction to her father’s death, and Bryan explains that everybody has their own method of coping and not everyone wants to have their emotions on display for their coworkers. Normally this is the sort of scene that would occur between Nikki Bella and John Cena, so I’m guessing Cena was unavailable for filiming this week. Brie comes up with the idea of reaching out to Eva by throwing her a a bridal shower. Bryan agrees and recommends a Transformers theme. If you can find a way to get Trinity dressed up as Soundwave, I’m all for that. D-Bry also mentions Dean Ambrose’s plan to throw him a bachelor party, which transitions into Brie showing her ignorance of what “motor-boating” is. I cannot believe that the sister of Nikki Bella would be unfamiliar with a piece of sexual jargon. Seriously, she’s so obsessed with sex that I would imagine walking around with Nikki would be the functional equivalent of hanging out with a personification of the Urban Dictionary.

Speaking of hanging out with the bustier Bella, in Sherman Oaks, California, Ari and Nikki are at house number two. Again, they meet with the real realtor as soon as they get to the house. Now we’re at $1.4 million. I hate all of these people. Yes, it is purely out of jealousy. Despite the fact that it’s still almost half a million dollars outside of her stated budget, Ariane loves the house and wants to bring Vinny in to look at it.

Nattie has brought Trinity home to meet her cats and to make her home life less awkward. Sure, dragging in third parties always smooths over marital problems. As soon as they’re through the door, Nattie is complaining about her husband, even though he is very much in the house. He pops up, and he is insta-nagged. Their dispute this time around relates to laundry, and Nattie’s version of poetic justice is taking some of his clothing and dumping it out on the front yard while Trinity screams “Nattie!” in a voice that makes her sound uncomfortably like Marge Simpson. Nattie storms off, leaving Trinity to talk with TJ. Before he can finish his side of things, she returns and tells him to hit the bricks. That poor, poor man.

Speaking of poor, poor men, Vinny is checking out Ariane’s dream house. He’s also wearing a tie that is about an inch too short, which is one of my pet peeves when it comes to men’s fashion. He’s in love with it until he hears the asking price, at which point he asks to have a private conference with Ariane, telling her that it’s not going to work.

Some time later, Vinny, Ariane, and Nikki meet up over lunch to discuss their potential home purchase. The asking price is $1.39 million, so Nikki tells them that they need to offer more than the asking price, namely $1.4 million. That’s not how negotiating works. Ariane and Vinny take a sidebar, and their strategy is to ask Nikki to waive her commission, which would bring their out of pocket down to $1 million. What about real realtor Ryan? Doesn’t he get paid? Nikki refuses to do the work for free (unsurprisingly) and says that maybe she should’ve found out what Vinny did for a living before showing off expensive homes. Ariane (rightfully) takes offense to this and informs the viewer that Vinny is doing very well for himself in the “armored transportation industry.” Huh, I knew the guy was built like a tank, but I didn’t realize he also made a living as one.

It’s time for Raw in Richmond, Virginia. Jonathan is backstage with the divas in a rare twist. He has a conversation with the Bellas and they agree she is not handling her father’s situation well before coming to an agreement that they will work on Eva’s bridal shower. If I ever have to work on planning my own fiancee’s bridal shower, shoot me.

Once that meeting wraps up, Nikki hunts down Ariane to smooth things over. She apologizes for showing Ari houses out of her range, and Ari acknowledges that she shouldn’t have asked for a waiver on the commission. In other words, the whole issue is resolved twenty seconds after it arose.

We’re in Tampa, and TJ and Nattie are still arguing about laundry days if not weeks after the incident with Trinity. TJ reveals that he’s packing his things and leaving because he’s sick of the fighting.

We’re all together now for Eva Marie’s bridal shower, which is actually a surprise party. Summer Rae of all people is there, which is not what I expected. Jonathan also pops in to give Eva an “upgraded” ring. In a confessional, Eva is sure to mention by name both the ring designer and the company that said designer works for, meaning that you can bet dollars to donuts that the E! Network paid for that jewelry. Everybody has a good time and Eva and Brie make up regarding the awkward conversation regarding her father. Eva Marie’s mom is also there for the shower, and Eva pulls her aside as well to ask that she does a better job of keeping her in the loop regarding her father’s health, even if she is on the road. After some ads, Eva decides to put a call into her father. They decide tat they love each other.

At another WWE event, Nattie and Nikki Bella are walking when Nattie sees her husband sitting in a hallway and talking to an indy worker. She storms up to him and asks what he’s doing there, since he hasn’t been traveling with the main roster for months. “I work here,” is the response that she gets. She starts screaming at the top of her lungs about how she doesn’t want to fight with him anymore. What? In a truly surreal moment that adds nothing to the scene, Nattie’s rambling is drowned out for a good thirty seconds by a wave of pyro, which means that either she went off on a tangent that the Bunim Murray editors wanted to take out of the show or the film crew did a horrible job of selecting when to shoot this scene and decided that it wasn’t worth re-shooting when the pyro inadvertently ruined it. Nothing of substance is really said and nothing is resolved, the scene and the episode just sort of . . . end.

The real star of that final scene, however, was Nikki Bella, who was standing in the background during the argument and making her trademark “I’m trying to act like I’m uncomfortable but I really look like I just pooped my pants” facial expressions.

Overall: There were two big things that stood out about this week’s episodes. The first was just how awful these producers are when it comes to laying out and pacing a storyline. The Eva/Jonathan/Vinny/Ariane road trip felt like they just quit in the middle of it. The Ariane/Nikki feud was started and blown off all within the same minute. The Bryan/Brie financial tension was built up and dropped without Brie having to actually do anything about it. Rosa’s falling out with Summer Rae was abandoned. The resolution of Rosa’s dating woes was a convoluted mess that left the character in the exact same situation that she was in when it started. There are dribs and drabs of decent storyline ideas running throughout the show, but they all feel like the idea was put into motion without a clear idea of where it’s going to end up as opposed to starting with a finish and working backwards, which is how these things are typically supposed to work.

The other thing that hit me over the head was just how unlikable of a character that they’ve made Nattie Neidhart into. In the early seasons, she wasn’t the character you wanted to be because she kept doing embarrassing things like pissing her pants or because she was generally acting like a geriatric woman trapped in a thirty year old body. More recently, though, she’s been booked as a completely unbalanced harpy. She’s flying off the handle and attacking Summer Rae for no reason. She’s relentlessly and consistently burying her poor husband even though he’s done very little wrong. She’s throwing people’s property on her yard. She’s creating huge scenes at work for no apparent reason. She is completely and utterly nuts, and yet she’s the person who is put in charge of babysitting the equally unstable Rosa Mendes . . . and it’s all particularly troubling because, as near as I can tell, the real Nattie Neidhart is actually a pleasant human being.

Oh, who am I kidding. Watching and complaining this show every week is the functional equivalent of pounding your head into a cinder block wall. Nothing’s going to change, and you’re just going to cause yourself a lot of pain and potentially kill some perfectly good brain cells. However, there is one thing to look forward to, kids . . . NEXT WEEK IS THE SEASON FINALE!!!!!!!!

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.