411’s Total Divas Report 9.23.15

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.

THERE ARE ONLY TWO EPISODES OF TOTAL DIVAS LEFT!

In the cold open, Nikki Bella is taking Spanish lessons from a man named Juan Pena, not to be confused with Juan Cena. Her gimmick throughout the history of this show is that she barely comprehends English, so I’m not sure why she’s trying a second language. Staying true to her only other consistent character trait for this series, the only thing she’s really interested in learning is talking dirty.

Backstage at a house show, the cast is talking about retweeting things. I’m on Twitter, but, dammit, people constantly talking about Twitter annoys me like no other. The upshot of this scene is that the crew is headed to Mexico, for a totally real vacation that I’m sure they’d all be taking together if not for the fact that they are on a reality show together.

Monday Night Raw is in Chicago, where Nattie meets up with Cesaro. They talk about the fact that Cesaro and TJ Wilson are getting uncomfortably close to one another. Nattie has been subtly referring to this throughout the season, but they’re making it really over-the-top now, as Wilson’s image is on Cesaro’s cell phone lock screen, and Cesaro’s face is on TJ’s new tights. I don’t know why that would disturb Nattie. The last time that a WWE character put another WWE character’s face on his tights, there were no sexual overtones at all . . .

Trinity wrestles Brie Bella and uses a lot of offense centered around her ass, including her patented finisher, the “Naomi Calls It the Rear View.” Trinity claims you have to be sexy in order to be a heel, but husband Jon Uso gets upset with her antics backstage because he thinks that she’s putting too much out there on television. Didn’t we just get this angle with Bryan Danielson and Brie Bella two or three episodes ago?

In catering, Nattie sits down with Cesaro and Wilson. She’s upset because she feels like a third wheel. She asks for input from Byron Saxton, but his input is worthless because Byron Saxton is worthless.

The Bella Twins arrive in Mexico. Nikki says that, when you’re Nikki Bella, you “have to do it large.” That’s what her brassier salesman says, anyway. Seriously, though, she’s talking about the tricked out house that they’ve rented out for the vacation. It includes its own chef and its own bartender, who is named Martin. Martin must have the worst job in the free world, because he is paid to do nothing but spend time with drunk, yammering entitled women.

The sisters eventually turn away from their lavish rental house to serious conversation, namely that Brie has had a disagreement with her father that has caused him to – GASP – unfollow her on Instagram. Nikki can still see her father’s posts, which leads to the revelation that Papa Bella (who, if you have forgotten, looks like a full-sized version of Shorty Rossi from The Pit Boss) is expecting a new baby boy. Nikki and Brie are going to have a baby brother? This sets up all sorts of comic hijynx for a potential Season 5. Look out, Fuller House. You’ve got new competition.

Later in the day, Nattie is complaining about the Wilson/Cesaro relationship again, when Paige interrupts to announce her engagement from last week. Everybody is happy about the news except for Alicia Fox, who rightfully calls Paige out for accepting the proposal when it’s readily apparent that she does not want to get married. Of course, this is what I was saying all last week, yet everybody still tried to pretend that this was a legitimate engagement that they should all be happy for.

Elsewhere, Nattie decides that she is going to organize a sexy photo shoot for the women, in part to shift TJ’s attention away from the Swiss Superman and back to her. Trinity isn’t feeling it, because Jon Uso is being a prude about her ring gear. Nikki responds to this by saying, “Does he know what sells tickets?” Yes, because it no longer says “wrestling” on the marquee. It just says “BOOBS.”

Everybody jumps into the pool and roughhouses on the beach, including Nattie giving Paige a vertical suplex at high tide. Nattie tries to roll around in the sea and take seductive pictures for her husband, but she winds up entangled in kelp. These photos are something worth going out of your way to see, because they somehow manage to accomplish the near-impossible task of making Nattie Neidhart unattractive.

After everybody dries off, we’ve got a house meeting about what the girls are going to do tomorrow. Nikki wants to visit the Mayan ruins, while Brie wants to stay at the house and get drunk. Nicole speculates that Brie does not want to see the ruins because the Mexican side of their family is their father’s side of the family, so she associates Mayan culture with the man who has disappointed her so many times. That’s a stretch.

The next day, the Bellas have a conference call with Bryan Danielson. Brie tells him the story of her father reproducing yet again. Danielson says . . . some things . . . but it’s difficult to understand because they only subtitle about half of it. This scene goes nowhere and was a complete waste of thirty seconds.

The women hit the town for dinner, and Nikki is asking Paige 5,000 questions about her upcoming nuptials. They put a veil on her during a shopping expedition, but Paige is not having this at all. Eventually Nikki steals the veil, because she wants to spend a minute pretending that she will not die cold and alone. Eventually the crew winds up at an establishment called the “Shiva Bar.” I’m assuming that “shiva” has a different meaning in Spanish, but I’m going to just pretend that it means the same thing I’m used to “shiva” meaning, because it’s funny to picture a Jewish funeral ongoing in the middle of a Mexican resort bar.

Anyway, at the bar, there is much shaking of asses.

In the morning, the staff that the Bellas rented out along with the house has made a beautiful breakfast spread, which the twins eat while bitching at each other. If they didn’t call this show Total Divas, “Eat and Bitch” would have made for a great alternate title. They’re fighting about the Mayan ruins again, and, yet again, awkwardly trying to tie it into their relationship with their father. Other women start to filter in for breakfast, at which point Trinity starts to complain about Alicia Fox posting a twerking video of her from the prior evening on Instagram. Jesus, did Instagram pay for ad time on this show or something? They’re getting mentioned by name more frequently than half of the cast. The only thing that we’re missing is this . . .

After a cutaway, all of the women are now out on an historic tour of Mexico, including Brie. As they travel, they get word via social media that Dusty Rhodes has passed away. Sad piano music is piped in, and there is much crying. Paige in particular tells a story about Bill DeMott trying to change her look while she was in developmental but Dusty telling DeMott to go fuck himself. It’s good to hear that somebody got to tell DeMott that. Very quickly after a commercial break, everybody decides to have a good time because that’s what Dusty would have wanted them to do. The group does wind up going to the ruins, where Brie has the epiphany that we should cherish our relationships with others, because at any moment they could end. Every time somebody on this show attempts to be profound, this is the only thing that I can think of:

Back at the house, we’re on the topic of Cesaro again, and Paige is supremely annoyed with the fact that Nattie just won’t let the subject die. She asks if TJ is really “TGay.” That’s not me being cutesy for this column. That is a direct quote. She then runs down all of the positives of being married to a gay man, including shopping trips and being able to get action on the side. For some reason, this causes Nattie to call her husband and put him on speaker phone so that Paige can make fun of him to his face instead of behind his back. Paige asks TJ a series of questions about his relationship with Cesaro, and, at least to me, it’s clear that TJ is going along with the joke and implying that they’re a couple. However, the reactions of the cast and the editing are such that I think they’re trying to get us to believe that he’s not in on the joke.

Eventually, Nattie takes the hint from Paige and says that she’s going to back off the comments about her husband.

At dinner, Brie says that she’s got a bit surprise for the final night of the trip. She’s brought in some sort of Mayan dance troupe, which admittedly is pretty cool. Nikki is glad because it allows her to “feel the culture.” Yeah, I’m sure she’s really going to be feeling one of those dancer’s “culture” later on. Everybody jumps in the pool. (Well, the Mayans don’t.) Trinity shows up in a super-revealing bikini, because she’s out of nowhere decided that she’s not going to let her husband have total control over her body. Wouldn’t you normally resolve that storyline by having Trinity discuss the issue with Jon? Oh well, the Total Divas writing team was apparently on vacation too.

The next morning, everybody is at brunch and is once again trying to plan a wedding for Paige. Eventually the Brit feels too much pressure and pulls Fox aside, finally admitting that she does not want to get married and that she accepted fiancé Skaff’s proposal because she didn’t want to lose him. Yeah, because there aren’t 5,000 d-level pop punk band members for you to latch on to if you want.

Anyway, Paige’s big revelation gives us a “To be continued . . .” graphic. Dun Dun DUUHHHHHHHHH.

Overall: It’s late, and I’m tired, so I’m going to try to keep this brief. This episode was weird. They obviously wanted to do another vacation episode after doing them almost every other season, but it’s as though they were so focused on getting pretty establishing shots of Mexico and footage of the cast in bikinis that they had to come up with actual storylines at the last possible minute. Everything was pretty tortured and/or a rerun of something that we’ve already seen. The reaction to Dusty Rhodes’ passing, which could have been interesting and demonstrated some real emotion on this otherwise manufactured show, was glossed over to the point that it was barely worth mentioning, though at least they tried to dovetail it with the storyline about the Bellas’ father. I am so, so looking forward to this season wrapping up so that I can move on with my life.

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.