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Monday, September 16, 2013

Total Divas 1x8 - "No Longer The Bridesmaid" + After Party

"I'm a professional. I'm a very classy person. I'm Stu Hart's granddaughter. I'm tough as nails and I'm unbreakable." - Nattie Neidhart-Wilson

Oh, for Christ's sake. Nattie is Stuart Smalley. "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me!" I mean, I just... I can't stand this wom -- Whatever. Start over. 

Welcome everyone to what is now the mid-season finale of Total Divas. It's the wedding of Nattie and TJ, and we're all invited! Who wasn't invited? Weirdly, Bret "Hitman" Hart, Nattie's uncle. Where was he? And where is Triple H, the COO of WWE, and Randy Orton? They didn't get invitations. That's bad for business. Someone should be fired. But we'll get to all that. 

First, we meet the Neidharts, Nattie's sister Muffy, her weirdly slurring mother Ellie (the Hart women have always been really bizarre and off putting and Ellie lives up to the family credo), and of course, Jim "The Anvil" (Who?). Nattie already picked out her dream wedding dress but that didn't stop her mom from sewing a hideous concoction that Nattie didn't have the hart to tell her mother she didn't want to wear, but she did and then she didn't. It seems like multiple factors are contriving against Nattie having the wedding of her dreams. There's the fact that her "best friend" Nikki Bella (since when?) opted not to attend the wedding. There's the fact that Nattie invited Jaret (likely with E!'s grinning approval) to this special day. There's the fact that Ariane brought Vincent, who apparently she had broken up with last week, to the wedding, announcing that they are back together, babe. And there's also God, who decided to send "a hurricane" to spoil Nattie's perfect beach dream wedding. As I suspected, God's not a Nattie fan. Also, a Nattie wedding is apparently black tie-optional. Thanks for dressing up for the occasion, Daniel Bryan, Jon Uso, and Jaret! I'm surprised Daniel didn't wear a Respect the Beard shirt. I wish he had. (Yes! Yes! Yes!)

Jaret's arrival made for some primo staged uncomfortable moments, sauntering in at a table full of Total Divas regulars and then blabbing on and on about his romantic dinners with Nattie in Calgary, their emails and texts, and even the sexy spray tan he gave her. TJ turns pink and black and asks Jaret to step outside, but it doesn't resort to fisticuffs. TJ's real issue is with Nattie, and he comes close to calling off the wedding before he's appeased by Nattie's declarations that he's the only man for her and blah blah blah. TJ at least came off as reasonable and manly this week, and the wedding ultimately came off without a hitch (or Hitch - Will Smith wasn't invited either). The most delightful surprise of this wedding was the eloquent presence of one Damien Sandow, who was the wedding announcer and did a tremendous job making all the introductions and announcements. Sandow in this role is money in the bank. It should be noted that when Nattie threw the bouquet, it was caught by Brie, the Bella Who Showed Up and Offered Nattie Sound, Reasonable Friendly Advice When Nikki Bailed. Cut to the look on Daniel Bryan's face. 


Classic. Nikki did call into the wedding to apologize again for missing it, and Nattie accepted her best friend's apology because she's a good person (just ask her), and that was that. So, all's well that ends well for Mr. and Mrs. Theodore James Wilson. I hate them.

The Evapowers Explode! (Just calling them that would piss off Jojo.) Ever since Eva Marie posed for Maxim, Jojo has been very distant to her. We know this because the Eva Marie avatar is programmed to state her feelings, and she feels Jojo hasn't been the same as the Jojo that used to be in her corner. This is affirmative. At the opening of the WWE Performance Center over the summer, Jane from Talent Relations announced that there were "spots" as valets open for the Newbies to be brought up. "Spots" turned out to be "a spot" as Mark from Talent Relations later informed the Total Divas, choosing Eva Marie to be the robot servant to Nattie when she faces Trinity in a very important match on Superstars. (A debut Eva Marie treated as if she were main eventing WrestleMania - her actual RAW debut in that interview Jerry Lawler conducted when Eva cut a promo and Brie Bella nip slipped wasn't mentioned. Nattie also treated her win over Trinity as if she ended the Undertaker's WrestleMania streak or something.)

Jojo was angered and disappointed that she was passed over for the red headed fembot and was soon busily texting on her cell phone while Eva Marie was trying to communicate with her in an attempt at human relations. No doubt, Jojo was trying to inform the authorities that a Nexus 6 replicant (most likely a pleasure model) designated Eva Marie had escaped from the off-world colonies, and to please send a Blade Runner. Later, in Tampa, Eva Marie again attempted to interface with a surly, belligerent Jojo, to no avail. Jojo exploded in a display of human emotion that Eva Marie cannot process, declaring "this has always been a competition!" even though it isn't really, unless you make it one, which Jojo does. Proving man and machine cannot co-exist in the same apartment, Eva Marie and Jojo agreed to live apart and end whatever sort of team they were thrown together into being a part of by the E! Network. And in defense of Eva Marie, she is correct that at nineteen years old, Jojo is too young, too immature, and in no way ready for a spot on the main roster. We don't even know if Jojo can wrestle at all. Whereas we have confirmation Eva Marie cannot. But Eva Marie looks like something John Laurinaitis would certainly have masturbated to if he still ran Talent Relations, and her breasts probably also become machine guns. Jojo can wait, but she is young, and impatient. Conclusion: the hell with both of them + we are stuck for the foreseeable future with both of them.

Trinity had little drama to contribute this week, but she did contribute a selfless act of heroism towards her tag team partner Ariane, who called dramatically complaining of stomach pains and it was serious enough for Trinity to call 911. (Trinity even breaks the fourth wall and asks for the cameras to be turned off.) Ariane quickly lost an ambulance match to the paramedics, and it's good that she did because after a night at the hospital, Ariane was diagnosed with endometriosis, which Ariane revealed during the After Party could seriously affect if she can ever have children. (Vincent and his father won't like that news.) Speaking of Vincent, it was his caring behavior following Ariane's hospitalization that convinced her she couldn't live without him and to take the babies and marriage thing one step at a time. But no babies, probably. Sad. 

Finally, we come to the romance of Nikki Bella and that amazing man, John Cena. Cena approached Nikki with a problem: his family, the Cenas, are having a rare reunion. John, because of his schedule, misses most major family events, but the family arranged to accommodate John's schedule. He would like Nikki to attend to meet the Cenas. Problem: the Cenas Reunion is in direct conflict with Nattie's wedding. So, does Nikki attend the wedding of her "best friend" or does she go meet the family of the man she loves. It's a no brainer. Soon Nikki and John board his private bus and his private plane and fly to the CeNation: West Newbury, Massachusetts! Wooo! West Newbury! (I hang out there in the summers. Friends' family own a beach house.) The mean streets of West Newbury that made John Cena hard and taught him to drop rhymes like a gangsta welcome Nikki with open arms and soon the Cena clan are off to... Kowloon?!? They went to Kowloon? Of course they did. (For those not from the Boston area, Kowloon is a famous Chinese restaurant known to cater to WWE after events, and also for having terrible, terrible Chinese and Asian food.) Luckily for Mr. Cena, Edge did not drop by West Newbury at any point to punch him in the face in his own house. Maybe in season 2?  It's a wonderful reunion and almost certain indigestion from hideous pu pu platters side, Nikki loves the Cenas and they love her.

Later, at Industriel, which is a restaurant a quick Google search indicates is in LA, John and Nikki have a romantic dinner with E!'s cameras where John asks her the question she's been wanting to hear: Will you, Stephanie Nicole Garcia-Colace, move into the CeMansion with him? I know what my answer would be. He'd have me at hello. John can no longer handle the San Diego-Tampa long distance relationship. Nikki can only say yes. It's not quite the question Nikki wanted to hear, but it's close enough. Nikki Bella is now, officially, the mistress of the CeMansion. Dreams do come true!

This concludes what is now the first half of the first season of Total Divas and brings us to the AFTER PARTY shot last week and hosted by WWE's Renee Young in front of a live, well-behaved studio audience. What did we learn? That there will be some relationship issues to come between Brie and Daniel Bryan. Jon Uso does a pretty decent impression of Nikki on crutches. Special guest John Cena, who arrived to his entrance music, spoke eloquently in support of the Total Divas as brave pioneers in this new sports entertainment reality TV venture. That Eva Marie is done being a mother to Jojo, who at 19, can't rent a car and is a hassle to travel with. That Ariane might not be able to have children due to her medical condition and she has severe anger management issues we will see in future episodes. And then they bring out the special surprise guest Jaret, a total a-hole heel who tells TJ to his face Nattie still is in contact with him and that even though they're married, he doesn't think TJ is the one. (This burn eclipses TJ's "Jaret can't wrestle" insult when he came out.) But hey, what a prize that Nattie is. I personally dispute Trinity's declaration "Who wouldn't wanna bang Nattie?" Nikki touched her boobs a lot, declaring when the doctors put in "the fakeness, they have a mind of their own". There was no mention of AJ Lee, the reigning, defending WWE Divas Champion and savior of the division who is better than all seven of the Total Divas combined. And when asked a direct question if he'll ever propose to Nikki, John Cena quickly stated, "No." But we still love him.

Total Divas returns November 17th. It'll be a great two months without them.

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