1/4 TOTAL DIVAS REVIEW (ep. 7): “Literally, the high point of the show is that Paige plays with Big E’s pecs. Then it’s all downhill.”

TOTAL DIVAS, EPISODE 7
JANUARY 4, 2017
AIRED ON E!
REPORT BY SARAH K., PWTORCH CONTRIBUTOR

Oh, hey, Christmas and New Year’s have transpired, so the week long reprieve from this show is over. Depending on which of the 900 cast members is your favorite, this may be a good or bad thing. Up until the internet – yesterday – I was optimistically dreading this episode, since all indications were: it’s all about Paige (I think I’ve covered that I’m too old to be a fan girl). And then the shit continued to roll down hill when it turned out that the other subplot of the show is that the Bella Twins will have yet another stupid twin argument over a dumb thing. Let’s face it: that’s every Bella Twins segment on this show – ever.

For those uninitiated, the Bella Twins are apparently some sort of “producers” to the Total Divas show, so, I imagine that’s where the idea that they are actually “interesting” and “watchable” originates. It would be impossible to tell that from the ratings, since this show is still mixed by someone who has the attention span of a gnat, and every two minutes we are in a different setting / plot with a different set of characters. That constant change of characters and scenery makes this show really annoying, and apparently I’m in a mood tonight.

So, the longest never-ending constantly changing 15 minute long segment of the show opens at an arena. Where is irrelevant. Literally, the high point of the show is that Paige plays with Big E’s pecs. Then it’s all downhill. Renee & Nattie talk about the draft; Renee doesn’t want to be separated from Dean, yes, duh. Johnny Ace walks thru backstage and can provide no answers for Renee, Nattie, or Eva, who inquire about said Draft.

The Bellas are at a hotel, stretching, as if this is interesting. It’s not, it just to set up that they’re going to Napa to have a stupid twin argument about slapping their name on wine that someone else makes – not unlike how their underwear endeavor is just them slapping their name on underwear that someone else has designed… as if their name has value to anyone other than teenage girls with poor choices in role models or horny men. I wonder: teenagers can’t buy this wine, so, either hipsters buy it as a joke or it ends up on a clearance rack? Alternate thought: Did no one see that episode of Duck Dynasty where they made their own wine and it was terrible? I realize there’s little demographic crossover between Duck Dynasty and teenage girls with poor choices for role models, but I digress…

The never-ending opening segment continues with Mark Carrano talking to Nattie backstage. It’s a teaser for her impending heel turn. We switch abruptly to Nikki and her boyfriend John “f—ing mumbles everything on Total Divas” Cena on a date somewhere. John mumbles a compliment about her dress, she mishears it because he mumbles, it has to be explained. Ruining a compliment is a lot like ruining a joke. Way to go, mumbles.

We cut to somewhere backstage, yes, this is still the first never-ending always changing characters segment of this god awful show. This is before the draft, and therefore before Alberto Del Rio left; he makes an appearance. Paige and Nattie talk backstage about her heel turn. But this is Total Divas, so, the phrases “bad guy,” “bad girl,” and “going bad” are used instead of “heel turn.” It makes me feel like I’m a child. Anyway, Nattie turns heel in a match where she teams with Becky Lynch against Charlotte and Dana. Nattie turns on Becky after they lose the match. The crowd cheers; this is an issue since “bad guys” are supposed to get booed.

The never-ending opening segment takes us back to the impending stupid twin argument in Napa. Nikki introduces the concept of them slapping their name on wine that someone else makes. Brie isn’t into it. It’s 9:12 p.m.; we’re now backstage where Renee is surprised that people are saying mean things to Nattie on Twitter regarding the heel turn. Yes, we’re still in the god damned never-ending opening segment and 15th change of scenery. Anyway, Paige has a match against Charlotte and Sasha Banks where she gets injured. After the match she and ADR are shown on camera wandering into the trainer’s room. Remember this for later in the show when she’s screaming at Eva like a blithering idiot.

Finally: commercial. Amusing note, that commercial for the order-bras-over-the-internet company keeps getting cut off about 20 seconds in. This amuses me because ordering bras over the internet is pretty stupid, unless you like wearing bras that don’t fit, which will literally be 50 percent of the bras you ever try on when you shop for bras.

Nattie beats up Becky while Renee is interviewing her backstage. Nattie commiserates with Cesaro (who is only shown from behind), and then commiserates with Renee about not getting a crowd reaction for the segment. I would rather watch an entire show of the back of Cesaro’s head while he mutters things to Nattie than see the Bella twins, but I digress. Paige and Eva are together in San Antonio, Tex. This is the segment where Paige has an albino snake on her shoulders like Britney Spears. Eva is afraid of snakes. Backstage at Raw, Nattie thinks that a black wig will make her a heel that the fans boo. I guess this is why they have writers? She looks okay in the wig, but in typical lady fashion says it looks like shit. Dolph tries on the wig. I’d rather that every third segment of this show was Dolph Ziggler trying on wigs, but I digress. If only someone could properly book Nattie as a heel…

Back to the stupid Bella Twins argument. They’re in a car, not driving. They can’t spell handkerchief. Seriously, teenage girls, what the f— do you see in these two? I know straight men can just press the mute button and proceed directly to masturbation. Are young girls really afflicted with such low self-esteem that this is the best we can do? These two hold no appeal for me. Anyway, this is the segment from the internet that ruined the hope that this show wouldn’t be one-third devoted to Bella Twin stupid twin argument bullshit, where Brie and Nikki eat food outside and talk about slapping their name onto wine that someone else produces. The actual thing that I noticed about this segment – both on tv and the internet is that Brie appears to have crap on her hand. Yes, it literally looks like feces. I realize it’s a douchy hipster henna drawing, but it seriously just looks like she has crap on her hand while she’s eating. It’s gross and distracting.

Back from commercial, Eva and Paige are still together. Paige is practically a stepmom to ADR’s children. As a grown-up I cringe to watch this, as I recall that when I read that Paige and ADR were dating I looked up ADR’s Wikipedia page where it indicated he was married. I’m old, but screwing around on your wife isn’t a real winning quality to many of us. So, I watch these segments and wonder how that divorce / separation went down… Anyway, because Paige is such a mature young thing, she’s tattooed “Alberto” in cursive writing under her left boob. Oh, so classy.

Meanwhile the subplot of the stupid twin argument persists. The Bellas meet with Tim & Ryan to talk about slapping their name onto wine that someone else produces. Nikki’s all in, Brie doesn’t wanna do it. Back to Eva and Paige in a car. Paige’s neck hurts, Eva buys her a neckbrace. I think this is where we were fully introduced to Paige being an irresponsible nit-wit who thinks that working and being on TV is more important than her long term health. Abruptly backstage, Nattie talks to Carrano about taking Eva Marie under her wing in order to absorb some of Eva’s nuclear heat since whatever the writers are doing isn’t getting her over as a heel. I betcha that while this was actually transpiring that I could go back and scroll through my own Twitter timeline to see how many times I wrote “Awful endless 15 minute long Stephanie promo to open #RAW” and “17 minute long opening segments w/ Stephanie don’t get wrestler over.” But I digress. If Stephanie was every 3rd segment on this show, I would actually just stop watching it.

We return from commercial to the stupid Bella Twin argument about slapping their name on wine that someone else produces. They’re going out into the field to see the day-to-day operations of running a winery. As per the usual, Nikki is a dispshit who wears “work boots” that are actually just tennis shoes with heels… because Nikki is always the dipshit who wears expensive shoes incongruent with whatever activity is taking place. Seriously, teenage girls, what the f—? Yes, horny men, I get it, you like the bimbos. My head hurts.

On an episode of Raw, Nattie attacks Becky while she makes her ring entrance. The crowd boos. Success! There, Nattie can stop scheming about black for bad guys and “other people have heat – why can’t I,” she did it, she’s a heel!

Here’s what my notes say: “At a pool. Stupid twin argument.” That pretty much sums it up.

Brie calls Bryan after the fight. Bryan is pragmatic. He explains that Brie needs to apologize and then tells her what to say. I see why Nikki scored higher on that IQ test last episode. Meanwhile, backstage somewhere Mark Carrano confronts Paige about her neck injury. Let’s pause for a moment, shall we? Because the neck injury happened during a match, after which she visited the trainer, and then those segments with Eva Marie in the car were filmed by a camera crew. At some point, with some basic logic, does it not seem somewhat obvious that without intervention from anyone – members of management might know what’s going on with the talent, er, Superstars? Okay, now forget that.

After the chat with Carrion, Paige immediately screams at Eva Marie as Natalya sits next to her. Eva looks confused. It turns out that she said nothing to Carrano about Paige’s injury, Nattie did. Because, as Nattie explains, all the women in the locker room knew about the injury and Paige hadn’t been hiding it well or at all by the way she acted. Nattie had asked Carrano if Paige was taking time off, or if she was supposed to promote feuding with Paige for house shows. Yes, that’s how that cat was unbagged. So, instead of apologizing to Eva, Paige just freaks out at Nattie and stalks off. Oh no, she has to take time off and go to a doctor to have her situation evaluated instead of further aggravating her injury or by proxy potentially injuring someone else in the ring. Yeah, no shit.

The show ends with Brie delivering Bryan’s version of the apology to Nikki. Stupid twin argument over.

Next week Bryan will get a call about being a GM and Paige will go get an MRI.

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S REPORT: 12/21 TOTAL DIVAS REVIEW (ep. 6): The Episode Where Brie and Nikki each take an IQ test and reveal the results, plus Rusev loves Country Music