Who would have thought Total Divas would have lasted even a full season, much less kicked off its fifth season last night? I guess there really is no accounting for taste. Which is a good summary of most of the people on this show, with everyone seemingly in a rocky relationship.
Nikki Bella, for example, isn’t as upset by Dolph Ziggler’s inappropriate behaviour as she is by her boyfriend, John Cena’s lackadaisical reaction to same. Brie Bella keeps pushing Daniel Bryan to look into post-wrestling careers that he doesn’t want to even consider. And Paige is engaged to someone she doesn’t want to marry. The only relatively sane couple is Nattie and Tyson Kidd – and that’s likely only because he’s too injured to run away! Check out the full recap below.
The show starts off where last season’s finale ended, with John Cena in the ring and Dolph Ziggler out in the parking lot trying to bird-dog Nikki. Good thing Cena can’t see him. Ziggler goes in for the kiss, but Nikki runs away. Dolph tries to explain what happened, but Nikki (and Brie, who she’s told by this time) won’t have any of it. The Bellas tell Paige what happened, which just seems like a recipe for disaster or to set up this week’s plot twist.
A couple of days later, Nattie’s driving around with the Bellas and they’re talking about how good the Divas Revolution is going. Guess they haven’t been watching. Nattie struggles with not being at home to be with TJ who’s still on the shelf and she’s not sure if he’ll ever come back. Brie tells Nattie about her experiences with the injured Daniel Bryan. She doesn’t really want Bryan to come back so they can have a family. In an inadvertently funny scene, they pull up to the parking lot and Brie claims to be “talent”. The parking lot attendant says “no way”. Which I suppose is better than laughing out loud at her claim.
Backstage, Paige tells Nikki that she hasn’t yet told her fiance Kevin that she doesn’t feel ready for marriage. Meanwhile, Nikki is worried that she’s going to have to deal with more Dolph drama on the upcoming Japan tour.
Nattie’s parents come to visit TJ, and Nattie fills them in on TJ’s bad neck. They kill a bottle of vodka as Nattie kills the pronunciation of Christopher “Superman” Reeve’s name.
In Japan, Nikki and Paige compare situations. Paige is engaged to a guy she doesn’t want to marry, while Nikki’s in a relationship with someone who doesn’t want to get married, while there’s another guy who wants to marry her but she doesn’t want. First world problems. They should both come to their senses already and call me.
Paige calls Kevin from Japan, and he tells her that his parents are going to be coming to visit them after she gets back from the tour. Paige realizes that this will make breaking up with him pretty awkward.
At lunch, Brie and Daniel talk over the whole Cena-Nikki-Ziggler relationship. Bryan tells Brie that he’s not enjoying being a judge on Tough Enough and that he wants to get back in the ring and in the spotlight. Beats watching this show, that’s for sure.
Paige visits a Japanese cat cafe, and she Facetimes Alicia Fox. She tells Alicia about Kevin’s parent’s upcoming visit, and Foxy tells her she’s going to have to let Kevin know that she doesn’t want to get married.
Bryan and Brie go to visit a potential partner for a business idea she has, something involving organic foods. Bryan gets upset when they start making plans for him, since they assume that he’s going to not be able to wrestle, so will have time to devote to this enterprise.
Backstage, Paige spies on Nikki and Dolph who are arguing about who’s going to tell Cena about the attempted kiss. Nikki doesn’t want to, because she thinks it will upset Cena, who has to tag with Ziggler on the tour. On the other hand, she thinks if Cena finds it out from Ziggler, Cena will think that she’s trying to hide something.
Brie tells Bryan she’s happy he’s going to be part of the business. Him, not so much, especially because it only reinforces the fact that she’s going to be on the road and he won’t. Brie thinks he’s depressed and this will give him the chance to perk up.
Paige and Nikki go to a fish spa, where they stick their feet in water with live fish in it. Not piranhas, unfortunately. Ziggler shows up, to Nikki’s surprise. It turns out that Paige invited him, so that they can hash out the awkwardness between them. They exchange snide comments, with Ziggler really acting like a douche to her about John. Meanwhile, on another channel, the movie Predator is on, and I can’t help to think about how much of a man Jesse “The Body” Ventura’s character was and how he’d snap Ziggler’s neck for acting like such a priss over a girl. Then he’d spit chewing tobacco on his corpse and say a clever 80s action movie line like “this match is over… ring the bell-a”.
At home, Brie keeps harping on Bryan about her food business and the 13-year old in me laughs when they argue about who will take the majority of the load. Bryan keeps whining about not being in the ring, and Brie finally clues in and says that if that’s his dream, she’ll support him.
Back home, Kevin picks up Paige at the airport. In the car, he says they need to start wedding planning (apparently, Ziggler doesn’t have the monopoly on being a whiny wuss). He notices that Paige isn’t wearing her engagement ring, and she comes up with a lame excuse, rather than come clean already.
Still in Japan, Nikki is watching the match where Ziggler and Cena team up, and she’s upset, so resolves to tell Cena about Ziggler later that night.
Paige gets a call from her mom who blows up at her for not telling her that she got engaged – apparently, her mom found out about it by watching the show. Kevin starts pressing Paige about the wedding plans, and Paige angrily blurts out that she doesn’t event want to be engaged. He’s understandably stunned by this turn of events. He confronts her about it, and she explains that she only agreed to the proposal, even though she didn’t want it, to make sure she didn’t lose him. He forgives her, and they have some stuff to work through.
Over dinner, Nikki tells Cena about Ziggler’s declaration of love and his attempted kiss. Cena doesn’t seem to upset about it, saying that if that’s something she wants to pursue, he can’t stop her. This ticks off Nikki since she thinks he should be jealous, but he’s John Cena so is going to rise above hate.
Bob Kapur feels like drinking while watching this show. E-mail him at bobkapur@hotmail.com for a copy of his Total Divas Drinking Game.