It’s been a few weeks since the season finale of “The Walking Dead”, and since then, many fans have missed watching a bunch of brain-dead creatures – devoid of intelligence and personality – shuffling aimlessly through the world. Fortunately for them, that Sunday night void is filled again, with the return of “Total Bellas” last night. Check out the recap for all the details!
Some updates since the last episodie: Nikki and Brie are both living in San Diego now, as Brie and Bryan moved there shortly after the birth of their daughter Birdie; Bryan is set to return to WWE; John Cena is busier than ever with wrestling and a bunch of other Hollywood projects; and Nikki is planning her and Cena’s wedding.
The happy couple are walking on Crystal Pier, where some time ago they ‘d gone for a walk and Nikki though Cena was going to propose. Of course he didn’t do so at the time, waiting instead for WrestleMania. But to celebrate the moment, he drops to one knee while on the pier and symbolically proposes to her once again. They’re planning the wedding in West Newbury, because Nikki doesn’t think Cena’s family will attend if they hold it anywhere else. They practice their ballroom dancing, but she’s terrible, which is probably why she got eliminated so early on Dancing with Stars.
Bryan and Brie rented a house in San Diego because Brie wants a place near her BirdieBee office, as she tries to juggle that career with motherhood, and she’s also planning comeback to WWE so she can attend the RAW 25th Anniversary show. They talk about visiting John and Nikki’s place, but note that their dog is not welcome there because Cena hates animals.
His view of kids has changed, apparently, since JJ (Brie and Nikki’s brother) and Lauren’s baby is welcome in the house. In fact, the whole family is there – Kathy (Mamma Bella) and Johnny Ace are there as well – to celebrate Nikki and John buying a place there (a second house, as they’ve also kept their place in Tampa). The UPS guy drops off a package, and it’s Cena’s new rug, which he’s crazy excited over. Cena is acting kind of goofy, which NIkki finds charming, but it’s actually pretty annoying – he’s got this frantic energy like he’s on meth or something (note – I actually don’t know what people on meth are like – but he’s acting like David Silver did on that episode of 90210, which was super-irritating. Cena’s also letting people walk on the run in their shoes, which is a switch from his rigid rules that he imposed on everyone in the past. Having Birdie in the house triggers Nikki’s baby fever, and she talks about putting in a nursery, which appears to ruin Cena’s good vibe, judging from the death stare she gets.
The twins do a photo shoot for BirdieBee, but Brie is worried about showing her post-pregnancy stomach in the lingerie. She looks fine. Meanwhile, Bryan takes Brie to the amusement park for her first carousel ride. That night, Brie returns home, and is disappointed that she wasn’t part of Birdie’s outing. Daniel defends not waiting, saying that if he waited for Brie to be around to do fun things with Birdie, he’d never get the chance. Over dinner, she brings out her lingerie from the photo shoot (ewww… on the dinner table).
The next day, the twins are in Napa at the winery where their Belleradici wine is being bottled. Brie has to get to the FedEx outlet to ship out breast milk to Bryan. Nikki thinks that Brie is going to have difficulty balancing all their business interests and being a mother. On the way to lunch with their winery partners, they argue over which one is stupider (they both win), and Nikki challenges Brie to use the word “anomaly” during the meeting. As in, any member of the Bella Family that can correctly use that word is an anomaly. During lunch, Nikki mentions they’re planning for the ceremony in West Newbury, and Brie is upset, saying that Nikki is always sacrificing her dreams for Cena – in this case, her dream to get married in Napa. Oh, and of course, Brie screws up the vocabulary test, showing herself to be an idiot in front of the winery executives.
Back in San Diego, Bryan takes Birdie swimming for the first time. Kathy, Johnny, JJ, and Lauren are there, and they film the lesson so Brie can watch it later.
The winery guys take the twins for a tour on the estates, which would be the perfect venue for Nikki’s dream wedding. But Nikki won’t hear of it, as she’s committed to do whatever it takes to ensure Cena has no reason to back out of the wedding – if he wants West Newbury, then West Newbury it will be. Nikki tells Brie as much, but Brie is upset on her behalf.
Later, they go for dinner and after we learn too much about Brie’s sex life and woman cycles, Brie presses the point about the wedding location even further. She tells Nikki that she shouldn’t have to walk on eggshells around John all the time, and that she shouldn’t have to give up all her dreams just for Cena. Nikki threatens to boot Brie from the wedding party if she’s going to keep nagging her on this point. They then try to show up one another by using big words again, and surprisingly they actually do pretty good for a couple of dullards.
On the way home, Nikki confides in Brie that she’s still pining to have a kid of her own, but Cena has completely shut down the thought. Brie thinks Nikki should leave Cena and find a man who would respect her dreams of motherhood.
The next day, Brie returns home, and learns about Birdie’s swimming lesson. Again, she’s upset at missing out, but Bryan once again defends his actions. She says he should have been more considerate and done something else that wasn’t such a milestone event.
The next night, everyone’s at Nikki and John’s place for their fancy-schmancy dress-up formal dinner. The stressed-out, child-hating Cena returns, as he grimaces watching Brie and Bryan change Birdie on the fancy new rug. Things get even worse when Bryan accidentally spills a glass of water all over Cena’s lap. This prompts Cena to talk about The Rules. He tells them that in his last house, he imposed all the rules on them because he wasn’t sure who they were back then. But now that he’s come to know them and accepted them all like family, he’s dropped a lot of the rules. But he does want to continue with the formal dinners, the reason being because he never did that with his own family. He says that as long as they’re respectful and happy being together, that’s the only rule that matters.
Bryan talks about coming back, and Cena encourages him. Brie says she’s looking at coming back, but is trying to figure out how to fit it into her mommy schedule. Someone makes a crack about Nikki not having that same issue. In a talking head segment, Nikki reveals that she’s alone a lot of the time, and would like to have a baby to fill the hours. As everyone toasts the mothers around the table, Nikki is clearly sad, and Brie is sad for her.
Bob Kapur could use a bunch of wine to get through this show. E-mail him a case at bobkapur@hotmail.com.