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| Bryan and Bella took the critical center stage on this episode Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Eva Marie is officially supposed to be seen as the most unlikable character on Total Divas. It's still not working, though. It takes a lot to be an interesting reality show player, likable or not. Surprisingly, there's an art to "seeming real" in an increasingly fake and muddy narrative. Most of the cast is actually quite adept at this. The Bellas especially are able to wring every last moment for a "what does this mean for me" reaction, even if the scuffle is extremely minor. But the Eva Marie of reality and "reality" is never able to get past a certain point. I guess we're to assume she's legitimate in her inability to sound compelling or hateful, since the episode was out to prove she cannot read lines for the life of her. Oddly enough, WWE's character for Eva seems to be that she's just not good at stuff. I'll rant more in the power rankings part:
1. Daniel Bryan
Daniel was obsessed with teaching Brie SUBMISSION WRESTLING on this show, as well as his "nuh-uh" at Brie's attempt to actually put a painful guillotine on her future fiance. It does feel like his narrative is lost in the sea just a bit, though. There's a lot to the idea of being a top guy (or as we see as a viewer, being the girlfriend of a guy suddenly given top guy duty and the work that entails). But Total Divas has only sort of brushed on that narrative so far. This is one of those times where even the incoherence of general episodes needs to be fixed a bit. It never feels like Total Divas is building its conflicts for a final payoff. Oh, anyway, Bryan is awesome.
2. Nikki Bella
3. John Cena
I liked her a lot in this episode, actually. Her arc with Cena is starting to become compelling in a sense, even if I'm not particularly believing Nikki being all upset about the cohabitation contract John Cena asked her to sign. (Although I didn't even know what a cohabitation contract was until friendly folks on Twitter told me, so that may have dulled the impact.) But as we're going to be subject to the Cena recovery narrative, Nikki is our surrogate. I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but I mean, vibrator humor and nurse outfits.
4. Brie Bella
Good enough. Not doing much, but good enough.
5. Trinity
6. Jon Uso
Trinity is back to being pretty amusing, alongside Jon Uso (who for brevity, we'll put at 5 and just join them together, as you saw above). The toe fungus thing was, well, it was a thing on TV. Same with fart humor. Actually, this felt a lot more like the WWE I'm familiar with in terms of scripting comedy and semi-inappropriate bloody toes and elbows. But wrestling, amiright?
7. Ariane
She made a joke. That's it.
8. Natalya
She existed but for real, did nothing.
9. Alicia Fox
When Total Divas gets a season 2, don't be surprised if Jojo is gone (well, don't pretend to be, anyway) and Alicia takes her place. She's like Chris Pratt in season 1 of Parks and Rec in random "oh, she's getting a lot of time on this show suddenly" appearances. But she'll sway me if she can name 100 fake band names off of the top of her head.
10. Eva Marie
Eva Marie's arc in this episode is another example on how failing on national television will allow you to be on television forever. Eva's job in the episode is to be a ring announcer, which she notes involves her "learning the entire roster and their locations and weights." Which, in hindsight, I guess is true. But in the case of her screeching announcement, she mistimed every possible cue. I have no doubt that there is a nervousness involved with speaking to a crowd of 15,000 people who will freak out if you screw up. But the arc of the episode is that Eva screwed up and somehow is even more haughty about it after screwing up. It's actually kind of impressive. I'm hoping we find out she's being controlled by the deity that controls the Sims.