When I mentioned to Rich that I would be traveling on Sunday and would have to watch “Total Divas” a day late, he suggested I could take the week off if it made more sense.
“Rich,” I responded, “It’s JOHN CENA BEER PONG WEEK.”
It was also Eva Marie Marriage Drama Week. Oh, wait — that’s every week. This week’s problem? Eva is having a problem with one of her silicone breast implants, which she tearfully confesses to her uberhusband, Jonathan.
Jonathan interrupts Eva Marie crying to get her to move her head off a white pillowcase because her hair is wet and her red dye will leave a stain. Having had fluorescent dye in my hair, I get it — but really? Not the moment, guy. You can buy another pillowcase. (Later, when Eva Marie tosses her laundry from the second floor down to the living room, he scolds her: “This is not a treehouse. Adults live here.”)
Eva’s implant is leaking, as it turns out, and she needs surgery. Then she decides she doesn’t want her career to be derailed, so she cancels the surgery. In this instance, Jonathan’s reaction is appropriate for the circumstances: He’s pissed. So he goes behind Eva’s back and calls Mark Carrano, Talent Relations Necktie Guy, to tattle. Carrano calls Eva, who goes home and confronts Jonathan about it. There is a predictable fight, in which Eva takes the reasonable position that Jonathan should not have talked to her boss without telling her and he takes the similarly reasonable position that getting punched for a living while she’s leaking poison into her bloodstream is not a “business decision.”
“You’re not even listening to me,” she shouts.
“Yeah, because what you’re saying is stupid and ridiculous,” Jonathan says.
Eva goes out with Nikki and Brie, who say the same thing in somewhat nicer terms.
“Oh my gosh. You should not be wrestling,” Brie says.
“That’s, like, poison leaking in your body,” Nikki says. “That can kill you.” Science, yo.
They also point out that they were gone way longer. And look at them now.
So Eva goes in for the surgery. (Not to worry, shallow creepers of the world: She had her silicone replaced with saline.) And then she finally admits that Jonathan was right, and they kiss and make up.
Meanwhile, some friendly teasing between Nikki Bella and John Cena at the gym leads to an idea: a decathlon of sorts to determine once and for all which of them is the best athlete. John Cena offers to get Nikki “a hive of friendly bees” as a prize. Nikki is pumped to finally get the recognition she deserves, but her coworkers aren’t so sure.
“Do you really wanna compete against Superman?” Nattie asks.
On the day of the competition, the following events occur:
- John shows up in a spandex unitard and a helmet to race go-karts. He wins.
- John Cena dresses up in full golf gear, including spikes, to play putt-putt. He wins.
- John Cena wears a baseball jersey and a wig to go to the batting cages. He wins.
- John Cena does the electric slide and dances inappropriately with his equipment while playing skee ball. He wins.
- John Cena dresses up like an Ivy League frat brother to play beer pong and is miserably unbearably annoying to Nikki. But also hilarious. In fact, whether or not you like John Cena, you should YouTube it. You won’t be sorry.
Also, he wins. Just barely. And is such a douche about it that Nikki (who had just one cup left herself) pours the last beer over his head and storms out.
“That’s not very sportsmanlike,” John’s buddy says.
John comes upstairs to debrief with Nikki, who ultimately admits that perhaps she got a little too serious about a competition that involved driving go-karts and putting golf balls through a windmill.
Finally, continuing this season’s theme of Divas making Natalya uncomfortable:
Nattie flips out backstage because Paige weirds her out in the ring, and then she complains to Cameron/Ariane and Eva Marie about how Paige is lowering herself by using sexual gimmicks in the ring. Apparently when you are as talented as Paige you are not also supposed to have a character — at least, not if the character makes Nattie uncomfortable. (Goldust, anyone? Between this and the drama with Rosa Mendes during the first part of the season, Nattie’s starting to seem like she has kind of a complex.)
Before their next match, Nattie asks Paige to keep it clean so Steph will feel like the McMahon-Helmsley girls can safely watch. Paige totally agrees, except that she goes out in the ring and licks Nattie’s face. Naturally, there is a blowup backstage, during which Paige points out that Nattie responds to her in-ring creepiness by going full Hart. Faced with the reality that she wrestles better after Paige gets under her skin, Nattie agrees to explore a “happy medium”:
“A gentle humping — OK, maybe we can work something out.”