6/10 TOTAL BELLAS REVIEW: Brie differentiates her body from a “mom body,” Cena’s white and grey decor matches his personality, Mom tries to read a script

TOTAL BELLAS (episode one)
JUNE 10, 2018
AIRED ON E! NETWORK

Tonight is the lead up to the first 30-Woman Royal Rumble match, thus Brie and Nikki will train. Oh, and how will Nikki avoid John Cena? They show WWE Raw footage of all the women standing in the ring with Steph announcing the match as she wears four inch heels and towers over all of them. The Bellas talk about how bad-ass the match is going to be. For whatever reason, footage of a crane is shown (yes, a bird).

Brie and Nikki are in Tampa to train for the Royal Rumble one week before the Royal Rumble. Despite the 48 hour vacate notice in the cohabitation agreement, apparently Nikki is still welcome in John Cena’s big fancy house… except she forgot her keys – in front of the camera crew, which also apparently has no keys. John Cena’s lone man-friend Rob comes over to let her in. This is the clip from YouTube where John left Nikki flowers and a note. She doesn’t read the note for us. I can only assume it contained something questionable. It was written by John “I expect a thank you note when you finally have kids following our break-up” Cena. Meanwhile at the Mom and Johnny Ace’s house in Tampa, Brie and Bryan show up for a visit. Evidently the twins were invited to guest host a weather segment at a local TV affiliate. Before the Mom got pregnant, she had dreams of being a news anchor. So, maybe mom will do the weather spot? Maybe.

Moving along, the twins are going to train. Footage of them training in the ring is shown, so, you know, do your thing, heterosexual dudes. Brie thinks their chemistry is off. I’m trying desperately to care, I really am. We’re in the thick of a home repair, I haven’t eaten anything since that BLT at noon… So, what I’m really noticing about this show is that the commercials are definitely for a different demographic than standard WWE programming. And just as they typed that, a feminine hygiene product commercial aired. Ha ha, Chili’s spot that made me hungry.

Back from commercial, more training. Brie apparently thinks that the crowd is really going to care about whether or not she has abs. Seriously, she thinks the fans won’t recognize her. Yeah. I know, right? Evidently I have vastly over estimated the general populace’s ability to recognize faces. Moving along, Brie and Bryan are at the Mom and Johnny Ace’s for the Mom to try to make clouds. Yeah, the Mom has to point at an imaginary map on a green screen. She does not need to make clouds. Anyway, Ace does a comedy spot where he demonstrates how to tell the weather. Bryan takes a crack at it too. I have no idea why this is so hard.

No segue, somewhere in John Cena’s fancy house they’re playing with Birdie on the floor. And then Brie and Nikki go off to the Paris room, which is too fancy and hoighty toighty for children. Nikki admits here that her doctor doesn’t really want her to be in this match. The thing that I fixated on was the fact that the couch has pillows with a pink floral print on them, which is refreshing, since everything in John Cena’s big fancy house is actually from a decorating standpoint – mostly boring as f— and also sterile. There’s literally no fun in having a big fancy house if everything is painted white while gray is supposedly a “meaningful accent color.” Nope, it’s thoughtless and literally the least you can do. So, like, based on the lack of color and flair, and how “standard plain / flip this house” all the features appear,  it screams John Cena.

Back at the Ace household, Kathy needs to go over her script. Yeah, the Mom has difficulty reading a script off a page. Yeah. Wow. That was terrible. Anyway, the Mom picks out a really boring outfit and has anxiety about this going bad. This is going to go badly. It can’t not. Johnny Ace, science professor, makes a “tornado” of water between two bottles. “A tornado is made out of dirt, right?” says Brie Bella. Again kids, get better role models, and like read a book or multiple books. No segue, the twins train in the ring with Bryan. Supposedly the betting odds were that Nikki was gonna win the Rumble. Uh, okay. Anyway, quote of the segment goes to Bryan with: “Some sort of teenage boy’s masturbation fantasy is what that is.”

Moving along, the twins, Ace, and the Mom show up at the college. Kathy’s gonna do the weather. Fortunately it’s a pre-tape. There will be several takes. Johnny Ace and I are both amused and mortified. Commercial.

Back to the weather debacle. Nikki is going to take a shot at it. Nikki hams it up. If she could pronounce the names of towns, it might have been more effective. The Mom takes another shot at it. This time it goes better. Now, we go to the Royal Rumble, where Renee’s voiceover from the preshow is aired. There’s a Dolph Ziggler citing, and Kelly Kelly also walks through a shot. Oh, noes! It’s John Cena! Will Nikki burst into flames, crumble, or persist. Oh, she’s going to go put her name in the history books.

They show some footage from the men’s Royal Rumble. Obviously, they highlight the John Cena footage. Meanwhile, the twins are backstage talking to Nattie. Cena walks by. I guess we’re not mentioning that for the first time. Nikki is worried that someone might hit her in the back. Oh, wait, we are gonna talk about John Cena. Yup, the creepy brother JJ is bummed that Cena doesn’t stop and say hi. Cue some song I’ve never heard before and slow-motion footage of the Bella Twins basically standing around and wearing clothing. Commercial.

Back from commercial, there’s a footage montage with voice-overs hyping the Rumble. It was in Philly. Becky and Sasha are shown, as well as footage of other entrants. Given that I am not a member of the Bella Army, I distinctly remember the groans of the grown men and wrestling fans in my Twitter feed when the Bellas got late spots in the match. Yeah, not a delighted person amongst the bunch. Plus, the realization that WWE might have booked this match to put over the Bella Twins, well, that was a head-exploding moment.

Anyway, Nikki comes in first. Then Brie. Brie again makes a comment about not showing her abs and also not wanting to go out there “looking like a mom.” Yeah, that’s some anti-feminist, non-women’s empowerment crap. Anyhoo, Brie attempts to fix that, but it’s doing nothing for me. So, Nikki eliminates Brie. The Asuka puts Nikki in a submission hold on the ropes, and I guess we’ll have to wait until after the commercial break to find out that Nikki was not paralyzed or otherwise in real danger, except for the fact that according to an actual doctor, she shouldn’t be in the ring anymore.

In the end Asuka won the match. The respective members of the Bella family hug backstage. Then all the women wrestlers are gathered around for a toast backstage. Moving along, the twins and some model do a photo shoot, where Brie once again differentiates from her body and her “mom body.” Apparently women are no longer allowed to critique other women’s appearances. LOL. Have they ever watched anything on E!?

Next week: It’s more of the Bella twins, oh, and John invites Nikki to dinner, I’m sure it will involve a lot of mumbling.

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S REPORT: 6/3 TOTAL BELLAS REVIEW: Cena breaks up with Nikki over not wanting a bay, but wants her to send him thank you text when she has her first baby