WWE: What is the endgame for this Billie Kay/Riott Squad story?

In the four months since WWE inexplicably split up The IIconics, Billie Kay has become something of a revelation on SmackDown. While the company orchestrated the split to jumpstart Peyton Royce’s singles push — which they immediately forgot about — Kay has stood out more on Friday nights with her hilarious character work, which is centered around handing various wrestlers and on-screen personnel her résumé and headshot.

Astonishingly, the WWE creative team has staved off running a gag, one that has a high potential of becoming one-note, into the ground, though that’s mostly a testament to Kay’s talents as a personality. Even more shockingly, Vince McMahon and his writers have even shown some foresight in keeping her schtick from annoying fans with its repetition by moving her into a storyline with The Riott Squad (Ruby Riott and Liv Morgan).

Over the last few weeks, Kay has played a critical role in the Riott Squad’s victories and defeats. But these matches and segments have brought an important question to the fore:

Where is this Billie Kay/Riott Squad story headed?

On the Jan. 22 episode of SmackDown, Morgan and Riott — with Kay in their corner — took on WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Charlotte Flair and Asuka, a prime chance for the former duo to test themselves against the latter and even earn a future title match with a victory.

Unfortunately, Kay poorly timed her decision to argue with the referee, as her protests to the official kept him from counting the deciding pinfall for Riott over Asuka; Flair picked up the win for her and Asuka not long after.

Following the loss to the champs, Kay apologized for costing Riott and Morgan the match and told the duo that she got them spots in the women’s Royal Rumble, but this did little to assuage the Riott Squad, who decided it was best for them and Kay to go their separate ways.

As things stand, this story could go in several directions.

The most obvious route WWE could go is to have a scorned Kay find a new tag team partner or a new team to take out The Riott Squad. However, the paucity of women on the SmackDown roster would make that a difficult task, unless she plucks a duo from NXT (she already tried to latch on with Natalya and Tamina with no success).

The second option, and the more likely one, is for Kay to get bullied by the other heels on SmackDown before Morgan and Riott take pity on her and let her join the group. Given how the aforementioned segment from this past Friday went — Kay came across as very sympathetic by the end, as her attempts to help them were clearly well-meaning — this makes sense, but it also has the shorter shelf life of the choices, unless Morgan and Riott turn heel or Kay joining is part of some larger plot to cause fissures between the two as revenge for them ending her and Royce’s tag team (though that would be giving WWE creative too much credit).

Either way, the fact that this undercard feud has been compelling enough to draw out such questions is worthy of a thumbs up for WWE. They have found a way to take someone whose deftness as a talker and a character vastly outpaces her workrate and done something that every good promotion excels at: highlighting the positives and hiding the shortcomings.

Combine that person with a team in The Riott Squad — a team that could easily get lost in the midcard shuffle — and you get a nice little storyline that doesn’t overstay its welcome and has some fans wondering what happens next. What that “what” is will depend on WWE.