I missed you guys so much last week — I think living in a city whose team won the Super Bowl when you don’t care about football is extra-torturous, but the whole event also pre-empted this show, so I had to sit with the anxiety of this fight for two weeks. Unacceptable!
This week we finish the fight, start a new one, and recover from the fight. It’s basically all about the fight, and then Kandi auditioned people for her musical, which I cannot believe is actually called A Mother’s Love. My brain is a hive of Mad Libs when it comes to Mama Joyce — boozy, crazed, unhinged, and possessed — but love is not the first descriptor that comes to mind.
Speaking of possessed, we’re still in this hotel room, and everyone has swapped souls with Vigo the Carpathian. I’m not going to rehash the entire thing, but here’s a cheat sheet if you forgot or have PTSD-inspired amnesia:
- Kenya charged at Natalie.
- Christopher, Natalie’s husband, grabbed her arm.
- Brandon got up to defend Kenya’s honor.
- Apollo and Peter held Brandon back and proceeded to beat the absolute shit out of him.
- NeNe thinks Kenya started it, Kenya thinks NeNe started it.
- Everyone is wearing lingerie while this is going down adding a level of sexual violence to the entire thing that is very confusing.
Apollo, still being held back by production assistants and some of the cast, gets loose like a toddler wiggling out of your arms when it’s time for a nap and goes for Brandon again. Apollo is unhinged, but I feel a little bad for him. Not enough to excuse his behavior, which was unhealthy and over the top, but sad in the way that I’m sad for all men who only know how to express themselves through hyper-masculinity. He doesn’t make contact this time and is pulled out of the room, with Phaedra trailing and making sure someone gets her black Prada bag. BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT’S IMPORTANT HERE, not your crazed husband doing bare-chested windmills in the hallway. She said something funny about everyone acting like vampires baying at the moon, and Porsha started seeing evil spirits in people’s faces on her way out, but then NeNe said “fist-es-es†instead of “fists†and I couldn’t hear over the sound of my own laughter for the next two minutes.
Christopher, in the course of apologizing to NeNe, asked Kenya if she was on molly, not knowing that we’ve all been trying to explain away Kenya’s behaviors by speculating about possible drug use since she twirled into our lives, but nope! She’s just the attention-starved shithead you’ve always known. Just when you think everything is cooling down, Kandi starts revving up like a hurricane intent on wiping out everyone in her path. She really didn’t like what Natalie had to say about Todd, so of course now is the time to bring it up, while everyone is half-naked and traumatized from the beating a man just took three feet away! Kandi is pissed that Natalie called Todd an opportunist, which she didn’t even say since Cynthia put those words in her mouth, and rehashes what we thought she finished at the winery. Cynthia, who changes her tune more often than Mariah Carey running scales, said that Natalie had nice things to say about Todd, too. Um, no she didn’t, and neither did you, Cynthia! I’ve given her a pass this season because she had fibroids and other people are acting more insane than she is, but we all know that Cynthia changes her story depending on who she’s around and flip-flops more than a gymnast. Peter came up to puff up his chest and say dickish things — stay gold, Ponyboy! — Malorie got up to stand around with her dumb mouth hanging open, and then Cynthia got a liiiiittle too close to Kandi while talking with her hands. Todd pushed Peter, Malorie pushed Kandi, and
Kandi.
Went.
OFF.
Is she taking all the anger she has for her mother out on other people? Kandi puffed up like Suge Knight giving a piggyback ride to Dr. Dre and it was UNBELIEVABLE to watch her smack her hands and say, “I will DRAG you in this bitch!†because I fucking believed her. She was going to drag everyone into that bitch! Why weren’t more people afraid of her dragging them into a bitch? They could get caught in the drag-a-bitch undertow! Kandi will eat lightning and crap thunder! Some heavy breathing into a mirror and a smile from Todd calmed her down a bit, and then she was ready to leave. Please let her leave! Her body says I’m okay but her face still says Captain of the S.S. Drag-A-Bitch. Malorie pretended that she was going to beat Kandi up, but she’s about as threatening as a butter knife. SIT DOWN, MALORIE, you don’t even go here!
Lexis sat with her drink the entire time and rolled her eyes. Can we get a Change.org campaign going to get Lexis on the show full-time?
NeNe asked, “Who knew it would be a brawl?†Oh, aside from literally anyone who has watched even one season of this show? It’s a mystery.
Everyone decompressed in the solace of his or her own home. Kandi stood in front of a kitchen faucet that looked like three dildos melted together and told her friends Carmon and Todd that she acted ratchet and was worried Cynthia wouldn’t look at her the same, and when Carmon said, “Damn, you were acting like your mama†Kandi waited a beat and said, “No, it was worst than that.†I think she feels real remorse for getting that amped up, but the whole night was a frenzy of feelings and she just caught the wave. Todd was only concerned that “one of her titties almost came out.†Bless.
Cynthia did her roundup with Gregg, NeNe, and Peter, all of whom thought it best to blame other people, namely Kenya. NeNe was so devastated she had to see her therapist, and neither Cynthia nor Peter thinks they were at fault. It pisses me off that Peter thinks Kandi was acting like a Jerry Springer show and got “ghetto,†because the very same thing could be said about him for holding a man back while another man punched him. Cynthia made fun of Kandi for waving around like a lunatic, which took her mind off of the fact that she married an absolute dickhead.
Brandon went to Kenya’s house wearing sunglasses to hide his black eye and showed her his bruised ribs. Kenya did what she does best and went for the low-hanging fruit, saying that Apollo was having a prison flashback during the fight, and then they both compared him to a gorilla. Brandon had his police report with him indicating that he has broken ribs, but he’s not going to press charges because Phaedra and Apollo have two kids. That was actually very kind, because what Apollo did was technically a felony and it was all caught on tape. Brandon always seems slimy to me, but this was a classy move.
Phaedra was too tired and irritable to deal with Apollo, so he just gave a goofy smile and said, “I guess last night was ridiculous.†They need to get divorced. And I know it will never happen, but he’s a waste of time. Did you catch Apollo’s reason for raging? “I was trying to hold him back, and then I got carried away.†He needs to go to school with Ayden and learn the difference between holding and pummeling. The best part of this entire exchange was Apollo asking what kind of grown people go out in their pajamas, and Phaedra explaining the furry fetish as an answer.
Has anyone made a GIF set of that casting call yet? I’m counting on you. Dayron, a casting director Kandi hired, did his best to handle the 400-plus people that came to the casting call, but they had their work cut out for them. Don Juan and choreographer Victor already warned him that most of the people would suck, and suck they did! Everyone tried to sing a version of “Amazing Grace,†but it mostly sounded like isolated moans of the zombies from The Walking Dead. Grace quickly turned into “gray-hey-hace,†and the parade of tuneless wonders was exactly the comic relief we needed. Porsha got ready for her audition next week by running in place and singing “we oh we ow,†so I’m pretty sure this show is going off the rails before it’s even started. Eddie Lavert can’t carry the whole thing!
Finally, Kandi held a peace summit at a spa to try to bring everyone together. I commend her for trying, but she’s known this group long enough to know that nothing, I mean NOTHING, will soothe or placate them, right? Porsha is there for the free massage, oblivious to the seething rage building up in everyone else’s shoulder space. Everyone sat around in pink uniforms extolling the virtues of that facial you can get for your vagina and Porsha role played the “Electric Youth†video via her hairdo before everyone came together for green tea. Can I just tell you that your vagina does not need a facial? YOUR VAGINA IS FINE. The whole business down there was a well-oiled machine for centuries before we started plucking and vajazzling and throwing it birthday parties and covering it in a shower cap before we go outside or whatever the fuck else people do to it. I will let my vagina crumble off my body before I ever give it a facial and you should definitely put that on my tombstone. “Here Lies Danielle, She Pretty Much Left Her Vagina Alone.â€
Did Kenya really expect Phaedra to call and apologize? She did! But Phaedra would denounce God and let her children be raised by a wolf before she ever apologized to Kenya so they just bickered instead. NeNe was mad that no one reached out to apologize to her, but was also pissed off when Brandon texted her because her number is “very private.†Which is it, Goldilocks? Kandi apologized to everyone, Cynthia sort of apologized (“If Mal did push you, I’m sorry for herâ€) and Kenya yelled at everyone for trying to put the blame on her. NeNe yelled so loud people were trying to shush her, but no spa can contain her booming voice! There was some hubbub about whether or not Christopher put his hands on Kenya (he did) and NeNe declared “I don’t need Gregg’s help, I’m a gangster!†when Kenya insinuated that Gregg was holding people back (he was). They all left when Phaedra’s tea bag exploded in her cup, and Cynthia has a new haircut so that’s nice.
Should Kenya be blamed for the fight? Did everyone get the apology they deserved? Will we ever stop treating our vaginas like weekend projects? Let’s talk in the new and improved comments, and I’ll see you next week!