Claudia has come to save us all from the tyranny of NeNe! I cannot even stand how good she is at putting that whiny tyrant in her place, and last night was a judged, acrobatic event in throwing shade.
Last week, we ended with NeNe, Phaedra, Porsha, and Kandi (the Illiterates) being unmitigated assholes to Demetria, Claudia, Cynthia, and Kenya (The Readers), so it was nice to pick right back up with Cynthia riding the wave of success. NeNe said the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard on a Housewives show last week when she insisted Claudia had so much sex, her clitoris had left her body, and you can tell she’s losing the fight this week when she goes off on a tangent about spaghetti-strap dresses. Claudia is punching her in the face with realness (her glued-down ramen-noodle hair! They don’t make your size for the runway! You have too much spaghetti in your diet!) and all NeNe can say is, “Girl, bye.†Claudia even has a comeback for that! (“Bye! Are you leaving?â€) THIS. IS. GLORIOUS. Even Kandi has to agree that Claudia verbalized every single thing that every single person on Earth has ever thought about NeNe. She even has enough class to apologize to the Readers when they all leave to find another bar. This is the great thing about bringing on new cast members who have lives outside of the show and a vested interest in maintaining some integrity. The only funny thing NeNe says is, “I told you I was a stripper! I liked it! So what?!â€
Far more interesting, though, is how far NeNe has fallen from grace. She acts like a senile old nana going on about Cynthia looking like an old woman and checking the cars in her garage, and you can’t explain it away by calling her Nay Nay. It’s not normal for a grown-ass woman to have a nasty alter-ego! Porsha doesn’t know what’s going on, which is the understatement of the century.Â
Kenya says Claudia got jumped into the pretty gang, but she’s actually just standing up for her friends while the Illiterates ramped up like the Micro Machines guy to call everyone under the sun with “beauty, talent, ability to articulate, and has edges†a whore. Claudia is right! And she wins. She won this fight no matter how you slice it.
After Claudia has a morning piña colada to high-five herself for that amazing comment about Porsha’s alligator mouth the night before, the Readers go to the house where piña coladas were created and scream, “Alcohol!†at the server like the fun-loving drunks they are. The Illiterates realize that they looked like horrible fools last night, and come up with a well-worn plan to explain their garish behavior: WE WERE JUST KIDDING. Phaedra insists her “humor is different,†and NeNe just flat-out feels bad. Of course you feel bad — you were read to near-death last night! It’s like dying of a thousand tiny paper cuts. Somehow, in the middle of all this, even though Phaedra was 100 percent WRONG, Demetria goes to Phaedra to apologize. I mean, I feel like this is just extreme classiness on display; otherwise, there’s no explanation for her stepping into this dragon’s den. Phaedra has the nerve to be pissed off about the “Apollo is getting eight years†comment, so she graciously accepts the apology that she has no business receiving in the first place. I know her personal life is in shambles, but I can only forgive Phaedra so much. They laugh over her high-low fashions (Ferragamo paired with Target), and then Phaedra takes the Illiterates to see some $440,000 necklace, which seems to soothe housewives more than yoga and massages combined.
Porsha wears so many straps with every outfit on this trip, she looks like a parachute instructor, up to and including the Bedroom Kandi Redo party Kandi insisted on throwing at the beach. If there is a person on this planet less self-aware than Kandi Burress, we will never know her. She is actually throwing a redo of a party she had where tons of people were fighting right after all of the people she’s traveling with were fighting! Keep the Bubble Tape and wee dildos to yourself for a night, girl! No one wants to be part of your reindeer games, and passing a dildo with your knees is damn near impossible in a maxi dress.
The next day, when Kandi is intentionally keeping the Illiterates away from the Readers, NeNe insists that having a quick mouth is an awful trait and she wouldn’t take any “ack-oo-laydes†away from anyone, but even her friends are quick to point out that she sure does fight a lot for someone who hates fights. NeNe does the only thing she can do by deflecting to a cute little girl far off in the distance, and then Kandi tells everyone she isn’t sure why she isn’t getting pregnant because she has “thousands of eggs.†In a lifetime, an average woman might have 400 mature eggs, tops, so I don’t know what kind of hyperovulation schedule Kandi is on. The Readers are busy flouncing around in their bikinis and talking to a hot bartender about pimping out his hot friends in broken Spanish, while Kenya yells, “Arriva-durkey!†like a buffoon. I think they won the entire trip, honestly.
Now that the drama has died down a little, it’s time to trot out that time-honored haterade container, and everyone gets on a party bus to go see Demetria perform. If you put two housewives on a bus, they’ll multiply into ten angry housewives overnight, like Gremlins! NeNe pulls a sneak-attack one-two punch of niceness by telling everyone she didn’t enjoy how they constantly made fun of The New Normal being canceled, but she’s inviting them to her new Broadway show anyway, without telling them that she’s playing the most evil bitch in the cast. Did you know Cynthia loves any hardworking, successful black woman? Well, she loves NeNe enough to say congratulations for fitting in that category, but not enough to actually be her friend or jump up her ass again.
Claudia, not buying NeNe’s fake kindness for a second, uses the opportunity to remind NeNe that she is a total hypocrite — she might not like to steal accolades from someone, but she certainly stole them from Claudia! NeNe doesn’t want to talk about “that part,†because she does better when she lives in a bubble of delusion, but Claudia goes off like a bottle rocket anyway. I love that she doesn’t let NeNe call the shots about anything, including when the fight is going to end. NeNe does apologize, but only after Claudia makes her feel like a millimeter-high mound of dirt. Kandi (and the rest of the planet) is shocked that she got an apology at all, considering NeNe’s history of just ending a friendship rather than saying, “I’m sorry.†Porsha hops in with a comment about the apology (which just opens her up to be sliced down by Claudia’s mighty sword) by making the accurate assessment that NeNe sure does like to call everyone a whore when Porsha is the one actually accepting cars, jewels, and shoes from a married African man. (I can never tell if they’re using the word African pejoratively on this show, but the fact that he’s from Africa seems to matter very much.) Claudia knows all of this because they have mutual friends, so no matter how hard Porsha tries to squirm out of it, she has no leg on which to stand. She incorrectly says, “You’re such a contradictory!†causing everyone to laugh at her big-word attempt, and spends the rest of the bus ride silently looking out of the window like a broken doll. My favorite part is when she tries to justify her financial status by saying, “I have a hair company!†only to have Claudia yell back, “Everyone has a hair company!†Claudia ends her assault by calling NeNe on her bullshit by saying, “Oh, your hair just sprouts blonde from your scalp,†and then climbing out of a window to ride on top of the bus with her hair flowing, straight-up primal screaming about her victory all the rest of the way to the club.
The best part about this whole trip is that they are mad late for Demetria’s performance, even though she’s the one who paid for them to be there! Homie cannot get any respect from this group if she paid for it — oh, wait. They all shamelessly plop down in the front row (so Demetria knows exactly how late they are) and sway a little, trying not to let the wildly distracting, just-a-shade-too-light color of Demetria’s tights take them out of the moment. Then Da Brat shows up to rap for 20 seconds. How much do you think Da Brat got paid for that? A free ticket to Puerto Rico and a box of hair bands? The song isn’t bad, and Demetria can actually sing, so that’s nice. Everyone takes a group photo in a kitchen to cement their fake friendship, and they look forward to getting back to Atlanta, where they can hate each other in peace.
Shit gets real next week! Kandi and Todd go to the same fertility doctor Porsha and Kordell saw a couple of seasons ago, Cynthia burns her friend contract, Apollo gets his jail date, and Claudia might go on a date with Kordell! See you then.