Porsha. Oh, Porsha. PORSHA! You know how Kandi gets about her daggum husband. You know you got turned up with her at the club and talked some nonsense. And you KNOW that woman has access to all the supplies at the Kandi Factory and will print out those receipts in full multicolor, one-sided, collated, triple-ply, tax-deductible glory. Porsha, you know this.
But that’s thing about Porsha: She knows, but she just doesn’t know better. Porsha can’t simply let us enjoy her getting wrapped up in trash bags with Phaedra, talking about spinning on dicks, and hosting sip-and-sees for every guy who DMs her on Instagram. No — the woman is always going to show her true colors eventually, and the truth is that she cannot take one single bit of ownership for her own actions, so she lies and lies until she convinces herself of a new truth she’s more comfortable with.
Hello, I’m Jodi Walker, I’ll be filling in for your regular recapper Ali Barthwell, and what a time to be a Visiting Professor of Shade! I’ll also be here next week to just reeeeally see Eat-Your-Pussy-’Til-You-Come-gate to its completion — I said what I said. Porsha’s horrific behavior doesn’t make anyone else’s past horrific behavior (or their mom’s) any less so, but Kandi could hardly have asked for a better redemption arc than being on the right side of this argument. She seems to have taken no offense at anyone’s accusation that she’s had sexual relations with women, because as “accusations†go, that’s kind of like saying, I heard you like ketchup. And she’s taking Porsha’s bizarre drugging accusations with appropriate seriousness, because that’s kind of like saying, I heard you put drugs in ketchup to get people to have sex with you.
She’s also playing this situation like a master straight out of the gate, while Porsha sucks on a Camelback full of lemon water and cayenne pepper, depriving the already limited amount of blood flowing to her brain of the sugar it so desperately needs. Someone get the woman a muffin, because while she’s over at her sister’s house already switching her story — she was drunk, so sure, she might have offered a mouth orgasm to a co-worker or two — Kandi has gathered all the tribe elders at her home to get every single crazy thing Porsha said out on the table before Porsha can turn it around and act like she said something different.
Those things are, in ascending order of importance: that Kandi was in a seven-year relationship with a woman, that Kandi has a sex dungeon in her house, that Todd has been running around on Kandi under the alias of “Marvin,†and that Kandi and Todd/Marvin told someone that they planned to drug Porsha and Shamea and bring them back to their sex dungeon. Porsha. PORSHA.
Sheree, in her poop-emoji interpretation of a top bun, says, “Porsha done went from Kandi hiding in the closet, to hiding in a sex dungeon with drugs?†And Porsha did done went there. As Porsha explains it to Lauren, “Where she took me, I don’t know where this is going to go.†In Porsha’s mind, she’s been forced to say these things because Kandi “opened [her] mouth to speak about me, so I’m going to open my mouth to speak about you.†But whereas Kandi said one thing about Porsha that was true, Porsha took a bunch of things she had maybe heard on the street and then stated them as fact. Also, her things were stone-cold crazy.
That’s where everything stands when Todd and Kandi do that Housewives thing where they talk about how they’re just soooo stressed, and wouldn’t it be nice if we took a trip to unwind, and what if we also brought eight of our most abrasive enemies? Since Todd doesn’t want to be the only dude on the trip to Maui, he proposes that they invite Cynthia’s ex-husband Peter and Sheree’s ex-husband Bob, and hey, while we’re at it, maybe we should see what Kordell is up to, or Walter, or any number of fake African princes?
Kandi invites Cynthia and Phaedra to a casual lunch where they all look gorgeous in clothes that somehow don’t simultaneously threaten to expose both their nipples and sternums. Cynthia seems resigned to the idea of Peter coming as long as they have separate rooms, and over in a workout montage just doused in neck sweat, Sheree says Bob can also come and stay in a separate room. Not even a contractual obligation or fat check could get Phaedra’s ex on this trip, though, so she gets the honor of saying that she’d be much more comfortable on the trip if Porsha came. Kandi says Phaedra can invite her if she wants because she “has to give Phaedra the option of a plus-one.†Excuse me while my eyes circumnavigate their sockets.
Phaedra lures Porsha out with promises of sucking all the fat out of her body through lasers to present the idea of Maui. After Phaedra’s been wrapped in trash bags and sweated every bead of moisture out of her body, she comes out wiggling around in a Family Dollar grass skirt. Porsha says she doesn’t really want to go, but she is “pulling out all the stops.†Keep those standards high, girl.
With that (and a quick visit from Kenya’s brother so one more person can tell her she needs to be done with Matt), it’s time for all of the women and some of their ex-husbands to head to Hawaii. They’re staying at the Maui Four Seasons, and when I consider how many times they’re about to scream EYPTYC at each other, it feels distinctly unfair that they get to be on this trip instead of me, as I would certainly only say that at a whisper. But these women are nothing if not committed to glamorous facades, and that includes heading to an extravagant group dinner at 10 p.m., which is to say, 3 a.m. in Atlanta. Cynthia looks like she could barely keep her lashes open, and we’re about to put Kandi and Porsha at a table together? Oh, and both Todds are here? And it’s Porsha’s Todd’s birthday? This should go well …
Just kidding, it goes terribly! Sheree puts it out there that they’ve been hearing that Porsha said some slanderous things to Kandi. Porsha seems annoyed that Kandi told everyone what she said and responds, “I said a lot of things to you that day. You were saying some things to me that I felt were lies and then I felt like I needed to come to you with the truth.†Kandi notes that Porsha’s truth seems to be that Kandi tried to drug her, and Porsha switches to, “No, I said that I heard you told someone you were going to take me to your sex dungeon.â€
Oh, Porsha. Just say, I didn’t like what you said about me, so I said some things you wouldn’t like about you … and then I multiplied those things times one million, left my own body, let my shell say you tried to drug me, came back into my body, and now I have to stick by what my soulless shell said.
Kandi informs Porsha that she is a lying bitch and then pulls out a move typically reserved for reunion shows: receipts. Kandi has printed out enough text message copies for everyone at the table to share with their neighbor, and there’s something almost quaint about watching Peter and Phaedra, who hate each other, reading over their printed text messages together — it’s like the reality TV breaking of bread. Kandi’s receipts read as follows:
Porsha: Finally got my phone back on!! It’s been broke for three days. By the way, I been laughing every day since Queens. We was turned up for real! Just want you to know, I’m not gonna rape you on camera, so no worries.
Kandi: You say anything on camera, I’m going to walk away leave you standing there like I don’t know you.
Porsha: Good, Queens is Vegas — what goes there stays there.
Bottom line, Kandi says Porsha was talking about how turned up she was and how much fun they had, not like someone who was scared of being drugged into a sex dungeon. Kandi tells Porsha’s Todd he’s dating a fraud, so Porsha wittily responds that Kandi is married to a fraud. And y’all … You! Don’t! Talk! About! Kandi’s! Daggum! Husband! I could hear that voice quiver coming all the way from Eastern Standard Time. Kandi is screaming about how she’d never do anything with drugs, about how serious an accusation that is, and how it’s taking everything in her “not to choke a bitch.â€
Porsha’s eyebrows are up so high, and her mouth is pursed so tight, you can tell she really knows she stepped in it now. But she still doesn’t know no better.