The most important revelation in an otherwise-boring episode was that Porsha has two tiny dogs named Coco and Chanel. Did I block that out from last season? Are they some sort of divorce consolation gift? Does no one remember Porsha dragging her niece around by the arm last season—who keeps entrusting her with living, breathing things?
We picked up where we left off, with the next chapter in the never-ending saga of Will Someone Let Kandi Be Happy? Kandi is happy that her office building is done, but who can concentrate on the office when her hair is bright red, crimped within an inch of its life, and clashing dramatically with her pink-vinyl office chairs? It’s usually against my feminist sensibilities to comment on anything the ladies wear or what they look like, but how many weeks must we be accosted by this hairdo? We can see from her confessionals that she eventually gives this up for a new look, and pray that she gets there sooner than later. I cannot anymore with this Ronald McDonald red.
Kandi is relating the tale of her terrible mother to Don Juan, longtime business collaborator and patient listener. I swear he was asleep with his eyes open at one point, but he perked up when he saw his chance to relay his concerns, which oddly mirrored Mama Joyce’s concerns. Basically, he’s worried that once she gets married, Kandi’s Todd is going to try to run the business or somehow displace him. First of all, have these people met Todd? I think the last time we saw him he was whispering a lullaby to a baby bird with a broken wing. He is the most gentle and caring man on this show — who is this monster they are expecting to swoop in and clean house? Second, how little confidence does everyone have in Kandi, who is wildly successful by any standards? I’m glad Kandi reminded Don to judge her by her actions, which are basically a flurry of strong business decisions and decades of being a top-level BOSS, instead of trying to count her money. Much like last week, Don made his protestations in a building Kandi purchased for him to work in, not unlike the ungrateful sack of potatoes in a Prince Valiant wig, Mama Joyce. I’m a miserable bitch with a mean streak — if I were in Kandi’s position, I would burn both structures to the ground just to prove I could, and casually ask, “Who’s counting my money now?” while heating up a pan of Jiffy Pop over the flames of their former lives, as Todd stood like a statue in front of the wreckage, holding up both middle fingers.
Now that the wedding is over, NeNe can’t be bothered to even say hello to Gregg when he comes home, but she’s quick to tell him she can’t help him clean because she just got her nails done. When Gregg pushes the issue she comically says she’s “allergic” to cleaning — like every 10-year old in the nation — until Gregg basically forces a broom into her hands. When NeNe complains that sweeping would be easier with a regular broom, Gregg produces a regular broom faster than you can say “Expelliarmus!” Gregg is happy to have her back in housewife mode after Glee was postponed and The New Normal was canceled, but NeNe would rather chew tinfoil than revert back to her non-Hollywood self.
Cynthia goes in for her fibroid surgery, and Peter manages to make it through without laughing at her or accidentally calling her fat. There is some laughter about whether she “shaved her groin area” when the nurse comes in, but it is otherwise uneventful and successful. I was hoping they would spare us the surgery shots, but NOPE — needles full of blood and scalpels abound while Cynthia lolls her head around like a horror movie. Do I have to create a Change.org campaign to get Bravo to stop showing these gory surgery scenes? Cynthia makes it through, thankfully, and celebrates by getting her tits all the way out in a keyhole dress during her confessional. When she gets home, Peter tries to help her up the stairs by grabbing the back of her pants, the way you would a teetering toddler, and her mom brings up some soup. Cynthia repays their kindness by kicking her mom out of the room and burping directly in Peter’s mouth. Let’s have Cynthia on drugs every week — she’s a blast!
Porsha got ready for the movers to show up with all of her belongings by watching her mom, Tina Knowles, clean out the refrigerator without even offering to lift a finger. Her hands were full of tiny dogs, but I’m always surprised to see her bratitude on display, considering she’s in her 30s. When the truck shows up, Porsha and her sister get INTO the truck and start pawing through boxes before giving up two minutes later because “it’s too hot.” Once inside, the real drama starts when Porsha realizes that Kordell carelessly threw one of her wedding dresses — ONE of her wedding dresses — into the bottom of the box and ruined the corset. She carries on like he placed a rancid, maggoty ham in there instead of her pretty okay-looking corset, and then takes a knife to scratch his face out of the wedding album he also sent back. I was mostly impressed that everything else was on hangers, which is more than I do for my own clothes when I move. I’m really bothered by her comments about his sexuality — “I want to talk to him woman to woman” — which always come across as juvenile and retaliatory. Even if there are rumors that he is gay, he’s clearly not comfortable about addressing them, so Porsha’s comments only serve to make her look bigoted and a bit of a bully.
Speaking of bullies, Kenya is still around. She was funny last season, but I seriously cannot understand how and why she’s still on the show considering how many boring cast members they’ve phased out of this and other Housewives shows. She serves a bit of comic relief, and this week is no different as she preps to move out of the house she was almost evicted from. Brandon, the ever-present assistant, says that the landlord, Conya, called Kenya “lonely, classless, miserable, and a pathological liar,” prompting them to cackle like witches and twerk around the house. The twerking was kind of funny, particularly the twerking on the piano, but I pretty much died when Kenya says, “You’re not me, Blanche, and you always are going to be in that wheelchair” as a way to address her haters. The most frustrating thing about Kenya is that she is legitimately smart and funny, but she plays up this minstrel-like version of herself instead.
Phaedra, Apollo, Ayden, and Mr. President have a very stressful photo shoot in an attempt to update their family photo. Everyone was dressed in white because according to Phaedra, “black people in white is like little black angels,” but Apollo was too pissed off about not knowing about this photo shoot to be appropriately angelic. He needs to calm it all the way down — you have two kids now, buddy, so it can’t all be lounging around, working on your own schedule, and picking out tile. I hope this is just the stress of moving coupled with a newborn, but he’s acting like a real dick lately.
Across town, Riley is sweeping the basketball court at home, and I’m dismayed to see the same red-hair affliction has touched her, too. Can we take a second to appreciate what Riley’s chore list must look like for two mansions? Sweep the courts, clean the pool, polish the money — it never ends. Riley tells Kandi that she’s not really excited about the upcoming wedding, but that doesn’t stop her from dropping seriously perfect advice about her grandmother, saying that Kandi should just get married to Todd, and if Mama Joyce can’t be nice she won’t be allowed to hang out as much. BOOM, Kandi — even your daughter sees how easy it would be for you to just tell your mom to get her shit together.
Later, Kandi rolls over to Porsha’s house to have her leg immediately humped by a dog when the door opens. She’s giving moral support to Porsha, who is in tears about her corset, particularly, and failed marriage, generally. In her honest moments, I still feel bad for Porsha — she really believed in her marriage, and admits to Kandi that she is still in love with Kordell. They had a very weird exchange about whether Kordell ever beat Porsha and how he “shook” her sometimes, and the whole thing made me feel incredibly uncomfortable. Porsha cried and said she needed closure, which she started to get by laughing about the fact that Kordell might have kept the Ben Wa balls that came with one of the sex toys Kandi gifted to Porsha. Everyone handles divorce in his or her own way, I guess.
Finally, Kenya is still moving out of this house despite the fact that there are a sum total of four boxes on the premises. One of the movers accidentally brought down the landlord’s wedding dress and mixed it in with Kenya’s stuff, so she naturally rips open the box, puts on the dress, and twirls around in it. Kenya asks, “Why would she leave her wedding stuff here?” But her cousin, Che, who came over to help, asks a better question—why would you put it on? It fit a little too perfectly for me to think it was an accident. Even though she had until five p.m. to move, the landlord shows up at three p.m. and tells her to “get her ass out!” Kenya says the landlord is just trying to humiliate her in order to sell another story to the “blog magazines,” which is not a thing that exists. Conya, the landlord, calls the police to have Kenya “criminally trespassed,” and when the operator asks for a description of Kenya says, “You want me to describe Kenya Moore? Uh … black. Tall with weaves and contacts and implants.” You guys, I diiiiiied, and then immediately made that description my ringtone.
The police don’t do much since Brandon already moved the four boxes into the car, but it doesn’t stop Kenya from explaining and pantomiming what it was like to dial a phone. “You picked up your phone, took your finger, and pressed nine-one-one.” I think the Museum of the Moving Image should archive that to show future teens how much harder the world used to be before you could think of a person and communicate telepathically, but for our current purposes it just made sure the episode ended on a high note.
Next time, Porsha keeps revealing more about her relationship with Kordell, Kenya moves into a hotel room, and Phaedra calmly plans to cut out Apollo’s tongue. Until next week!
