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The Real Housewives of Atlanta Recap: Caving In

The Real Housewives of Atlanta

Flirting With Disaster
Season 6 Episode 18
Editor’s Rating 2 stars

The Real Housewives of Atlanta

Flirting With Disaster
Season 6 Episode 18
Editor’s Rating 2 stars
Photo: Bravo

Kandi can’t see that she’s about to lose her fiancé, Cynthia can’t dance, and Apollo can’t resist opening his big, dumb mouth. How are we still on this island? It took the cast of LOST less time to work through their issues! Every vacation next season should take place in a therapist’s office or I’m calling the cops and having everyone arrested for emotional abuse.

Kenya is not a size 4, despite what Miss Lawrence says. I hate pointing that out, because I’m both a feminist and a person who does not care about body size, but I will not sit idly by while lies are being spewed to the most delusional cast member that Andy Cohen ever hired. If you are still dieting on vacation, you are doing vacation wrong. It was all said in the service of Miss Lawrence earning her keep by being complimentary, and giving Kenya a chance to throw some shade at Phaedra. Their use of the confessionals to rip each other apart really deserves an award! Kenya persists with the story that Porsha was a beard, even though Porsha explicitly said she wasn’t. Listen — we all know that Porsha doesn’t actually know what a beard is in either the traditional OR colloquial sense of the word (I think she calls facial hair “cheek feathers”), but it’s damaging and disgraceful for Kenya to keep this rumor going out of spite. You can’t fetishize gay men on one hand and then try to rip people out of the closet with the other! And lesser men have had greater beards! Who actually cares if he’s allegedly gay, or allegedly finding men on the DL, or if I’m using the word allegedly a lot so I don’t get sued? It’s a good thing Kenya still has beef with Apollo for trashing her name, or else we would be subjected to her mean-spirited witch hunt for most of the episode. Instead, we get to see her turn the other cheek by physically turning her own cheek away from the conversation with Miss Lawrence, like a toddler imitating adult behavior.

For some reason, the group is on their way to a system of caves, which you can keep, thank you very much. What is this vacation, fighting with people you hate in cave grottos while bats shit on your head? Doesn’t anyone stay at home, get drunk while watching The Price Is Right, order a pizza, and pass out before 8 p.m. every night for a week anymore? Why are they flying to exotic lands to prove how much they hate each other? Apollo and Gregg like the resort because they got a chance to shower outside (“essential for a man”), but the other car is having a way-too-serious discussion about Kandi and Todd’s impending nuptials. Kandi calls it an impasse and hopes marriage will solve it, but Todd calls it “you and your mom need to see a therapist immediately or I’m out,” knowing that they can’t even get married until some of this stuff is resolved. How do you force Mama Joyce go to therapy? Grab your nuts, says Todd! I have to agree — it has to be an ultimatum, not a choice, and the ultimatum should be in the form of “I will snatch back that house I’m paying for if you don’t agree.” Like most money-grubbing sociopaths, Mama Joyce responds to cash, so start threatening to take some away, Kandi!

Once they’re at the caves, which might also be a sinkhole, Phaedra changes out of her heels and into sneakers just in time to run away from the gigantic snake scooting around the edge of the walkway. Was it a boa constrictor? A python? NeNe walked away, but Porsha freaked out and started crying. I’m not a fan of snakes, but I almost busted my taint when she started walking, then RUNNING away from it. She could’ve used that kind of get-up-and-go the previous evening, when Peter was grilling her at dinner! Four men came to carry the snake away, and Phaedra suggested they use it for Jimmy Choos. It made me sad that she had to beg Apollo to walk with her when she was passing the snake, and I’ve decided that he’s leveled up to Asshole: Peter status. Apollo doesn’t seem to like or respect Phaedra at all.

No one is really feeling this cave-spelunking, but Kenya insists they all get in the water. Apollo sort of balked when it was just going to be the two of them in there with their waist floaties, but he also didn’t really say anything to indicate that he understood why it was a bad idea. He just looked around like a pretty idiot until Phaedra finally agreed to take a dip, “joining him as his wife to brave the chilly waters together.” Cynthia was mad that Peter didn’t want to go in (he said his adventure was being in the cave to begin with, and I can’t blame him for not wanting his hips to give out or rust), and Porsha “let her guard down and tied her weave up” to get in. NeNe managed to throw shade from inside a shady cave, telling Kenya to “drink it all up” when she splashed around and declared it the fountain of youth, and I think we all noticed Apollo staring holes into Kenya’s butt when she got out and walked up the stairs. This sort of behavior just feeds into his overall sliminess, and if I don’t trust him, there’s no way Phaedra feels she can trust him.

Kenya put on a beach cover-up that had no fabric on the sides and invited a select few people to watch her get impregnated by a shaman. Ever since her own family cackled at the very thought of it, Cynthia, Kandi, NeNe, and Miss Lawrence are the only people who supported Kenya, apparently, in her bid to get pregnant, and she’s rewarding them with the very spiritual experience of having a tiny man fill their faces with smoke while he rubs leaves on them and shakes a branch in their general direction. Kenya managed to eke out a few fake tears (is it in her contract this season that she has to cry on cue?), but she also got real with everyone about her hopes and dreams, so I guess it was worth it. When NeNe and Kandi opened up about how hard it was to be a mother, Cynthia said, “Yeah, Noelle thinks of me as her mom, so she can’t think of me as her dad.” Tell me more, Stephen Hawking.

In the meantime, Porsha and Phaedra are avoiding the demon spirits and trying to figure out why no one is mentioning the disastrous Bailey Bowl while they float in a pool, drinks in hand. Phaedra thinks Kenya needs to stop trying to be a peacemaker, but also jump off a bridge with some weights on her neck. The thing I love about Phaedra is that she will use literally any chance at all to conjure up ways for Kenya to die. Her hate is real and unyielding.

There was a scene with everyone having a good time in a car decked out with stripper poles, but then Cynthia did the robot and my eyes glazed over like Halle Berry as Storm and I lost consciousness from laughing too hard.

The general manager of the resort came in like a professional babysitter and showed Peter, Todd, and Apollo how to roll cigars so they could escape their “crazy wives.” I’m way, way over Peter and his ilk referring to the women on this show as crazy, considering they get to go on lavish vacations and benefit financially thanks to that craziness. Peter, the Bankrupt Super Loser, can have all the seats when it comes to that nonsense — his wife literally finances his entire life, which she would not be able to do solely with the business brought in by the Bailey Fashion Agency House of Doughnuts. Shut up, dickwad, and smoke your Cognac-dipped cigar.

Todd is frustrated with Kandi, and Mama Joyce continues to treat him like shit even after he reached out to her. He wants her to one day “ride with him like she rides with Kandi,” and I feel so bad for him that he loves Kandi so much he’ll put up with this lunatic. Kenya came in to bust up the sausage party, made some sexual innuendos about the cigars, and then made everyone do two rounds of tequila shots before she cornered Apollo. Todd tried to stick with him, but Apollo waved him away while Kenya’s butt cheeks fought each other under that printed satin jumpsuit.

This is not a good idea. The two of them talking alone, while on vacation, is not a good idea. First of all, what is there left to say? People barely cared about the alleged text message when it happened, and Apollo is still skating on very thin ice with Phaedra about it. She stopped talking to him for days after they even talked about it! Second, they were flirting about it instead of being real, which gave Phaedra every single reason to be skeptical and pissed off when she showed up and saw them talking. Kenya treats Phaedra like shit, but Apollo is married to Phaedra, which comes with an automatic “I got your back” built in. This isn’t about being a kept man — it’s about solidarity, and if you love your wife, you don’t spend time with the woman who treats your wife like shit, period.

Apollo tried to reassert that he and Kenya could have had sex, Kenya asked him to stop saying that because she never offered, and by the time Phaedra walked in I hoped she would just take off her rings and start swinging, no questions asked. Who does he think he is? He’s not cute enough to treat Phaedra like a fool, and he’s not smart enough to talk his way out of it. Did you hear the nonsense he was spewing? “A man could fall victim to that … our physicality could have made it happen …” APOLLO. You can’t just string together a few Word of the Day selections and sit at the grown-up’s table. In the end, we won’t find out how Phaedra really feels until next week, but Apollo looked like he was straight-up caught in the act when she came over and asked why they were talking.

What do you think — was Apollo wrong to talk to Kenya? Or were they just two adults trying to work through their differences?

Next week, Todd fights with NeNe, Phaedra calls Kenya “ratchet,” and Gregg fights with Peter. In other words, the vacation continues!

The Real Housewives of Atlanta Recap: Caving In