Return of the mack! (Watch my flow!) Return of the mack! (Oh my God!) Dwight is BACK and a chorus of dreadful angels are singing, but first we have to deal with a lot of moving boxes, yelling, and a $20,000 birthday party for a 2-year old.
Much to my dismay, this is a Kim-heavy episode. She’s moving (being evicted from? Kicked out of?) her dream home, which she is now referring to as “The Haunted Mansion,” since a door once opened on its own. I think she’s just trying to paint the situation with a layer of shit to save face — she really loved that house and now she has to get out. It has to be a difficult pill to swallow, but luckily Kim is super mature and not at all vindictive, so this will all go swimmingly! She yells about her wig brush and shuffles from room to room rubbing her pregnant belly before she eventually propels herself into the kitchen to try to convince Kroy to have sex in the bathroom. Sweetie pukes in her mouth and leaves the kitchen with an “I hate my life” flourish, while Kroy sits at the counter, grows a tiny beard, eats some pizza, and goes to work. We won’t see him again except in flashback to really drive home how much Kim is doing ALL BY HERSELF (with a team of movers), ALL ALONE (with Sweetie in control of everything).
Kandi is also finalizing her move this week; it’s going so well she may as well be sleeping, but instead she lazily paws through some boxes with her mom. Kandi’s mom talks in mumbles and thought balloons so I couldn’t hear most of what she was saying, but it was revealed that she apparently thought she would be moving in with Kandi, which wouldn’t be too difficult since her new house is actually TWO NEW HOUSES (I will officially never get over it). Kandi puts the brakes on that so that she can enjoy living with her boyfriend Todd. They laugh at the $100,000 price tag of Kim’s move, which is a nice segue back to see how Kim is handling things down on Skid Row. It’s not going well: The Mario Brothers are packing her basement in the most haphazard style possible, putting margarita mixers in the same box as Christmas lanterns, wig stands with Billy Bass singing fish, all in boxes labeled “basement mix,” like a terrible CD from your nineties rave-loving boyfriend or an unfortunate box of Chex. In a confessional, Kandi pulls down all the shades by saying that while she’s irritated Kim thinks her multi-million-dollar neighborhood is unsafe, at least everybody owns their home.
Phaedra and Apollo give us a break from the stress of this double move by taking 2-year-old Ayden to get his first haircut. He’s already crying before they even walk into the place, and they give him a pair of clippers from Phaedra’s purse to calm him down. This seems like an awesome parenting technique to get him acquainted with the thing that scares him, but it also reminds me of people who give ticking clocks wrapped in a blanket to new puppies to replicate their mother’s heartbeat. Did you know that Certified Nutritionist Fitness Expert Repo Man Apollo is also a master barber? So says Phaedra, so say we all. Apollo starts the haircut while Ayden wails, and I’m wondering why they didn’t just do this at home if Apollo is such an expert. The barber swoops in to finish the job, and we learn that his name is Rocky. ROCKY AND APOLLO. I was waiting for Dolph Lundgren to stomp in, look Ayden in the eye, and say, “I must BREAK you,” but they just carry on planning Ayden’s birthday party and everyone goes home.
Next, Porsha blinds us with her neon sports bra as she cracks eggs and threatens to make breakfast for her husband, Kordell. Kordell seems to agree that calling Kenya Miss America was pretty jacked up, but Porsha brushes it off as a “fraudulent slip.” Did any of her grandfather’s money go toward her education? Just curious. Porsha insists that she apologized twice, which I actively do not remember. There’s some immature chatter about Kenya potentially acting out because she is old and has low self-esteem, and I cringe at the depth of Porsha’s immaturity.
Speaking of Kenya, she’s on her way to dinner with Walter, where she will introduce him to her Aunt Lori for the first time. In the parade of family members and awkward questions that follow, we learn that Kenya’s cousins are named Milan and Che, Walter and Kenya met at a bowling contest, and Aunt Lori still calls dating “courtship.” Walter says he wants to wait until he’s really in love to get married again, which turns Kenya’s face into a storm cloud of negative emotion, but Aunt Lori appreciates that he’s so old-fashioned. They spend the rest of the meal talking about Kenya like she’s not there and giving Walter high fives.
Finally, Phaedra brings Dwight back into our lives at Ayden’s aquarium-themed birthday party! He looks like a dapper scarecrow in his bright blue suit, surveying his tiny party kingdom. Phaedra says she and Dwight “don’t plan parties, we coordinate experiences,” and if I don’t see that cross-stitched on a pillow by the end of the week I will be greatly disappointed in all of you. Kandi shows up wearing a shirt that makes it look like she took a gunshot wound to the ribs and accurately predicts that Phaedra’s entrance will be crazy two seconds before a full drum corps and choo-choo train roll through, carrying the entire Phaedra clan. Kandi pins $100 to Ayden’s shirt, Kim cancels last minute, everyone is treated to an incredibly long private dolphin show, and a guy dressed like Gaston calls dolphins “sea monsters” before the day is finally through.
Back at the House on Haunted Hill, Kim is mad at her kids for playing with plastic wrap when “there’s so much to do,” even though she has just been hovering in doorways and whining for what seems like a week straight. Kandi thinks Kim should have just moved out quietly and politely since she’s the wife of a professional football player, but Kim thinks “the higher you climb the more people want to tear you down.” Ariana meditates in a cardboard box, and I applaud this kid for having enough intuition to stay out of her mother’s way as much as possible.
Cynthia and Nene take their finest wicker fedoras out to lunch. Nene spots a Jack Russell and calls it a “wolf,” and then casually tells Cynthia that Phaedra sort of might totally hate her. Cynthia is confused, so Nene plays a voice mail from one of Phaedra’s butt-dials that was sent to a good friend of hers, where we can hear Phaedra say she doesn’t really give a fuck about Cynthia coming to Ayden’s party. They play the message again, and then embark on a master class of clowning, capping on Phaedra’s southern gentlewoman persona with exaggerated faces and eye rolls. Cynthia asks Nene what she should do about this now that she’s heard this message, and Nene tells her to confront Phaedra. I don’t know how to feel about this, and this is my least favorite part of their friendship; Cynthia is always the willing little sister to Nene’s controlling ways. Also, for someone who doesn’t have time for the drama, Nene certainly instigates a lot of it, amirite?
Porsha talks a big game about climbing a rock wall and then falls flat on her ass. But we learn that she has a competitive younger sister, so that’s something? I’m still convinced she’s only on the show to make Kenya look like less of a monster, a task at which she is succeeding admirably.
Kenya saunters into her kitchen with some bags from the grocery store and quickly starts to heat up food in the microwave in preparation for the dinner she’s “making” for Walter. She looks at her dog and says, “I have to make a salad,” pours a prepackaged salad into a bowl, and then dumps some of the microwaved noodles into a clean pan to make it look like she cooked them. Kenya is nuts, but so highly entertaining. Walter comes over with a bottle of Alizé and they carry dinner down to her backyard, where they are serenaded by frogs. Kenya says this meal is a preview of every night they could spend together if they got married, and then, in one of the ballsiest moves I’ve ever witnessed, straight up lies and talks about how long this meal took her to make — marinating the chicken, cooking the noodles, etc. She knows she’s on-camera, right? She vacillates between “I’m not putting pressure on you” and “let’s have a baby immediately” for a few minutes. When she asks about the possibility of their being pregnant in five months, Walter raises his glass and says, “I don’t know — keep drinking, boo!” You guys, this is going to end well, I can feel it.
Cynthia and Phaedra meet at the Star Wars cantina, where Cynthia presents a giant gift for Ayden and says, “This is the only party of his I’ve ever missed.” I am not a fan of Cynthia, but she is about to set Phaedra up like a motherfucker, and I have to give her props for her slickness. Cynthia slides into it, saying, “Somebody told me you said you didn’t give an eff-you-see-kay about my going to the party.” She actually spells it out, which tarnishes her Girl Scout badge in confrontation for a second, but she quickly brings it around to “I did hear it for myself and I have it here if you want to listen to it” total annihilation. Damn, girl — oota goota, Solo? Phaedra looks on like a deer in headlights before quickly changing the subject to a bug bite on her boob, but there’s no denying she has been properly called out.
Kim finally makes it back to her townhouse with Sweetie and the kids in tow. It’s nicely painted and the movers have set up her wigs on the mantle. Kim asks her kids if they’re excited, to which they shrug and leave to go hang out with their friends. She chastises Sweetie for eating the glazed doughnuts she brought for Kroy, which is the exact way to thank the person who orchestrated packing and moving your entire family. A moving van shows up full of the alleged $40,000 worth of plants and trees Kim planted at her old house, and they stand in the street, cackling like hyenas at what is sure to end up a $40,000 pile of dirt in the corner of her yard.
Next time we get to meet Kandi’s kegel balls, watch Porsha try to calculate how many days are in a year, and watch them all try to sit down to a dinner that devolves into a massive fight. Where is Sheree when you need her?
