Time to sit down for another relaxing episode of Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood. We start this episode with … fighting. Spoiler alert: The middle of the episode is fighting. And the end of the episode? Well you guessed it, people are fighting. Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood has more violence than a UFC tournament. Why? Because our favorite cast members lack the emotional maturity to resolve problems with their words. I can’t relate to this at all. I have never been in a physical altercation, certainly not of the televised variety. But without these incessant confrontations, this wouldn’t be a Love & Hip Hop franchise, it’d be a Behind the Music special on artists you don’t know or care about.
But let’s hop in. We start at the end of the Bentleys vs. Lyricas food fight, which could be in the Guinness World Records book for Most Middle-aged Participants. These are parents throwing coleslaw at each other in a public restaurant. And mind you, this is supposed to be the moment that Lyrica announces she’s pregnant with A1’s bedazzled baby. Instead, there are more security guards here than at a mall cop convention, and I’d just like to take the time to thank the best tactical team since SEAL Team Six. As mentioned, they will be working for their check today, because half the LHHH cast is feeling knuck and the other half is feeling buck. But I digress … This scene ends with Lyrica’s mother, who I will refer to as Big Lyrica, crying on the side of the 305 highway after her daughter tells her she’s pregnant. This is not the environment I would want to bring a child into, but that’s just me. Someone people like tomatoes, other people like to throw food.
Let’s hop on over to the next Family Feud™. Shun Love and Amber Riley argue because they are a mother and daughter who have no business working with each other. Shun Love is an off-brand Kris Jenner, who pays for her daughter’s photo shoot and tells her how to live. Amber is a way-off-brand Kim who has neither the confidence or the business savvy. It is abundantly clear that Shun Love is trying to live vicariously through her daughter’s career. I don’t understand this, but I don’t have children. Who knows? One day, I could name my daughter Ziwe Jr. and make her join the New York Philharmonic. It truly doesn’t matter, there are bigger and better fights for us to get into anyway.
This next confrontation is not necessarily a fight between people, but rather a fight between Brooke and reality. She believes she can bully Marcus into marrying her if she books a hotel room, a priest, and a one-way flight for his mom. I’d say that Brooke is dead wrong, but she gets exactly what she wants from Marcus: a formal proposal and a ring. I would love to take Brooke’s Mastercard Masterclass™ on how to coerce loved ones into appeasing my outrageous demands because Brooke has two rings. I may not relate to her journey, but I certainly respect the hustle.
Our next Battle Royale™ is at Akbar’s house. It’s not entirely clear what these women are fighting about. At first, it seems like they are arguing over who gets to be Akbar’s main sister-wife, but Teairra makes it clear that she’s not interested. At some point, Alessandra and Not Sade start to bicker about who gets to speak. Then, Akbar and Not Sade get into it about who gets to pick the women invited into their harem. Teairra realizes that this conversation is fruitless and makes the second best decision to leave. (The best decision is to not have gone to Akbar’s house in the first place, but again, all I can do is try to relate to these women.) This is when Not Sade and Alessandra cut loose like a pack of wildebeest, charging Teairrra and Paris. Akbar is left in the dust wondering how he let this get so out of control. If we are rating Love & Hip Hop fights on a scale of America’s Funniest Home Videos to American Ninja Warrior, (and we shouldn’t rate these because that’s morally reprehensible), I’d give this an 8. There were cardio, surprise attacks, and aerial leaps. Again, special shout-out to the hardest working security team on VH1, I never want to see anyone get hurt, and they ensure I can enjoy this show (slightly) guilt-free.
On the other side of town, RoccStar brings Paris and Brooke to Amber Riley’s single release party to pretend to like her music. He’s paid half the crowd to bob their heads, which makes me wonder what the going rate is for Background Actor at Friend’s Show. Standing around and pretending to have fun is something I do for free anyway, so this doesn’t seem like a bad gig. I’d like to submit my resumé. RoccStar plays Amber Riley’s song … To say that this is the worst song I’ve ever heard would be an understatement. This is what they played Noreiga to break his psyche. It’s not music, it’s torture. And Shun Love knows this and she’s enraged because she dropped $20,000 on this record. I don’t blame her for being upset, I blame her for wasting that kind of money on garbage. If you want to set up your daughter financially for life, consider buying her some stocks and bonds. RoccStar responds to her rage by playing Amber Riley’s raw vocals to a room full of people that already think she’s untalented. To put it mildly, the raw vocals sound like a cat being waterboarded. Everyone grimaces as their ears bleed.
Finally, we head to that appears to be the Last Supper™. This is the fight we saw so acutely in the previews where A1 fights gravity and jumps over a ten-foot table. I’d like to approach this scene as a case study in each cast member playing their role. We start with Ray J and Princess. Ray feels guilty about knowing Safaree’s little secret and has invited him to confront A1 and Lyrica at their dinner. This annoys Princess because she’s been under house arrest for the last couple of weeks and hasn’t seen her friends. She rightfully tells Ray J to get over his feelings and stop causing drama. Ray J says he’ll pay for dinner. This is the least he could do for ruining what is supposed to be A1 and Lyrica’s baby announcement. Ray J is our de facto pot-stirrer and Princess is his foil.
Brooke announces that she and Marcus have gotten re-engaged for the first time. It’s tactless to do this at someone else’s event, but our favorite villainess is great at making things about her. Never to be outdone, Lyrica interrupts the toast everyone is giving to Brooke to announce that she and A1 are having a baby. Lyrica and A1 are oblivious to the drama coming their way that their personal lives are at the center of. Love it or hate it, A1 and Lyrica are the nucleus of this season, and without them (or rather their marital problems) there would be no central drama. In his confessional, Ray J wonders whose baby Lyrica is carrying, because he is the the troublemaker and this question is certain to make trouble.
Safaree arrives at the party and says nearly nothing, he’s playing the role of unwilling antagonist. My problem with Safaree is that if he can admit to Ray J that he slept with Lyrica, he should be able to say this to A1’s face. Anything less is cowardly. Ray J has no business being the bearer of bad news but of course, he does the dirty work because our plot has got to move forward somehow. Also, props to Marcus, who is playing his role of giving reaction shots. Safaree responds to the drama by saying, “I don’t know what you got going on in your relationship, but leave me out of it.” It’s a little late for that, Safaree. If you wanted to be left out of the drama you shouldn’t have gossiped about a married woman in the first place. But again, I can’t relate to this. All I can do is grab my popcorn and wonder how A1 defies the laws of gravity to hop over that table.
