In the spirit of being a decent person, Kandi decides that, given the high level of conflict within their group, the Atlanta Housewives should get together for a nice peaceful meal and mend their fences. Which leads to the question…has she ever actually seen this show?
Housewives dinners are notorious for, well, ladies screaming at each other, even more acutely than they usually do on this franchise. People flip tables, they get in altercations with e-cig smoking psychics, they have mental breakdowns while eating organic gummy bears and referencing Al Sharpton, they hear that someone wants to "take the Beadors down" and lose their minds. To put it mildly, it's a scene, always.
Kandi must have had some inkling of what was coming when she visited Phaedra to invite her to the dinner and eat some of Phaedra's famous "guacamoooolaaaaay." (Side note: I can never truly dislike Phaedra in large part due to the verve with which she pronounces words.) It turns out that Apollo hasn't said anything directly to Phaedra about his confession to lying about Kenya, and Phaedra has her own opinions on the matter: "Like she paid Walter, or tried to pay Walter, trying to rent the African man, she paid Apollo to try to clean her character up. So, I don't believe it." Phaedra clearly hates Kenya MORE than she hates Apollo, which at this point is saying something.
Upon hearing that Kenya started crying when she heard the theory that Apollo is lying about lying, Phaedra busted out with what I consider her signature quote, "Lord Jesus, fix it." The Lord in turn was like, "I think I'm just going to leave this one and see what happens naturally."
At the dinner, Kenya brings up the Apollo situation pretty much as soon as everyone's there. She feels vindicated, and wants the others to allow her to have the benefit of the doubt. As you may have expected, she's up against a tough crowd, as Phaedra said a prayer including the words, "We come against whores, we come against liars" before Kenya arrived, and Nene's initial reaction to getting the invite was, "I don't need to apologize to Kenya cause I never called Kenya a whore. Now I ain't saying she ain't one, I'm just saying I ain't never called her that. No."
At the dinner, Nene maintains her position that she never said anything at all about the Phaedra/Kenya/Apollo situation, because she never cared. She hates Kenya for completely independent reasons! For her part, when Kenya calls her out for muttering under her breath, Phaedra says loud and clear, "I called you a whore and I called you a slut because if it look like a duck, it quack like a duck, and it's yellow swimming in a pool, please, it's a duck." That is…not an apology. Still, Kenya says that she forgives Phaedra, and Phaedra says that the slate is clear and clean, even though it's obviously not. But basically I think Phaedra is just exhausted and the producers probably told them to move on so we'd have time to get to Nene screaming.
So, former BFFs Nene and Cynthia have been at odds for a little while now, and the crux of the issue REALLY is the fact that Nene's awful. There were little incidents along the way that turned Cynthia off—Nene's behavior at Kenya's wack charity event, the fact that she called Peter a bitch—but overall I think it's just the cumulative effect of Nene being horrible. For her part, Nene didn't care for the fact that Cynthia didn't try to hash out their issues one-on-one, but rather brought them up at the reunion in what Nene saw as a bid to be relevant.
Cynthia thinks it's BS that Nene claims she doesn't know what went wrong in their relationship. And then as she starts to say, "If you were such a great friend…" Nene just goes off. Her extended soliloquy starts with, "You know I'm a good-ass friend, bitch," which certainly set a tone for the whole thing, and she eventually gets so heated that she has to dab her face with two napkins. The other ladies note that Nene didn't let Cynthia get a word in, which is one way of winning an argument. What's clear is that Nene is MAD about this. She and Cynthia were real friends, with a friendship contract and all, and Nene never thought that Cynthia would take her damn friendship and throw it away in front of people who could care less about it. The previews next week show a tearful Cynthia saying she wants to continue to be friends, because Cynthia essentially is a masochist.
There was one moment of peace during the dinner, when the ladies' mouths were too full of disgusting stale crackers for them to truly argue.
Did Don Juan plan this dinner? Maybe Kandi really should fire all of her staff.
Meanwhile, it might behoove Kandi to stop playing peacemaker and focus on issues closer to home, such as the fact that Mama Joyce's boyfriend wrecked her old house under the guise of doing "renovations." And was there not a record needle scratch sound effect in your head upon hearing the news that Mama Joyce has a boyfriend? How has this not been explored in greater depth?!?!
In any case, the house in question is the one that Kandi had initially given to Mama Joyce when she moved, although Mama Joyce never actually lived there. Probably because it's all torn up! Kandi has since bought Mama Joyce another house, and says she's going to hold Mama Joyce to her word that the mysterious boyfriend will fix up the old house so it's in good enough shape to sell. Todd points out that there are never consequences to Mama Joyce's actions, and per usual Kandi doesn't like him talking about her mom. Kandi also has a meal with awesome Old Lady Gang aunts Bertha and Joyce, who would like Joyce to get together with Todd's mom, Sharon, and work out their differences.
I would recommend an attractive platter of stale crackers to keep things peaceful. In sad news, Sharon passed away suddenly last week. She was a real spitfire, and probably the only person who could really go toe to toe with Mama Joyce. Judging from the previews, Sharon will have at least one more appearance on the show this season.
And finally, though Claudia is too new to have been included in the Stale Crackers Dinner of Doom, she hangs out a bit with Kenya (who she says may be cray-cray and occasionally ashy, but is not a liar or a whore) and we learn about difficulties she had growing up biracial. Claudia and her mom, who is Italian, have a difficult relationship and have never actually said, "I love you." Claudia's Italian mom and grandmother on her black side are coming to town soon, and if there is to be any emotional conflict over stale crackers I'm sure the cameras will capture it for our enjoyment.
Next time: There's more Nene and Cynthia, Derek J. is accused of being a hair burglar and seeks Phaedra's legal counsel, and Todd's mother Sharon threatens to punch Mama Joyce in the face because she is not scurrrred. RIP to that!
[Video and images via Bravo.]
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