Real Housewives of Atlanta: Scenes from a marriage

By Collin Kelley
Editor

The Real Housewives of Atlanta come back from their holiday in Anguilla, but there’s still plenty of fall-out and sudden cracks in relationships which have never appeared before – most notably Apollo’s strip-club confession that he’s lost his individuality since getting married. Cue that mile-wide side-eye from Phaedra.

But before we get to that, the episode begins with Nene meeting Kenya at Davio’s for lunch. In the cutaway, Nene says she believes Kenya is delusional and just wants to talk to her and see if she is “real.” Cue MY mile-wide side-eye. Of course they rehash Kenya’s Gone With the Wind twirl-off with Porsha in Anguilla and then move on to Kenya’s meltdown over Walter not asking her to marry him. In another cutaway, Nene says she believes Kenya really wants a baby more than a man. “I know a guy down on the corner,” Nene cackles. “We’ll get a turkey baster and get the sperm in her.” Nene offers to introduce Kenya to a rich friend, which makes Kenya’s eyes light up like a true gold-digger.

Cynthia and Kandi arrive at Porsha’s giant manse, and Porsha proves once again she doesn’t have a head for math. When Cynthia asks how many bedrooms the house has, Porsha starts counting on her fingers. Seven or eight. Maybe. The number Porsha can remember is two – as in twins. She’s still babbling about eating yams like an African tribe she read about that uses them to increase fertility. There’s more rehashing of Anguilla and Kandi admits she and Todd are seriously talking marriage and she might want a couple more kids.

Kenya meets with Phaedra and Apollo to talk about the donkey booty workout video. Kenya actually seems to know what she’s talking about when it comes to video production and distribution, but then gets annoyed because Phaedra and Apollo don’t have a name for the video, any idea how long it should be and argue over the intensity of the workout needed to acquire a donkey booty. Kenya gives the couple a signed DVD of a movie she was in where she played a hooker and this segues into her asking if Apollo and Phaedra ever role-play. Kenya is just a whole lotta extra.

Peter conveniently gets an alert on his phone that links to a blog report about Phaedra and Apollo’s marriage being on the rocks. Cynthia spills a little tea and says she knows Apollo goes to strip clubs all the time. Then Cynthia asks Peter if he goes to strip clubs and he admits he does with his friends. How could she not know this? Are they not married and living in the same house?  Cynthia compares Atlanta’s fascination and casual attitude toward strip clubs with going to Starbucks, then suggests that she and Peter have a couples date with Phaedra and Apollo to watch some strippers. Classy!

Kenya meets Walter for another confrontational lunch about why he hasn’t proposed to her. She doesn’t want to be his girlfriend, she wants to be his wife – like yesterday! Walter says, again, that he won’t be pressured into marriage and admits he’s not in love with her enough to marry her. If you believe Walter’s confession to V-103, he’s just “acting” and collecting a paycheck from the Bravo folks playing the Michael Douglas to Kenya’s Glenn Close. If Kenya’s desperate pursuit of Walter is real, then she should have her photo next to the definition of thirsty in Urban Dictionary.

Phaedra brings over her pastor to bless Kandi’s new house and says she wants to plan Kandi and Todd’s wedding. “I don’t want to be like Kenya and scare off Todd,” Kandi says wide-eyed. Phaedra then launches into a sermon about how marriage is hard. “I want to kill my husband most days. He wants to talk in the morning and I wants to be left alone,” Phaedra admits, forgetting her own pronouncement that marriage is sacred and problems shouldn’t be discussed in polite company. Or in front of millions of people watching on television.

Peter, Cynthia, Phaedra and Apollo meet up at the Clermont Lounge to watch the “seasoned” strippers take it off for dolla bills, y’all. While Phaedra and Cynthia cheer on the matronly dancers to take it off, a grossed out Peter encourages them to keep it on. While Phaedra makes it rain on the memaw crotches, Apollo launches into a soliloquy about how he feels that married couples need to have their own “sectors of time” so they keep their sense of humor and individual attributes. Apollo admits to going to strip clubs often because he wants to be the “funny, juvial (I think he meant jovial, but who the hell knows) person I used to be.”

At Peter’s restaurant/club, Bar One, a party is being held to launch a new wine that Cynthia is apparently the new spokesperson for, although this is never explained. As the boys get progressively drunker on tequila shots, Apollo opens up about spending 16 months in solitary confinement during his six-year prison term. On the state of his marriage, Apollo says he’s “dealing with a god—m beast” whose personality is always turned up to “one million every day.” What a charmer.

Walter arrives late to Bar One, ignores Kenya and goes to have shots with the boys. When he finally approaches Kenya, she gets huffy and leaves but not before being confronted by Porsha who wants to take another stab at mending fences. Kenya is not in the mood and says in the cutaway that she “doesn’t have time to play nice with dumb-dumb.” Kenya tells Porsha they will never be friends, but maybe they can be cordial to each other while filming scenes for the reality show they are both being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to appear on.

At the end of the episode, a drunken Apollo grabs Phaedra and they start inappropriately groping and making out (tongue wrasslin’ as my grandpa would have called it). Apollo announces that he and his wife are like porn stars in the bedroom and Phaedra says the only way she’ll leave Apollo is when Willie Watkins Funeral Home comes to get him. She doesn’t indicate if Apollo’s demise will be natural causes or homicide. Cynthia thinks their acting out is “damage control,” while Kandi encourages them to simply “get a room.”

Take note that RHOA is moving to its new 8 p.m. time slot next Sunday.