By Collin Kelley
Editor

On this week’s episode, Cynthia is still trying to get her Miss Renaissance pageant off the ground. Kenya shows up at The Bailey Agency with a 16-year-old girl in tow and wants to enter her in the pageant. Kenya says she frequently mentors young women, which boggles the mind. Mentors them to be inappropriate, man-crazy, ratchet, cray-crays? I digress.

Against her better judgement (or any judgement), Cynthia agrees to let Kenya be a judge at the Miss Renaissance pageant. Kenya, who feels like she has a new lease on life after her breast cancer scare, agrees to be on her best behavior. Cynthia visits NeNe (who’s back in Atlanta during a break from filming The New Normal) to unload about the pageant and her concerns about Kenya. “She was Miss USA, so this is her thing,” Cynthia whines.

“I don’t give a damn if she was Miss Boo Boo,” Nene says rolling her eyes. “She acted like a fool at the magazine thing and you don’t need someone trying to wreck your sh-t.” Nene also has some concerns about the planned “girls vacation” to LA to watch Nene in action. “These girls better not come to LA and show their black asses or their will be problems.” If that’s not a harbinger of next week’s episode, I don’t know what is.

Porsha meets Kordell for dinner and he continues to try and control her life. He wants her to devote less time to her charity work and be home earlier. Despite Porsha’s dreams of having twins, Kordell isn’t sure his wife is ready for the responsibility of motherhood, so Porsha borrows her neice for a week and leaves the dog to babysit her. Okay, not really (well… sorta), but quickly learns that changing diapers, making dinner and keeping up with a toddler is more work than she thought it would be. Duh.

Over at Phaedra and Apollo’s house, celebrity Chef Roble is cooking up “aphrodisiac food,” including muscles that resemble vaginas. Kandi and Todd are along, too, and talk about the trip to LA. As the food comes out, Phaedra says she’s feeling sexy and ready ready to get pregnant. Kandi has other things on her mind, namely recording her new gospel song, “Prayed Up,” with Marvin Sapp.

Sapp has flown in to record the song, but Kandi is nervous and gets an extra surprise when her father, Titus, shows up. Titus hopes the song will knock some of the “heathen” out of his daughter, but winds up crying as he listens to the playback of the song. Award-winning Sapp knocks the song out in a couple of takes.

The last half of the episode is all about the train wreck that is the Miss Renaissance pageant. Actor/model Boris Kodjoe is the cohost and is obviously there just to collect a check. He doesn’t even bother to dress up and looks like he just got off a 12 hour flight. Cynthia sees this as a bad sign, and she’s right. Cynthia and Boris screw up the script and call all the girls by their wrong names, forget that a line of teens is waiting backstage to walk the runway and go to an intermission instead and Boris’ little put-downs and “comedic” asides show just what he thinks about the mess of a pageant. Oh, and Kenya shows up in full Miss USA regalia including her 20 year old sash, but in a jaw-dropper somehow finds the strength not to criticize Cynthia to her face.

After an awkward delay in the vote count, the pageant ends on a high note and all the girls seem happy to have taken part in it. Cynthia deserves some props for not turning Miss Renaissance into a Toddlers & Tiaras horror show. Despite all the miscues, it actually looked like a classy pageant. Damn, Kenya’s good will must be rubbing off on me.

Collin KelleyEditor

Collin Kelley has been the editor of Atlanta Intown for two decades and has been a journalist and freelance writer for 35 years. He’s also an award-winning poet and novelist.