Of Stallions and Booties and Name Dropping Southern Belles: The Real Housewives of Atlanta Recap

This week's episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta continued to explore the monumental falling out between the formerly allied Phaedra (Phae-Phae) and Kenya (I Was MISS USA, bitches). New alliances are formed and old ones are left in the dust! Allegations of alcoholism and bipolar disorder are thrown around like little dirty bombs! Hey, we're told, lithium works wonders! We rejoin the action at one of Atlanta's hottest tickets: THE HAIR SHOW COMPETITION! No, seriously, according to Cynthia, this hair show is one of Atlanta's most sought after face-time opportunities, and honestly, if the hair do's we see are any indication, this show would probably also play really well on Mars. The crowd thrilled to watching Atlanta's "celebrity" hairstylists pouf and flat iron and back comb their way to artistic heights of some seriously crazy-ass hair. And the winner walks off with $1,000! Um, $1,000? I'm pretty sure I saw $1,000 in gel nails alone just in the 45 seconds we were at the big blow-out. "Big blow-out" at the hair show...see how I did that? Nevermind.

So, Cynthia was some kind of MC or celebrity special guest and she brought her new bestie (allied in Phaedra/Apollo haterville) Kenya up onto the stage. Kenya still does the slow-turning pageant show wave even though her pageant days are waayyy behind her. Just sayin'. Right off the bat there was mucho pot-stirring going on, fronted by none other than RHOA's very best sex toy pot-stirrer, Kandi. The show's own two celebrity hairstylists, Miss Lawrence and Derek are right in the middle of the trash-talk, with Derek being the one to spill the whole "Kenya is doing her own booty video to undercut Phaedra and Apollo" to Kandi who promptly goes with Kenya on a bedroom decorating shopping tour to the HQ of Kenya's production designer! Taking flashy home decorating to a whole 'nother level, Kandi is ready to engage a fucking production designer to help decorate Riley's new bedroom. And get Kenya to 'fess up to her crafty ways. The middle-aged white dude who is Kenya's production designer (and really, folks, don't we ALL need one of those?) looked totally baffled to actually be on screen with these two women but gamely tagged along as they walked and talked and - HOLY CRAP - came upon a true GIGANTIC BOOTY! OK, Bravo, I gotta ask: what's the deal with the ass fixation on this version of the RH franchise? I'm thinking it's getting a little overdone already.

Anyway, here is where the middle-aged white dude really just totally lost the thread of exactly how on earth he ended up in this sitch and politely excused himself, leaving Kandi and Kenya to continue on with their escalating "discussion" of how Kenya was fucking with Phaedra. Kenya was having none of it and repeatedly told Kandi that she was well within her rights as a producer, not to mention her rights as a bitch that done got cut out of the $$, to go on ahead with her own bootylicious straight to DVD drek. Oy, can we tawk people? Again, who the fuck is the market for these exercise videos that are all about making YOUR ASS BIGGER? Kandi's talking head continued to insist that Kenya was all kinds of wrong, but I'm guessing that the average viewer really couldn't give a shit, 'cause, even though I like Kandi, she's an annoying busybody who loves to make trouble and then quietly back away. Feh.

Meantime and in between time, Cynthia, rockin' a deadly Bruno Mars fedora, is at The Bailey Modeling Agency honchoing a run-through of the children's fashion show coming up to raise money for kids with AIDS. It had some name with Red in it but I can't remember and don't care enough to Google it right now. Cythia's actually OK. Last season she got on my nerves, what with the drama around her husband Uncle Ben and how he was ditching her special events to go drink at some skanky ho bar. Actually, he still does that, as we saw earlier this season when he and Cynthia and Phaedra and Apollo went to a strip club on Fat, Old White Lady Amateur Night. So, yeah, Uncle Ben is still an old ass skeevy dude and I can't figure out why someone as lovely to look at as Cynthia is hooked up with him. Anyway, Cynthia's overseeing the kiddie catwalk rehearsal when in comes Phaedra, Apollo and Ayden. OK, gotta say this: is it just me or does Ayden look EXACTLY like Nene's ex Grigg? At this point in the show it's official for me: Phaedra and Apollo are monumental ass hats. Cynthia tells the camera that, no way is Ayden gonna monopolize her show with his toddler antics. If Ayden can't march the catwalk like everyone else then Ayden can sit in the audience with his pain in the ass parents. Yeah, right, Cynthia. Even though Ayden acts exactly like a spoiled two year old, which is after all what he is, we see him, at the actual show, being hoisted atop his father's shoulders and carried down the catwalk. The whole family is a major annoyance to me, kid included.

Behind the scenes Porsha is reaching out to Phaedra to form an alliance against the "crazy, evil" Kenya. They meet for lattes and chai, each decked out to the nines in RED, baby! "We must have been in a coral mood", coos Phaedra to her new, young apprentice. The ladies sit outside and sip their beverages, all the while trash-talking Kenya and pretty much casting her in the role of evil incarnate. Did I mention yet how much I'm hatin' on Phaedra this season? Porsha is looking more and more like a true Mean Girl, telling Phaedra that when she "looked at Kenya's contacts she saw crazy in there." Girl, please, all of ya'll are fucking crazy, don't even try it. Porsha confesses that she's trying to get pregnant and that she's already had one miscarriage. Fleeting feeling of sympathy evaporates quickly as she directly delivers the line alleging that she saw evil in Kenya's contact lenses. Uh, OK...

After the meet and greet with Porsha we travel with Phaedra and Apollo to the offices of a REAL exercise video production company and this segment is where my distaste for Phaedra got hardened into hater concrete. Phaedra picked a most unfortunate outfit to wear to a meeting where she's pitching herself as the star of an exercise video. The fat roll over the waistline of her pants is second only to her painfully squeezed tiny booby cleavage as icky and inappropriate. The two dudes (Will and Dave? Will and Ed? Will and Grace?) who take the meeting with the booty impresarios are the guys who, allegedly, produced Jane Fonda's exercise videos. Once Jane's name is mentioned we hear Phaedra assert (with accompanying photographic evidence) that it was her GOOD FRIEND Jane Fonda who was the one who got her with Apollo and who has inspired her to become an exercise video maven herself. Pardon me, folks, while I gag all over again. I think this segment was the most ridiculously hilarious/difficult to watch footage I've ever seen on the RH programming. Any of them. Where oh where do I begin? With Phaedra's obnoxious name dropping? With her ridiculous prompting of Apollo to demonstrate the "moves" they're going to use on the video - moves that appear to rely on a thinly veiled porn movie theme? With the bewildered, deer in the headlights look the one producer gives her the entire time she's talking? All the while his partner is nervously laughing, the fake "I'm counting the seconds until this embarrassment ends" smile never leaving his face? OMG it was really, really difficult to watch. Phaedra's smug talking head at the end, wherein she reminds us that she plans to obliterate Kenya with her own crafty know-how, made me want to hurl a large metal object directly at the TV.

After the fashion show all of our ladies, along with Apollo, congregate backstage and the real drama begins to unfold. But not before my favorite part of the entire episode, Nene talking to the camera and telling us all that Phaedra is a sneaky cheater who has a past laden with chicanery (my word not hers). Atta girl, Nene! I LOVE me some Nene! So anyhoo, Phaedra and Apollo attempt to confront Kenya with her underhandedness (pot calling the kettle black you two numbskulls!) accusing her of stealing their Donkey Booty idea and just renaming it Stallion Workout. Phaedra asks Kenya, in her most smarmy voice, if she knows that a stallion is a MALE animal? I had kinda wondered the same thing, truth be told, considering Kenya herself is planning to star in the video. No matter; Kenya conjures some explanation and dismisses Phaedra and her "full of shititis" condition. At one point Apollo uses some kind of street slang for stealing - was it biting - and Kenya slam dunks him by requesting that he speak English, please. Ouch. Point Kenya.

No resolution is reached before Kenya marches off camera, apparently tired of sparring with the selfsame nitwits she accused of being ass clowns last week. So looks like it's going to be the Battle Royal of the Booties! Will Kenya's Stallion Booty trouce Phaedra's Donkey Booty? I did enjoy how many of the ladies opined on camera that they wouldn't want to have a booty like a donkey. Nene even went so far as to ask us: do you know what a donkey looks like? You go, girl! I LOVE me some, Nene! Come back next week for The ABIB's recap of The Real Housewives of Atlanta!