Real Housewives of Atlanta Recap: Nene's 'Bout to Put Her Drag Queen Out of a Job

They’re baaaaack…Yes, kiddies, those crazy gals and near-gals from Hotlanta are back and raring to zoom into another RHOA season. Some new faces are promised and some past faces are gone. Specifically the one face that wondered how the locomotives travelled through the Underground Railroad church visited last season. Yes, I’m talking to YOU Porsha. Although, just like in RHONJ, even though some of the housewives don’t have the official beginning-of-the-show quotation they appear anyway so we do get to see Porsha. In fact we get to see LOTS of Porsha since Kandi catches up with her at some kind of photo shoot wherein Ms. P The Former Mrs. Cordell Stewart is clad in some kind of black body sling that mostly looks like the Unikini that Sasha Baron Cohen wore in Borat. In other words: HIDEOUS. And a little scary. Of course the first thing out of Ms. Kandi’s mouth is to ask Porsha if she’s yet had anyone “suck on them new titties”. Uh, OK…Porsha falls into gales of the fakest laughter in a sea of fake laughers but does not confirm or deny. Only later does Kenya helpfully inform us that Ms. Porsha is reportedly bedding some “old ass married man”. Ouch. But maybe it’s for the best ‘cause if he’s old enough he might be toothless and, well, you get the picture. With the new titties and all.

Nene Leakes isn’t even fucking IN Atlanta as we begin this new season. No, ya’ll, Nene’s in Vegas, baby getting ready to take on the MC role in some Cirque De Soleil monstrosity called “Zumanity”. I’m watching these clips from rehearsals and honestly I used to think of Cirque as a pretty classy gig what with all the double and triple jointed gymnasts floating around on ropes and spinning tent-sized scarves. This Zumanity Cirque appears to be nothing more than a live sex show, so, yeah….Cirque’s on the downstroke, folks. Anyway, Nene has been hired to be the Master (or Mistress) of Ceremonies for this melee and, true to Nene form, in her talking head she’s got it puffed up to be a rival for something with, you know, class. She natters on and on about learning her lines and her wigs and her outrageous makeup. We see her getting all dolled up and when they put the finishing touch on her, a wig that appears to weigh about 50 pounds and would make Dolly Parton blush, Nene’s first response is that she looks like a drag queen. Of herself! Crickets as nobody disagrees. Anyway in the glimpses we get of the show it appears that Nene spends most of her time twirling around on some kind of circular platform that comes up out of the floor to stage level and then slinks around the stage making arch comments (HER LINES!!) to the hapless “volunteers” from the audience who are either too drunk or too bummed out from losing at the craps tables (or both) to understand that they’re being brought up on stage to “participate” in The Cirque De Soleil’s Skin in Sin City Show…aka Zumanity. Also, a quick camera pan out into the audience shows us that there are a few (quite a few) empty seats and that those in attendance are pretty wasted. No matter; Nene Leakes is nothing if not her own best shill and she makes it seem like her performance will soon enough end up in Oscar contention. Also, I forgot to mention that Nene’s new catchphrase to begin the show is “Why be so nasty and so rude when I can be so fierce and so successful?” We’ll see how long that lasts. I give it another one and a half, maybe two episodes.

We’re brought up to date on the newly married Kandi and Todd, who are preparing their palatial home to welcome Todd’s 18-year old daughter (You got a brotha?) who’s coming to live with them. In this sequence we get a quick pan into Kandi’s daughter Riley’s room and it appears that Riley has her own talk show in there. The place is fucking HUGE with her name in eight foot letters splayed across one wall ala Oprah! Plus, girl’s got a TV in there that’s bigger than the screens at my local multiplex. I think she MIGHT be 13. So Kandi and Todd (but mostly Kandi) are fretting that Todd’s kid might be a little intimidated by the Riley Show in the next room so they’re trying to put in a few little touches to make her feel welcome. I don’t know guys, but you might be past “little touches” at this point. I’d start with an Olympic hot tub in her bathroom. Just sayin’. Kandi and Todd are also still not seeing eye-to-eye on one evil MIL, namely Mama Joyce, she of the evil eye and constant threat to cut a bitch. Apparently in the RHOA hiatus Kandi bought her mother a house but Mama Joyce has decided that she doesn’t like that house, so Kandi, being the abused…er, I mean, devoted…daughter that she is, takes her ungrateful crazy-ass mother house shopping. We watch as they tour a seven bedroom house, down the street from Kandi and Todd (we can hear Todd’s hair turning grey) that comes with a built in pool, several full baths, a basketball court (for when Mama Joyce wants to practice her layups, I guess) and, did I mention, SEVEN BEDROOMS! Now remember, Mama Joyce is single and will be living in this monstrosity ALONE. Whatevs, Kandi, you gotta do what you gotta do, but truth be told: YO MAMA IS CRAY CRAY! And kinda scary. But it’s all good ‘cause Mama Joyce is happy. She’ll deign to live in this house that her groveling but wildly successful little girl is buying for her. Hey Todd: is there enough booty in the world to cover this new turn of events? DOWN THE STREET, BROTHER…DOWN THE STREET!

What else? What else? Oh, yeah: Apollo Nida and Phaedra Parks. He’s going to jail and she could not care less. ‘Nuff said. But seriously, I have always had a love/hate relationship with Phaedra so I find myself falling more on the love side during this FUBAR mess. Phaedra’s got two darling little boys to raise and their father has done nothing but fuck up since day one. On the other hand, she KNEW what she was getting when she married him because our Phaedra is no dummy. Anyhoo, the big, new reveal on the Apollo front is that, now that he’s poised to enter federal prison AGAIN, this time for eight years, he feels the need to make things right with those he wronged. Apollo, not bright enough to understand the 12 steps is kind of picking and choosing amongst them and jumps directly to Step 9: Making Amends. The amendee is one Kenya Moore, the pariah of the last two seasons of RHOA, the one witchy, evil woman that everyone, especially Phaedra, loved to hate. Namely because she chased after another woman’s husband. We’ve heard for the last two years about how Kenya chased after Apollo and how she offered him many, many blow jobs (creepily, the Bravo producers chose to refer to it as fellatio, so we got to hear that icky word several times during the episode). Finally, Apollo, on the eve of his new incarceration, and at Cynthia’s BarOne “I’m Old and Still Hot and Here’s My Ebony Photo Spread to Prove It” party, corners Kenya and, face-to-face, admits that he lied about her pursuit of him, that he lied about the sexting, that he lied about the BJs! Wow…what a shock! A felon that lies! Kenya tersely acknowledges his admission but tells us she’s holding out, and won’t be happy, until she gets an in person apology from Miss Phaedra. Hmmm….Hell is actually not scheduled to freeze over for another several millennia, but, whatever. When Kandi, Todd, Cynthia and Old Ass Uncle Ben hear, from Apollo himself, that he made all that shit up, they look like they’ve just heard that news from Mother Theresa, not a two-time felon who earned his second trip to federal prison by doing what now? Oh, yeah: LYING MOTHERFUCKERS!

I give props of the episode to Old Ass Uncle Ben though, ‘cause he ended the episode with the

funniest line of the night: “Shit, we gotta apologize to that woman for calling her a Ho for the last two years.” Ya think, jackass? It can only go downhill from here, right? Shit, The ABIB’s counting on it. Also? I’m taking a poll on how long Nene’s gonna be able to stay true to “Fierce and Successful versus Rude and Nasty” shtick. Everyone knows that Nene positively LIVES for rude and nasty. Maybe she’ll do a hybrid and be Fierce and Successfully Rude and Nasty. Stay tuned.