The Real Housewives of Atlanta recap: Beauties and the Beat

Remember how last week’s RHOA was all about righting racial prejudices, appropriate ages to expose children to real-world injustices, and social activism?

Well this week, it’s about makeup! And it’s about as interesting as watching any random teenager’s 18-minute “Sephora haul” video with 308 hits on YouTube. If you were looking to be entertained, might I suggest a game I started playing which entails trying to figure out in what order Kandi said things in her interviews by tracking how far down in her chair she’s slid and to what degree her breasts are attempting to escape her white dress. It’s actually pretty fun! And if you added drinking to the mix and maybe taped a mustache to your TV, you could have one hell of a time.

Less fun: watching Kenya and to a slightly lesser degree, Cynthia, attempt to craft story lines from nothing, on a foundation of zilch, with a little bit of nada on the side. Most of tonight’s drama centered on Kim throwing a makeup-free brunch that Kenya took, ahem, umbrage at; but first Kandi and Todd have to learn to be parents from a woman who has breastfed her own child long enough that he “asks for it by name.” You guys: I am not a parent, and I 100 percent do not know the average age a baby stops breastfeeding, but that comment really messed me up. I just don’t think that’s an activity during which I would want to be having a conversation with the other participating party. Also, what “name” does he call it???

Todd keeps insisting that he’s ready for the baby to come because he’s been “Googling stuff,” but he also uses terminology like, “This is my first time having a baby from scratch,” which makes me think he might be ready to follow a mashed-potato recipe, but waking up six times in the middle of the night could be a rude awakening for the new dad.

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Also in for a surprise: Kim Fields who thinks she can get these mega-glam women to show up on camera without full lashes and the finest contouring a Wet ‘N Wild palette can provide. She wants to host a “Beat-less Brunch” — “beat” is a common term for a done-up face — for her new co-workers friends to “celebrate where the canvas is when it’s a little more blank.” She invites her stylist over to help her plan the brunch, and I know what you’re probably thinking: “Kim…has…a…stylist?” Then I want to make sure you also know that during their meeting Kim is wearing some sort of tie-dye effect, off-the-shoulder number that is made out of — I kid you not — velour, and as the “stylist” does not immediately burn it, I do not believe she is a stylist to be trusted.

To invite the women to her brunch, Kim sends out a voice memo, which is not really a cool way to do anything, but I will hand this to Kim: She is never very concerned with trying to be cool. And I’ll also give Kim that wanting to have a get together where everyone doesn’t have to get all gussied up like they normally are isn’t an inherently awful idea. And probably if she had just taken that angle, rather than saying, “I think we have to remember that makeup is to enhance, not to cover up what you already have,” in the audiobook she sent as an invitation, her guests might have been more into it. And maybe a couple less trinkets from the Tuesday Morning clearance bin to “remind them of their inner beauty” next time.

NEXT: Shrimp and grits and umbrage…

So, those are my thoughts, and had I been invited to the Beat-less Brunch via a cassette recording, I probably would have had those thoughts in my head, talked a little smack to my best friend in the group, then slapped on some BB cream, one layer of mascara, and gone to cash in on my free mimosas and waffles. Kenya, on the other hand, got very defensive, riled herself up the whole ride over as all 5-foot-nothing of Kandi drove her in Todd’s huge-ass truck and proceeded to give a lengthy monologue at the brunch table about how no one should be telling her how she should look, and she took offense to the implication that they all wear too much makeup.

It’s Kenya’s right to be offended that Kim suggested that she not wear makeup to her house. But it’s also Kenya’s right to not go to the brunch if she didn’t agree with it. You don’t go to a party and then tell the host why you think their party is dumb, even if their party is dumb and only one person really followed the suggested rules (Sheree, by the way, who looked fabulous and is following every rule set in front of her until she gets her damn peach back). But, oh well, it’s not like these two have to get along.

Oh wait! In other forced story line news, Cynthia is pretending like she just has to have both Kim and Kenya to produce and direct her commercial. As a reminder, that’s a commercial for her eyewear line, a thing for which you absolutely do not advertise for on television. They’re sunglasses, not a laundry detergent — take out a page in Essence or something. Alas, the producers probably wouldn’t agree to pay for that. What they will pay for is Cynthia insisting that she needs the best TV commercial in the world, so she therefore needs the creative genius of both Kenya and Kim to combine forces. Unfortunately, Kim and Kenya can’t stand each other and don’t want to work together. Kenya deals with this by attempting to name drop Tyler Perry, and Kim deals with it by noting that she’s directed “two or three hundred hours of television” and then actually showing up for the pitch meeting with Cynthia, complete with concepts and storyboards…

Kenya bails on the meeting because she decides to work on her house instead — just the kind of priorities you want in the director of your eyewear commercials. Elsewhere in professionalism, Porsha is doing very well at Dish Nation and sporting some sassy new braids, and Phaedra is assembling a small army of lawyers to begin the process of getting a divorce from Apollo.

But we know it, they know it, little Ayden in his Burberry shirt probably even knows it — this was just one big hour of beat-less filler. We’d all be best advised to reserve our energy for next week’s trip to Jamaica, the second return of NeNe and — oy — whatever Kenya is stirring up about Kim’s husband. To your battle stations, friends, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.