The Real Housewives of Atlanta recap: Shade for Days

Honestly, what was happening in this episode? Since when can a girl not just have a private conversation while holding hands with her gal pal during a routine colonoscopy without it being deemed as “taking sides”? I don’t want to stick up for Porsha — I’m really not sticking up for Porsha — but the Kandi Koated Klique has it candy-coated twisted if they think they deserve even two more seconds of screen time. If I have to look at one more of shot of those pink pleather club chairs, I might just consider switching to The Real Housewives of Potomac. But first…I will have to find out where Potomac is.

Half of this week’s story line revolves around non-peach people we barely know — coincidentally, Kenya has tried to have every single one of them kicked off a boat — so you already know it was a reach to make anything pop in this hour. But as uninterested as I am in hearing DonJuan (still his real name) say, well, anything, count me in as 100 percent on board with seeing Phaedra get her ass handed to her by itty-bitty businessman Todd Tucker.

The not-so-subtle undertones the editors have been laying on this season with all the scenes of Todd typing on his phone while he’s supposed to be supporting Kandi have definitely been working on me, as I haven’t been feeling much fondness toward the man lately. But him coming into a business meeting with Phaedra prepared with actual business documents to force her to do the actual business of PAYIN’ HIM HIS MONEY has gone a long way toward winning me back to the Todd that used to just talk about how awful Mama Joyce is (that always gets someone into my good graces).

“Todd’s been yapping away about me owing him money, but he’s conveniently left out that he owes me an exercise DVD” has to be the most RHOA statement to ever R-H-O-A. Indeed, Phaedra has not received the DVD that Todd was helping her produce, but it seems that it’s because she stopped responding to him or paying him. I assume Phaedra realized that there was no need for a Donkey Booty Part 2: Return of the Donkey and hoped she could just give this project up without paying Todd the final third of his money. But Todd clearly has no patience for Phaedra’s run-around and has full access to a photocopier, so with just a little extra help from factual evidence that Phaedra has neither paid him or given him what he needs to finish the project, they move forward with promises to finish this thing, get Todd paid, and sell 10 copies on Amazon (all purchased by me because, no matter what, I care about Ayden’s well-being and future golf career).

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Another purveyor of exercise DVDs, Kenya, takes the week off from shade in favor of doing a little emotional development by hanging out with her dad while he’s in town. They drink flavored water; he screams “I LOVE TREES” while staring at a tree; he touches a few trees; he touches a few more trees; and he makes one tree metaphor that I didn’t fully follow as he and Kenya have an emotional talk about their complicated past. When Kenya was 12, after her father had moved the whole family to Houston, she ran away back to Detroit, and he didn’t speak to her again for five years. Kenya has been open about the pain that caused her, but her father also opens up about how hard it was for him to feel like the life he tried to build for his children wasn’t good enough. It seems like a true moment of emotional honesty, so it’s appropriately followed up by…

Porsha repeatedly telling Lauren how much the miracle of life growing inside her sister’s uterus is going to get in the way of her assisting Porsha with opening e-mails and choosing the right emojis for text responses. “In this situation, I think I have a right to be a drama queen because this is our livelihood,” is a sentence that Porsha says, again, in reference to having to find a new assistant for a few months, and not about the actual life that her sister is bringing into the world. Of course, she has this life-altering conversation while having a full sheet of eyelashes glued on in preparation for hosting Dish Nation’s red carpet show at the Emmys, which is…actually a pretty cool opportunity for her, all things considered. I mean, I’m not going to act like I wouldn’t mind getting a whiff of Michael K. Williams.

NEXT: Don’t you Juan-a talk about this?

And so, with Kenya mending familial relationships, Phaedra being forced to act like an adult human lawyer who understands how contracts worked, and Michael K. Williams fully sniffed by Porsha, we’ve come to the Kandi Koated portion of the evening. At the top of the episode, Shamea stopped by Kandi’s office to remind us that she is still a person who exists and, seemingly, to try to set the record straight about what happened when DonJuan overheard Porsha and Phaedra talking about the Todd situation, and things went from zero to cat-screeching faster than Kim Fields changing back into her sweatpants once she’s released from having to socialize with her co-workers.

But rather than explaining that they were simply asking Phaedra if the Todd thing was a contributing factor to the shift in her friendship with Kandi, Shamea mostly lets DonJuan yell over her for 10 minutes. Then she says something to get Kandi talking about how Porsha is always getting in her business while the editors play clips of Porsha more or less just talking to Phaedra about her issues with Kandi in private settings. I explained the final Harry Potter movie to my mom during an ABC Family marathon over the holidays, but I wouldn’t say we were really getting into J.K. Rowling’s business. Again, I don’t want to defend Porsha, but I also don’t want to listen to DonJuan try to act like he was doing anything but trying to get on camera by “overhearing” a small conversation among friends and then screaming about it outside of his boss’ party.

At yet another party with a confusing premise — Cynthia is throwing a “customer appreciation” event where she affords her appreciated customers the opportunity to pay her money in exchange for sunglass goods (and damn it, some of those sunnies were pretty cute) — Porsha shows up ready to speak to Kandi about what happened outside her event with DonJuan, and they head off to have a private talk. But DonJuan sees this happening and says the phrase that I assume is knitted on all the throw pillows in his home: ‘I don’t think they need to have a conversation with me not in it.” DonJuan thinks that Porsha will misconstrue the facts if she speaks to Kandi alone, but he also seems to be forgetting that he only heard one line of the original conversation.

DonJuan and Carmon perform a full SEAL Team 6 drop-in on the conversation before it can even get started, but Porsha says she doesn’t want to talk to the entire Kandi Koated Klique; Kandi says that’s fine but she shouldn’t expect any “extras” in the future; I say, “??????” Kandi leaves the conversation and Porsha storms out with Shamea chasing after her and Carmon (who I’ve had a soft spot for ever since Mama Joyce threw her clog at her, but really…what is she trying to accomplish here?) shortly behind, hoping to talk to her. But Porsha is having none of it and evacuates the premises.

But in the end, none of it really matters because Kandi and Porsha get past it over a meal of about six different delicious-looking beverages stacked to the brim with Sonic ice. Kandi does turn up pretty dramatically for a moment when Porsha explains that she’s devoted more time to understanding Phaedra’s side of the Phaedra/Kandi saga because Phaedra has needed her more since Apollo went to jail. Kandi really doesn’t like that because she says Phaedra was ready to be rid of Apollo way before he went to jail, but when Porsha fires back that it doesn’t make the experience any less painful, Kandi actually calms herself down enough to consider that reasoning, and they decide to move on. And that’s why, terrible hirer or not (terrible picker of office décor or not), you can still count on Kandi. I would not, however, recommend that you attempt to have a private conversation with/about her.

What did you think of this episode? Has Porsha really been getting into Kandi’s business more than average lately? Are there any fans of the Kandi Koated Klique out there? Was Phaedra trying to give Todd the ol’ exercise DVD run-around? Sound off in the comments!