The Real Housewives of Atlanta recap: 'Reunion: Part 2'

Let me be clear: I have one favorite cast member on The Real Housewives of Atlanta; his name is Ayden Nida and he is a cookie entrepreneur. I’m sorry, li’l baby Dylan — as a youngest child myself, I understand that’s not fair. You are just as precious, and per your recent frozen yogurt shop rant (as a reminder: “It’s not fair, I tell! What he doin’? Where he go? When I speak to you, I talk to you! I get so mad!”), you are just as much of a wunderkind with words as your older brother. Alas, I gave my heart to Ayden first, and so it is with him my allegiances firmly stand.

As for the other six bozos exposing their man-made underboobs to the right and left of Andy Cohen on Sunday night, there are no favorites. There are perhaps least favorites. But mostly, there is an ever-vacillating Scale of Tolerability, and nowhere are those constant swings in disfavor more obvious than on a reunion special.

There is no titty tape strong enough to keep the Tolerability Index in place, but currently, in part two of this historic four-part reunion, Phaedra has swung to the far right at “Nearly Intolerable.” She’s just so Full (clap emoji!) of (clap emoji!) It (clap emoji!) this season, and the fact that she is occasionally hilarious and asks for her panty-eating booty to be lifted up in prayer does not make her any less full of it. And since Phaedra seems to be public enemy No. 1 during this reunion, that pushes other women up the tolerability spectrum, even if their behavior is also, quite technically, ridonculous.

For the last two weeks, I have at points found myself thinking that Kenya had moved into “Reasonable by Default” territory, and that really pains me on a personal level as, before this season, Kenya pretty consistently made me want to stuff a Bedroom Kandi dildo in each of my ears just to tune out every trifling thing she had to say. But that’s what these reunions are for: personal reflection. And upon that personal reflection, they are for not learning from your bad behavior, not apologizing, and digging your heels in forever and ever, no matter how petty the topic.

It is still unclear exactly what kind of turned-up s— is coming that warrants this reunion special being an unprecedented four parts. What is clear: “Instagram open letters” are the new “The Blogs” — only the most reliable news sources for our Housewives of choice. Let’s slide into those DMs, shall we?

It’s Too Late to ‘Porsha-gize

Picking up where we left off (and, weirdly, overlapping quite a bit), Andy asks Kandi if she thinks Porsha has really been going to anger management. Angered by her questioning response, Porsha accuses the other women of still not being able to celebrate her even when she’s trying to better herself. Kandi does not like that outburst, given that she recently donated $5,000 “for her little thing on her show,” by which she means Celebrity Apprentice, a show that should burn in Hell right beside Nene’s tiki hut wig.

Allison from Winston-Salem wants to know if all of Porsha’s work in anger management has made her rethink her conclusions about her former physical altercations with Cynthia and Kenya. Porsha says, “At the end of the day” — never a good start — “I apologized to both of them… No, I don’t think they got what they deserved.” Kenya points out that Porsha has never actually apologized to her; Porsha insists that she has, on camera, and the RHOA editors who will never get the Emmy they deserve roll the apology Porsha is referencing: “That wasn’t the way I wanted to react. As a grown woman meeting you, I acknowledge that that happened.”

And you know what? I think Porsha truly believes she has apologized. I think Porsha thinks that’s what an apology is. I will give this to her though: She’s made it to at least noon without losing her damn mind or screaming at the level of a Basketball Wife.

Destructive In Luv

I didn’t want anything to do with Matt when he first pretended to ask Kenya out at the gym. I didn’t want anything to do with Matt when he pretended to start dating Kenya. I didn’t want anything to do with Matt when he broke every glass surface that Kenya owned. And I still don’t want anything to do with Matt. Kenya says she’s not unlike any other woman who’s stayed in a bad relationship too long, but she does feel bad about the message she may have sent to other women: “I think when you see those signs of aggression, you have to leave at the first sign of it. Because if you stay in it too long, you can really end up dead.”

The only part of revisiting Matt’s story line I am interested in is Andy saying very solemnly, “Kenya, in an open letter on Instagram” — hahahahaha — “Matt accused you of booking him for the show.” Kenya says that Matt has posted and deleted a hundred posts about her: “It’s just his cycle of abuse.” I firmly believe that Matt being a dick and Kenya faking her story lines are not mutually exclusive. Andy asks about Kenya’s new boyfriend, which she thought was just between them, but Andy thought it was common knowledge because Matt posted an open letter on Instagram — last time: hahahahaha — that very day addressed to that person, letting him know that he left three magnum condoms in the drawer. “He also posted a Women Crush Wednesday in support of Porsha.”

Hey Andy: How do you do this stuff with a straight face? Hey Matt: Shut the f— up.

Shaedra Parks, Esq.

Now, I will give Phaedra this: the question, “Why didn’t you share the details of the divorce with the ladies?” is patently ridiculous. Why should she share the details of her divorce with anyone but her lawyers and her very closest loved ones? Phaedra answers simply, “Because they’re not my friends.”

That would be all well and good, except the problem here is two-fold: Phaedra doesn’t keep private about her life; she lies about her life, as evidenced by the flashback to the sketchy timelines of both her first pregnancy and her divorce — both things where she thinks she looks shady for the truth (pregnant before marriage, drawn out divorce), but she only looks shady for lying about the truth.

And the other thing: you can’t just say that these people aren’t your friends, even though I respect her a little bit for it. That’s a fireable offense. This whole thing is predicated on being able to pretend that it’s reasonable for you to be spending time with these women outside of contractual obligation. Once you stop being able to sell that lie to us, you’re about as useful as a mini elastic hairband to Cynthia’s current hairdo (which I think is pretty luscious, by the way). So tread lightly, Katniss — President Snow-ehn doesn’t like it when you go off script.

Phaedra pulls out some papers from the Armrest of Truth (Sponsored by Kinkos); they’re her final judgment and decree of divorce papers, apparently. And Kenya immediately chimes in, “But he’s since contested that because the actual filings purposefully misspelled his name, and he was never notified,” because Kenya is a dog with a bone and she just can’t help herself. The Tolerability Scale teeters ominously. Phaedra tells Kenya to worry about her own truth: “We both know the truth is that nobody wants you. You’re like an old condo that they done converted into a town home,” which might be a hilariously specific burn if Phaedra could ever come up with a single read that isn’t predicated on the fundamental lie that a woman’s value is solely in being wanted by a man. The scale rights itself.

The Real Angel Babies of Atlanta

How do I get an hour of watching cute babies be cute and nice kids and grow up to be nice young adults (who maybe smoke a little weed when they shouldn’t)? This segment even contains the only official admittance of being in the wrong when Sheree outright says that she owes Nene an apology for ever going after her son about shoplifting: “[Kids] definitely should be off limits.”

Women Supporting Women

It’s a humble moment I wish Sheree could have repeated when Andy asks her why she accused Kenya of potentially provoking Matt when she herself is a victim of abuse. This is tricky ground, of course, because Kenya apparently outed Sheree for having been abused in this moment — in what Phaedra and Porsha say was a mocking manner — and because Sheree insists repeatedly that she would never “condone a man putting his hands on a woman whether she provoked him or not.” But the only thing it would take for either of these missteps to be righted is saying, I misspoke. I don’t know why I said that, but there’s nothing Kenya could ever do to provoke that kind of aggressive behavior/that was an insensitive way to speak about Sheree’s abuse.

They don’t say that. Sheree insists she was just talking about the way Kenya provokes the other women, and Kenya plays coy about how she knew information about Sheree’s past that Sheree hadn’t told her herself. If this show has accomplished one single thing (that’s a big if and an emphasis on single), it’s exposing Bob in such a transparent way that Sheree could no longer entertain the idea of getting back with him. Sheree says she would have never talked about the past abuse if it hadn’t come up — even her mom and her closest friends didn’t know most of it. She had repressed it, tucked it away to be able to move forward and keep raising her children.

She can’t believe that he talked about it either: “Honestly, I think he forgot where he was. I think he forgot the cameras were there.” Sheree beats herself up for ever believing he could change when he’s never even copped to leaving her, without a single word, with two small children. As always, it’s difficult but important to watch. What’s heartening is Sheree’s final takeaway — “You have to love yourself and know your worth, and you have to know when to get out” — and the way the other women lift Sheree up, telling her it’s okay to be human and that none of it is her fault.

So what in the ever-loving hell is about to take us from this nice moment to everyone weeping in that hallways of the Georgia Ballroom? Sound off in the comments with theories and insights from any Instagram open letters you may have come across!