When you think of the mothers of Real Housewives of Atlanta, you immediately think of Mama Joyce running around in that trench coat trying to get dirt on Phaedra. Has there ever been a more iconic mother moment? The shadow of Mama Joyce has always been long. Even if Mama Diane and Mama Michelle aren’t prancing around in fabulous outerwear, they’re causing enough trouble in their daughters’ lives to make this whole thing interesting. Plus, there’s Shamari continuing to only talk about her open relationship, much to everyone’s dismay. Let’s get into it.
This episode doesn’t open with one of those classic montages of each of the ladies opening champagne alone in their kitchens or telling their assistants that they’re going to need four bouquets of white chrysanthemums for the charity luncheon. Instead, we skip right to Porsha fixing up CRU so her mother can meet Dennis the Hot Dog King. Porsha and Dennis share a hookah while they wait for her mother to arrive. Is hookah like a thing in Atlanta? Because not only do Porsha and Dennis enjoy some hookah, Eva and her mom get some healing hookah! Obviously this is some Georgia tradition that I didn’t know about: sharing a hookah before or after a difficult mother-related conversation.
Porsha’s mom is wearing some sort of leopard print body-stocking-dress and she’s very interested in meeting the man that’s causing her daughter to have this glow. But she’s NOT PREGNANT! OH, NO! No dramatic irony here! Once Dennis says that things were just meant to be, Mama Diane starts talking about Porsha’s eggs. Can we not talk about a woman’s eggs? It’s 2018. Porsha is more than just her 37-year-old eggs. Then Porsha tells her mother about their matching tattoos.
Okay, so Porsha claims she was watching Dennis sleep (first YIKES) and she was so overcome with love that she told him she was going to get groceries. She went to get a tattoo. She got a tattoo to match Dennis’s. Oh, Porsha. Oh, dear, sweet Porsha. This is so lovely but also so nuts. There is too much wrapped up in tattoos in this relationship. Just buy each other a house or an engagement ring and get this whole thing over with.
Mama Diane’s main concern is that if Porsha gets married or moves in with Dennis, she won’t be able to spend time with her. There’s an undercurrent of a suggestion that she doesn’t want to be replaced. Is there a Greek myth about a mother who is obsessed with being replaced by her daughter’s new encased-meat tycoon boyfriend?
Then there’s this whole thing with Kandi and Porsha. Kandi barely has enough tea to fill a cup but she’s acting like she’s got the most juicy gossip in the world. Okay, so Porsha’s boyfriend gave other women gifts and got tattoos of their names? Candy bar commercials make fun of people who get multiple regrettable tattoos. Is it really that scandalous? It means that Kandi doesn’t think Porsha has inspected her boyfriend’s nude body, and according to Porsha, that’s all they’re doing. Kandi needs to focus on developing the story about Dennis dating someone when he met Porsha, because that’s the really juicy thing. It doesn’t matter if Kandi has enough information or not, because she’s questioning if she should tell Porsha. (Well, Kandi, you’ve already talked about it on national television, so I think Porsha is gonna find out about it.)
NeNe, Cynthia, and Marlo all basically tell Porsha to keep her damn mouth shut. NeNe picks up her glass of wine and walks RIGHT to Porsha …
… But before we can get to that mess, there’s another mother-daughter mess looming on the horizon. Eva is going wedding dress shopping with her mother. She’s worried that her mother is going to be hard to please because she eloped, so this is really her mother’s wedding. Eva keeps mentioning this as if it’s something that spontaneously happened, repeating this idea to her mother as if it’s fun and funny and not saying to her, “Mom, this is 100 percent my wedding and I will not have any tulle slander in my presence.” Instead of having that conversation like a top model and a top wife, she starts crying in the middle of her wedding dress shopping trip. At lunch, after trying to invite 40 extra people to her daughter’s wedding, Eva and Mama Michelle make up and share a hookah. As is tradition.
Shamari is setting up for her twins’ first birthday. She didn’t have a baby shower and it was a difficult pregnancy, so this is her celebration. I mean…yeah. The babies aren’t forming memories yet. Of course it’s for Shamari! Shamari also takes this time to re-explain her open relationship with DeVoe… to DeVoe. He was there. He remembers. He’s mostly embarrassed that she’s telling her friends and his mother about their sex life. I’m on DeVoe’s side here.
The birthday party is a chance for Eva to talk herself into a corner one more time. The game of “Pass the Peach” really touched a nerve with Shamari and Eva wants to say that she didn’t mean any harm and she didn’t mean it like that. Eva. You are walking around throwing shade at anyone older than you for no reason. You meant it.
NeNe has hired a nutritionist to help Gregg with his diet. They might believe that… going vegan… can replace… chemo? I’m VERY fuzzy on the details, but it does not seem rooted in, what’s the word, SCIENCE. NeNe and Gregg are obviously resistant to chemotherapy, but juice ain’t it, fam. Unfortunately, Gregg gets a call from the hospital that there are cancer cells in his blood. NeNe tries to ask if they tested her, could they find cancer cells in her blood? Is it just like a thing that happens sometimes? Oh, NeNe. Everyone is trying over at Chez Leakes.
Finally, Kandi, Cynthia, NeNe, and Porsha head out to a wine bar because Cynthia is going to be opening a wine bar. Does she know anything about wine? No. Does she have any experience running a bar? Maybe. Who is going to be her business partners? Unclear. The Bailey Wine Cellar. Coming 20??
The main topic of conversation is Dennis the Hot Dog King and who told Porsha about his tattooed ways. Kandi deduces it was NeNe because Cynthia and Marlo don’t give enough of a fuck to talk to Porsha. Porsha also says that NeNe told her and NeNe tells a producer while looking them dead in the eyes that she didn’t say anything. She dares you to tell her she’s a liar.
Porsha says this is all messy and Dennis doesn’t like messy. To be continued…
