The Real Housewives of Atlanta The Shades of It All Season 8 Episode 1 Editor’s Rating 4 stars * * * * « Previous Next » L-R: Cynthia Bailey, Kim Fields, Porsha Williams. Photo: Rodrigo Valera/Bravo

Friendships, by now, some of you may know me as the resident recapper of Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder. Well, I’m completing a hat trick by recapping this season of Foolish Weaves & Biscuit Dreams, which is better known as The Real Housewives of Atlanta, and I’m so freaking excited! Now, most people in anticipation of last night might have prepped by watching the marathon Bravo aired right before the season eight premiere. I’m not most people. I, instead, called my parents:

Me: Mom, what are you up to tonight? I’m watching Real Housewives of Atlanta.

Mom: Oh! I heard Tootie Fields was going to be on.

Me: You mean, Kim Fields?

My parents started laughing uncontrollably like they were auditioning to be in a Lawry’s Seasoned Salt commercial and then spent the next 15 minutes discussing Adele.

Dad: What’s the song she had out before “Hello”?

Mom: Oooh, I know what you’re talking about. Uh —

Me: “Skyfall”?

Dad: No … she had one after that.

Me: You mean her new song “Hello”?

Dad: No, there was another song. It was before “Hello.”

Mom: It was in a movie.

Me: “Skyfall.”

Mom: No, but what’s the movie?

Me: Skyfall.

Dad: No, it was a song that was on the radio.

Me: All her songs have been on the radio. Her new song is “Hello.” The one before it was “Skyfall.”

Mom: The movie?

Dad: You know, I don’t really like her that much.

Me: So, we spent 15 minutes on this because …

And if you guessed that after that phone call I sent an email to President Barack Obama with the subject heading “Totes Figured Out How to Defeat Isis. Play Them This Conversation on a Loop,” you are, indeed, correct. Anyway, my parents are older and cute and RHOA is older and … something. NeNe-less (she’s returning as a guest at the end of the season)? Definitely. Revitalized? Kind of, thanks to Sheree bringing the appropriate amount of drama before people had time to digest their first pig-in-a-blanket at Cynthia’s party. That’s right, guys! We maybe have lost a NeNe, but we gained a Sheree, who is injecting some much-needed life into this aging series and into last night’s premiere, which was pretty solid, but Sheree didn’t really shine until she strutted into Cynthia’s sunglasses-line launch party. Much like this show, this career venture of Cynthia’s makes no sense and I’m here for it. So let’s discuss!

I lied. One more thing before we talk about last night. Let’s check out each of the ladies’ taglines:

My hot take: Woo, boy, way to shoehorn the name of your show into your tagline, Kim. Let’s just all be glad she didn’t star on Diners, Drive-ins & Dives, because she probably would have said something like this: “French fries, flapjacks, and cheese. Yep, plain ole yullah cheese — those are the things I like to eat at Diners, Drive-ins & Dives.” We get it, Kim! Also, I love you.

My hot take: More like “take my life” because whenever I have to listen to her nonsense, more and more of my brain cells commit samurai suicide.

My hot take: This whole “twirl” is hanging on for dear life like John McClane hangs off window ledges in Die Hard. Let it go, Kenya!

My hot take: I want to tease her for this, but she’s having a tough enough year with her marriage (more on that below), so I feel bad piling on.

My hot take: Got nothing but love for Phae-Phae, so she escapes my wrath … this time.

My hot take: “… hitmaker?” Look, “No Scrubs” was an amazing song! But that was 16 years ago, and her music with Xscape is even older. Let’s change “hitmaker” to “I work steadily so I can afford my Aetna insurance.”

Okay, now that we’re all settled in, let dive into what went down last night.

We open with a snapshot of all the ladies: Phaedra is raising her kids, Kenya is renovating the house she just bought, Porsha is leaving a cutesy voice mail for a new boo, who will hopefully treat her better than Kordell’s tired ass, and Kandi and Todd are pregnant! A little over 12 weeks along, to be exact, which is very exciting, until Kandi mentions that she’s spotting a little bit. Eep! Doc says to lighten the workload; Kandi counters that pregnant women work all the time. That’s when her doctor tells her in the politest manner possible, “You’re old. You’re tired. You need to your sit your ass down and watch old episodes of A Different World so you stop putting your pregnancy at risk.” And I totally agree with this! This is not a game, Kandi!

We then catch up with Phaedra who prepares for her hang-out session with Porsha by putting together a grand spread of parfaits, fruits, and cheeses. Clearly I’m a bad friend because when I have peeps over, all I do is, “There are no snacks, that Brita filter is new tho.” Sorry. Anyway, Porsha is looking great, working a lot on Dish Nation, and is in great spirits because she’s dating a twentysomething (nice!) football player (No! Not again!) whom she met when he hit her up on Instagram (oof!). I mean, is this what the kids are doing these days to meet? If so, I’m too old for this mess, so I guess when I’m on my deathbed and someone asks me when my last date was, my vajeen and I will be like:

Anyway, I’m happy for Porsha. She really seems happy, and I like that she’s cool with Phaedra, but there’s a part of me that wishes Kandi was still Phaedra’s bosom buddy. Things change, so I guess P&P are going to be Frick and Frack. But enough about their friendship, Porsha’s love life, and Phaedra’s home life, which is okay by the way. The only thing that matters is them spilling the tea: There is a video on Instagram of Peter, Cynthia’s husband, whispering in some random heaux’s ear and “accidentally” grazing her boob. YIKES! This is not a good look considering there are already rumors of Peter cheating.

Naturally, when Cynthia confronts him about this, he acts like a bowl of gorilla boo-boo and says, “I ain’t trying to fuck her and she ain’t trying to fuck me!” How about “I’m sorry,” or “I know how this looks and I cannot believe I embarrassed you like that,” or “My bad for rubbing on this lady’s breast the way Bobby Flay rubs his hands on his chef’s apron after chopping some onions?” Apparently, that is too much to ask. He then explains that this is simply a woman who frequents his Sports One bar in Charlotte. UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, so you grazed the boob of someone who comes to your bar regularly? Not suspect at all, Peter. Thankfully, Cynthia calls him out and tells him that he can’t do b.s. like this. Ugh, can they please get a divorce? He’s garbage.

Back to Porsha. Her footballer bae, Duke, is in town visiting. She’s clearly over the moon about him and says that she feels like a sugar mama and wants to buy him nice stuff all the time. Le sigh. I know Porsha likes to act like she’s the age of a Olympic gymnast from Belarus, but the. Chick. Is. In. Her. 30s. Meaning, she should be wiser than blowing money a dude just because he might have that smooth stroke. Like what is she think-oh. All she got him is a T-shirt from Costco and a bottle of Champagne that’s called “Cupcake”? Okay. So she spent $13.75 then, which is the appropriate amount to spend on a rebound. Carry on!

Kenya shows Cynthia her new crib. It’s like The Last House on the Left, aka terrifying, but Cynthia pulled a Chrissy Teigen and tried to hide her horror. It’s definitely a fixer-upper, so we’ll see what it looks like by season’s end. What’s even scarier than this house is that Kenya conveniently lives 500 feet from Sheree. I see you, Bravo. Speaking of houses, Phaedra is chilling with her mom and says that she is going to file for divorce. Seems like she doesn’t all the way want to do this, but that’s what Apollo wants. So sad. Meanwhile at Kandi’s house, she and Todd are gossiping about Phaedra and Apollo. Phae says that he has been in contact with his kids a lot; he denies it. Then Todd vents about not receiving full payment for Phaedra’s exercise video that he worked on. Let’s see … given the show’s history of friends working with friends’ story lines, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Todd is never going to get the last $8K that he’s owed.

Malorie, Cynthia’s sister, is in town for Cy’s party for the launch of her sunglasses line. Once again, the subject returns to Peter. Granted, Malorie has never liked Peter, didn’t want him to marry her sister, and is pretty much a messy person, but there is a lot of truth in what she says. Like when she answers Cynthia’s question and says that she believes Peter is cheating on her (it’s all over town that he sleeps around now that he’s away in Charlotte — so much for his Sports One bar). Or when Cynthia admits she’s not attracted to Peter and Malorie goes, “THAT’S A PROBLEM!!” And Cy is like, “But I love him and isn’t that the same thing as being attracted to someone?”

CYNTHIA, you are a grown-ass woman. Please tell me you are not this Looney Tunes. You know what a good relationship is supposed to be like, and if looking at your husband makes your vajeen dry as the canyon Britney Spears stood in during her “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet Woman” music video then you. Need. To. End. That. Relationship. Jeez! I hope she will hear this because I’m tried of her crying over a guy and a relationship that is simply not healthy. But on to happier things! Like the night of Cynthia’s sunglasses-line launch party.

The sunglasses look fine, but let’s be real, guys. These things are going to end up in BJ’s Warehouse next to a display for Gulden’s spicy mustard. But I’m still going to support Cyn because she’s going through a tough time and she works hard-ish. Everyone is at the party: Porsha, Kenya, Malorie, Phaedra, Kandi, and … Marlo? I can’t. Why is she here? No one knows, but we all move on because the big question of the night is: Will Peter show up to the launch party? Again, if your husband is in town and the best he can give you is a Facebook “maybe” for attending an important party for your new business, you need to kick his dusty ass to the curb, Cynthia!

While Cynthia is getting ready for the party, Kenya is busy going around telling anyone who will listen about the ongoing saga of Chateau Sheree. Yes, we all know Sheree has been working on the house for three years and at this point, this seems like such a lame thing for Kenya to be gossiping about as her home isn’t finished yet either. Granted, she’s only been working on hers for six months; I just don’t understand why she cares. The drama, I guess. Before we can get to that drama, Kenya has other drama to start!

As soon as Peter rolls into the party, she has him come over to her, Marlo, and Malorie, and starts trying to shame him about the Instagram video. This is absurd. Look, as much as I hate Peter, it’s so stupid for Kenya to get in the middle of a married couple’s argument. But this is Kenya we’re talking about, so this is basically par for course. She asks why he was late to the party, and he jokes because he was hanging out with the woman from the Instagram video. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. What in the natural hell? He just got reamed out by his wife for fraternizing with women, and now he’s joking to his wife’s friends that he’s doing stuff like that? This cat needs to ctrl+alt+del himself to the nearest trashcan. He, unfortunately, does not, and proceeds to have a cussing match with Kenya. #Eyeroll. This is typical of both of them, so I’m pretty much over it. Moving on.

Marlo, Malorie, and Kenya catch up with the other ladies about what just happened. They’re all “shocked” like this sort of thing never happens. Kenya stays, getting cussed out by someone because she stirs the pot non-stop. Then, apropos of nothing, Malorie says she think Peter was cheating and brings up the heart-to-heart she had with Cynthia. She flat-out tells them that Cynthia said she’s not attracted to Peter with his clothes off. GUYS. WHAT? Malorie waited about to .678 seconds to tell everyone that Cynthia’s vajeen essentially does this when she sees Peter naked:

It must really suck when your sister Linda Tripp’s you. There was absolutely no reason for Malorie to ever repeat this information. Malorie claims she loves her sister, but at a certain point, she’s just being an asshole. Obviously, Peter is trash, but she needs to accept that if her sister wants to be with him, she will continue to make that mistake. It’s not Malorie’s job to try to ruin the relationship and spread gossip around town. Speaking of, what is Malorie’s job? Someone please tell me.

It’s the lady of the hour! Cynthia descends from a spiral staircase wearing a white bikini and a blinged-out cover up that Cynthia lifts up to show how sick her body is. Peter looks bored like he’s waiting in line at Subway to order a six-inch sub, so I’m convinced he’s cheating. I mean, what husband is not going to get even a little turned on seeing his wife like that. She looked AMAZING! And I’m happy that she has this moment to feel good about herself. Unfortunately, this joy is short-lived (no!) because Sheree has arrived (yay!).

Sheree is pretty nice to everyone and then Kenya is like, “Hi, nice to meet you again for the first time in years. So why are you still sleeping at Best Western and eating their continental breakfast? Because you can’t afford to finish building your house?” L to the M to the A to the O. Even Sheree is like, “WUT?” And then they proceed to argue. I think while we can all agree the Kenya-Sheree fight was so obviously manufactured, (I mean, who meets someone for the first time and acts like that big of a buffoon), it was still highly entertaining. There were accusations of mold, mentions of Kenya’s family’s supposed massive construction company, and Kenya’s house supposedly is in a ditch while Sheree is sleeping in a tent. I love it! Then I remember poor Cynthia. This was her night. Well, not anymore because this fight is all anyone can pay attention to, and if there’s one big takeaway from the showdown, it’s this: Don’t waste a crisp lime wedge on a heifer you don’t like. Sheree almost dumped her vodka-tonic on Kenya, and thankfully Porsha stops her and the lime wedge lives to see another day. Hooray! Just then we see “To Be Continued …” on our screens so we’ll have to wait until next week to see how the rest of the fight goes down.

Alrighty, what did you think of the big season-eight premiere? Do you miss NeNe? How do you think the fight will end between Sheree and Kenya? Let me know in the comments below.