Kenya Moore knows how to to throw down, but baby, she ain’t got nothin’ on Ms. Kandi Burruss.
Maybe Kandi was using up all of the frustration she had saved up from her mama’s wild and crazy antics regarding her engagement to Todd, but when Cynthia, her husband Peter and her sister Mallory pushed Kandi to her limit, she was about ready to hit knock them all out with a dragon punch.
Let’s rewind a bit. Earlier in the evening, a fight broke out between Apollo, Peter and Brandon DeShazer over Christopher Williams’ bone-headed decision to grab Kenya by the arm when she got up to address his so-called wife Natalie’s yapping.
Once Christopher put his paws on Kenya, Brandon leapt to her defense and Peter and Apollo allegedly tried to “break things up,” but only succeeded in making things worse. Before you know it, Apollo is punching Brandon like he stole his milk money and everyone is screaming their heads off to end the madness.
Episode 14 opens right in the aftermath of the Apollo/Brandon fight and people are still busy trying to separate the two and ease the situation. After Brandon and Kenya finally leave the building, the people left behind start trying to piece together the events that led up to the blowout.
Christopher Williams starts by blaming Kenya and complaining about her interference in his relationship with his wife, Natalie, which he says she knows nothing about.
Kandi’s ears perk up at this because Christopher’s wife, Natalie, was equally as meddling and gossipy in her “assessment” of Todd to Cynthia. Kandi politely brings this fact up to the group and you can see the color draining from Christopher’s gaunt, crack-touched face.
Before you can say, “Hold up, wait a minute,” Natalie the bird is on her feet chirp, chirping away about how she merely said Todd could “swerve” and find himself in a “better situation.” She never called him an “opportunist,” she insisted.
BYE, FELICIA.
We all know what coded language like “swerve” and “better situation” mean. Own up to what you’re implying and stop being messy, you wet-haired dog.
Things got really turnt up tho when Cynthia realized that SHE was being dragged into this because SHE was the source of the dish about Todd to the rest of the girls.
Cynthia’s defense was that Kandi and Todd weren’t paying attention to the “FULL PICTURE.” Natalie also said nice things about Todd, she emphasized.
Um. I guess. But what does that have to do with the fact Natalie was being nasty and messy by implying Todd was an opportunist? If someone serves you a little sugar with your poison are you supposed to thank them? Cynthia is just mad that she’s at the center of some mess on RHOA because she likes to act like she’s above the fray.
The biggest mistake Cynthia made though, was her decision to “charge” over to Kandi and wave her gigantic hands in Kandi’s lil’ face. Mind you, this “charge and talk” move is PRECISELY what Kenya intended to do with Natalie. So it’s ok for Cynthia to do it but not Kenya?
Anyway, Kandi starts feeling threatened by Cynthia’s invasion of space and she warns Cynthia to back up. When Kandi starts raising her voice, Cynthia starts to ignore her and tries engaging Todd instead. All of the commotion draws Peter’s attention and he steps into the fray.
Peter aggressively asks what’s going on and Kandi takes exception to his interference. Todd tries to temper the seething rage building in the air, but when Peter barks, “Y’all actin’ real strange!” it’s on, like Donkey Kong.
As Peter and Todd get closer to each other’s faces and start flexing, Mallory butts in and tries to break things up, so she shoves Todd. When Mallory shoves Todd, she then shoves Kandi and then when Kandi snaps and transforms into a boss ass bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch.
Kandi let all these hos know that she is not no punk-ass bitch and a switch flipped in her head as she growled, snarled and bellowed that she would, “Drag you in this bitch!”
So there you have it. Twice in one night, attempts to “break up” one fight lead to another. How about we have the so-called peacemakers like Mallory and Apollo sit on the sidelines next time?
If they need notes on how to do that, just ask former NFL player Chuck Smith, who stayed safe and sound behind the protection of his She-Hulk wife, Mynique.
The Day After the Fight
The day after World War III broke out in that Atlanta hotel, the entire cast goes into rest and reflection mode.
Kandi catches up her assistant and best friend Carmon on how she totally showed her ass the night before. Todd is largely amused by the whole thing but he and Carmon both agree that Kandi should apologize, however, since she turnt up a few notches too much on everybody.
Cynthia called her puppetmaster friend NeNe over so the two of them could rehash the night’s madness. NeNe, unsurprisingly, blames Kenya for the whole thing while Cynthia claims that Kandi attacked her unprovoked. Both women’s viewpoints are not rooted in reality but you can’t tell a woman the sky is blue if she believes it’s green, so, hey.
Apollo and Phaedra meet up and Phaedra basically complains that her life sucks since everything is going wrong for her. She did poorly on her mortuary arts test, her sandals are broken and she didn’t embalm anyone. While Phaedra is clearly interested in just unwinding, Apollo broaches the topic of last night’s blowout.
In his clumsily worded monologue, Apollo recounts his view of the fight and smartly concludes that his attempts to intervene were probably not “appropriate” and that he just really got “carried away.” Apollo saying he got “carried away” that night is kind of like Chris Brown claiming he merely “lost his temper” the night he assaulted Rihanna. C’mon son.
Phaedra is mostly nonchalant about Apollo’s story and she claims that her biggest concern is that people will assume Apollo’s behavior has to do with his criminal past. Welp, not much we can do there. But what’s really messed about Apollo and Phaedra’s exchange is that she completely lets him off the hook for his unprovoked violent rage. Even if you believe Apollo’s claim that Brandon hit him in the eye, why was Apollo so enraged that he went back to try and assault Brandon again?
This is a man Phaedra feels comfortably sleeping next to? She’s ok with being married to the Incredible Hulk?
Kenya and Brandon come together to go over the assault and Brandon comes armed with a police report. He’s got some light bruises on his face and on his ribs. Apparently, Apollo “cracked” one of his ribs and could be thrown in prison if Brandon wanted to press charges. But Brandon says he won’t because of Aiden and Mr. President.
That’s awfully gracious of him, though ultimately, it won’t keep Apollo out of jail for long. If you’ve been following the news of his federal fraud charges, you know what I’m talking about.
Taking Responsibility Along with a Massage
Saddled with guilt about the whole unfortunate incident that took place at NeNe’s event, Kandi decides to organize a spa day for her castmates so they can calmly and maturely discuss what happened.
Porsha and Kenya are the first to arrive and surprisingly, they get along swimmingly as they get massages alongside Kandi. Cynthia arrives third and she’s icy toward Kandi. She opts for a foot massage rather than a full-body massage so she can avoid Kandi a little while longer.
Phaedra and NeNe, who both want to avoid Kenya, merrily join Cynthia in the foot massage room.
After everyone’s body parts have been lotioned up and rubbed down, they all gather in the tea room for a little emotional healing.
Kandi starts things off on the right foot by apologizing for her behavior. Kenya asks Kandi to recap what happened, since she had left by the time Kandi and Cynthia fought. Cynthia then chimes in by saying she perhaps invaded Kandi’s personal space, because her discussion triggered something she’d never seen before.
Kandi counters that while her behavior was ratchet, she only turned up because Mallory pushed her. Cynthia denies this at first but later apologizes on behalf of Mallory if she did push her. So Kandi and Cynthia trade apologies verbally but it doesn’t feel like water is truly under the bridge between these two.
Next up, Phaedra offers a meek apology for her husband’s behavior. But when NeNe asks Phaedra for Apollo’s take on things, Phaedra says some people’s butts wrote checks they couldn’t cash. Oh, so Phaedra’s not really sorry.
Kenya, understandably interrupts Phaedra and clarifies that “no one deserves to get beat down like they are in the middle of a prison melee.”
NeNe jumps in the fray and says, “You are not right, Kenya. It was you who really started the whole domino effect. You jumpin’ out yo’ seat with your diaper on is ridiculous.” (Ed. note: ROTFLMFAO!!!) She then follows this up by blaming Brandon for being a “queen” and basically emasculating him 150 different ways by referring to him with female pronouns.
Here’s the thing: This kind of thing is like the n word among black folks. It’s ok for those within the minority to use this language in certain contexts but it’s potentially offensive when someone from the majority tries co-opt such language to disparage the same minority group.
There are gay men who refer to each other as “sis,” “miss” and “queen.” But Brandon doesn’t, so using such language to describe him is homophobic. Something tells me she’s gonna be forced to apologize for this on a future episode of “Watch What Happens Live”.
Before I close out this recap, I’d like to give a shout out to all of the screwed up and stank faces the ladies of RHOA gave us this evening:
Swerve on that.
