Posted Sunday, December 10, 2017 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog

'I love Chinatown. It feels I stepped out of the trolley and I'm in Tokyo." - Porsha Williams in San Francisco. 

Porsha Williams has kept the dopey comments to a minimum this season but you could tell the producers couldn't resist throwing that one out.

And for someone who has really no friends on the cast, Porsha is doing an impressive job keeping herself in the spotlight.

She was rightfully upset that NeNe Leakes said to Andy Cohen she shouldn't be on the show. Sure, NeNe didn't technically say she wanted Porsha "fired" but that was the underlying message.

So NeNe's pique seems over the top, almost calculated to ensure maximum drama for the sake of the cameras. She has some sort of weird resentment that she and Porsha were no longer buddy buddy after she had backed Porsha years earlier. And then she threw out the fact Porsha didn't support Kandi as more reason to be peeved.

Porsha held her ground and didn't get physical, which is progress for her. In fact, it was NeNe who had to be held back.

"Last night, it was like World War 3," Porsha later told her sister Lauren.

"I would not talk to her in front of the group anymore," Lauren advised.

Later, on a San Francisco streetcar, she listened to Kenya talk about her late grandmother and knowing that many of the women (Kandi, Cynthia, NeNe, Kenya) were not fans of her, she felt isolated and left the scene.

Cynthia was the only woman who chose to comfort Porsha. She told Porsha she had a similar situation three years earlier when NeNe told Andy Cohen she didn't think Cynthia was that interesting on the show.

"I had to forgive and move on," Cynthia said.

If Porsha wants to stay on the show, she has to mend fences. She makes a sincere attempt to do so again with Kandi. At one point, on a train to Napa Valley, they have an actual conversation. Kandi said it would have been more awkward for her to continue the silent treatment, her previous strategy.

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Credit: Rodney Ho

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Credit: Rodney Ho

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Credit: Rodney Ho

Marlo Hampton, who probably still wishes she has a peach, comes up with a funny idea: create a "wedding" for Kenya since everyone missed the real one.

So everyone but Cynthia and Kenya help out putting the "wedding" together, replete with a cardboard figure of Kenya's hubby Marc Daly with a question mark on the face. (Impressed they were able to get that in such a short period of time. Hmmm...)

"I am a little nervous about how Kenya is going to respond to this ghetto fabulous wedding," Sheree said.

Then again, Kenya last season hosted a "divorce" party for Phaedra Parks, so she clearly has a sense of humor for this type of stuff.

And while some of the women were bracing for Kenya to get offended, she wasn't. She decided to play along and had a good laugh as NeNe comically "presided."

"It's making me smile," she said. "It's so stupid."

Later, Marlo stirs the pot yet again by asking Cynthia why she still hasn't met Kenya's husband if the two of them are supposedly so close. Cynthia tries to rationalize that this is just Kenya's way. Then she is overcome by emotion and leaves the room.

Later, she said she was actually hurt by Kenya not inviting her to the wedding. "I cannot force Kenya to do anything she is not ready to do," she said.

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Credit: Rodney Ho

Several of the ladies pull a Lucille O'Ball and stomp on grapes at the Raymond Vineyards in Napa Valley though it grosses out some of the women, including Kandi and Porsha, who calls it "foot juice."

Best moment was - yet again - Marlo. She is clearly ready to take advantage of any moment on the show. So when Jean-Charles Boisset of Raymond Vineyards hands her some grapes, she swallows a massive number of them. (See above.) He purrs: "Graphically enticing."