In a later scene, Porsha’s sister Lauren invites the ladies to attend a surprise party to celebrate Porsha’s social justice work. But she does leave one castmate out: Kenya.

When Cynthia Bailey finds out that Kenya is not invited, she asks Lauren if she could bring Kenya anyway. At first, Lauren says it’s okay despite her misgivings. Cynthia quickly informs Kenya, who promises to be on her best behavior despite her opinions about Porsha. (Kandi Burruss points out that Kenya has disrupted other parties in the past as RHOA shows classic clips of Kenya making a scene at events held in the past by Porsha, Cynthia and Marlo Hampton.)

Kenya buys a Rosa Parks doll for Porsha’s daughter and tells Cynthia she wants to “celebrate the cause.”

But later, Lauren changes her mind and asks Cynthia not to bring Kenya. When Cynthia tells Kenya the bad news, she is instantly offended and even asks the producers if they knew this. (They say no.)

“That’s really f-ed up,” Kenya says. “What am I going to do? Protest at her celebration? This is ridiculous!”

A teaser shows that at a later event when the two women finally meet face to face, Kenya will snarkily bring this up to Porsha.

In other storylines:

Cynthia

Cynthia is still struggling with her fiancé Mike Hill about the wedding. She wants a big fancy one on October 10 but the pandemic might put the kibosh on having 250 people in one place. Cynthia has said she might want to postpone the wedding if that were to happen. Mike disagreed but relented to her wishes in a way that suggested he was only doing so to keep the peace. (Kandi notes that Cynthia’s first marriage to Peter Thomas in 2010 happened under a tight budget so it’s possible Cynthia wanted this one to be far glitzier.)

Kenya, in a bizarrely loud voice even after a yoga class, says Cynthia is making Mike think that this is about showing off the wedding to the Bravo cameras, not about their marriage. Cynthia vehemently disagrees. “That is very insulting,” she later tells the Bravo producers. “The show didn’t tell me I needed a big wedding. The show didn’t even tell me to get married. The show didn’t tell me to get divorced.”

As Kenya keeps jibber-jabbering, Cynthia loses her cool: “You’re my friend. Just listen and support me!”

But once Cynthia calms down, she acknowledges that her desire for a big wedding should not interfere with her desire to be married to Mike. So she says she plans to stick with October 10 no matter what happens.

And Kenya quickly lowers the room temperature with her a dose of humility.

“I made my mistakes. I was in a very bad place last year. I’m not going backwards,” Kenya says, alluding to the time she thoughtlessly told Cynthia that Mike was going to propose last season, effectively ruining the surprise.

Drew

RHOA newcomer Drew Sidora and her husband Ralph Pittman meet a counselor. The producers recruited a certified marriage counselor from Chicago aptly named Love McPherson to come by their home and do an outdoor session.

This is not the first time they’ve tried to hash out issues with therapists during their six tumultuous years of marriage, so Drew is skeptical that Ralph will follow through with this one.

To open, McPherson asks Drew what she wants from her husband. Drew has three desires: transparency, genuine love from Ralph for her nine-year-old child from a previous relationship and less anger.

Ralph wants more sex and more respect from Drew. He does not like feeling emasculated, the type of behavior he says Drew’s mom did to her dad. Drew doesn’t agree and when he thinks Drew starts getting upset, he tentatively puts his hand on her shoulder. Drew reads this as insincere.

Ralph then talks about his childhood raised by a single mom who didn’t appreciate him. As a teen, he chose to leave his mom and stay with his dad. Only after she was evicted from her home did she apologize to Ralph for her actions. So the therapist ties this childhood trauma to Ralph’s occasional need to leave town without telling Drew where he goes.

But Drew is tired of paying for the sins of Ralph’s mom: “I just want to give him the love that he didn’t have but I’m paying for everything his mom did. If he’s not going to own that and accept that and seek healing, I don’t know what else to do.” She says she has sought solo counseling because she has to be in a mentally strong state to support Ralph.

“He’s never working on himself,” she complains.

“We’re just starting the process,” the therapist says.

“We started this process six years ago,” Drew responds.

The therapist says to let go of the past and focus on the future. This way, she says, “you won’t grieve the past so hard.”

She cries. Ralph comforts her after the therapist prods him. Then he says, “My entire goal isn’t to hurt you. I want to make sure I treat you with more support and love.”

The session ends neatly but Drew says Ralph has apologized many times so she will watch his actions, not his words.

Later, Ralph finds out his father has died of a heart attack, so Drew says she plans to table their personal issues for now.

Porsha

Porsha meets up with two of the “friends” on the show Marlo Hampton and Tonya Sam and confirms she’s separated from her fiancé Dennis McKinley. But he is trying to woo her back with “co-parenting” gifts such as a Chanel handbag with nice notes. Marlo thinks they will eventually reconcile.

Next week

Kandi and Kenya set up a surprise party for Cynthia before her nuptials. Kandi’s daughter Riley leaves for college. And Democrats try to get some of the RHOA women engaged in the presidential election.