Th latest “Real Housewives” episode featured a surprising twist that didn’t look obvious early on.
Cynthia Bailey, prepping for her upcoming nuptials, said she needed to tell her mom, Barbara, that she planned to invite her dad, Elijah, to her wedding. She knew this would be awkward because her divorced parents have been estranged for decades.
Cynthia herself hasn’t spoken to her father in two years, stemming from tensions after her mom did Kenya Moore’s public service announcement on domestic violence in which she mentioned issues she had with Elijah while married.
To help her break the news to her mom, Cynthia invited her college-age daughter, Noelle, who is now a social media “influencer” with 430,000 Instagram followers, to return to Atlanta to help Cynthia with the wedding. Noelle is close to her grandmother, so Cynthia admitted Noelle would be a bit of an emotional shield. “She’s the perfect person to have my back,” Cynthia rationalized.
When Barbara heard Cynthia’s request, she looked upset and said dryly, “I’ll just put my mask over my eyes.”
They then went on a couple of tangents regarding other past hurts. Barbara was upset with Cynthia over a recent Instagram Father’s Day message Cynthia sent where she thanked her dad for “bringing her” into the world and having some great memories. Barbara took offense, saying she was the one who brought Cynthia into the world. To Barbara, Elijah stopped being their dad when they were toddlers and left the family. But Cynthia did spend summers with her dad growing up, so she doesn’t hate him.
Barbara also wanted to vent that she didn’t understand when she did that aforementioned PSA that it would go out to the world the way it did. She also claimed she didn’t even know what a PSA was.
Cynthia apologized, unaware that her mom didn’t understand what was going on with the PSA, though it’s likely Barbara was more upset by the negative feedback she received from some folks who like her ex-husband.
She then asked her mom again if she was OK with Elijah coming. Looking sour, Barbara said she didn’t care.
Then Noelle surprisingly interceded on behalf of her grandmother. She said it was clear that Barbara was not happy about Cynthia’s decision but was unable to say so directly. Her grandma “puts every single one of us first, so why not put her first this one time,” Noelle asked her mom.
Cynthia absorbed her daughter’s words, which seemed to hit her like a load of bricks.
“I have what I need to move forward,” Cynthia said after a moment of thoughtful silence.
“I feel it’s clear what needs to happen,” Noelle concluded.
Cynthia later told the cameras she harbored guilt that she was born when her mom was so young and derailed Barbara’s potential career aspirations. “So, I don’t want to disappoint her,” she said to the cameras.
Sorry, Elijah. You aren’t coming.
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There was another awkward wedding invite situation as well.
Cynthia’s fiancé Mike Hill had become friends with Dennis McKinley, Porsha’s fiancé. He wanted Dennis to be there at the wedding.
But Porsha and Dennis had broken up.
Cynthia smartly decided to meet up with Porsha for a meal to get her read on this. There, we all finally learn why Porsha and Dennis had separated.
She told Cynthia that there wasn’t any one thing that happened, but they had one too many arguments during quarantine. She said she couldn’t quite get over the fact he had cheated on her in 2019, and she started picking fights. “I couldn’t get out of the habit of punishing him,” Porsha told Cynthia. “We started to bite at each other until there was nothing left.”
The police brutality protests she got involved in didn’t help matters. “There was so much craziness outside of my house,” Porsha said. “I’ll be damned if there’s craziness inside my house. I became completely intolerant.”
Cynthia then gingerly told her about Mike’s desire to invite Dennis. Porsha said she didn’t want that to happen and asked Cynthia to press upon Mike that this was her request.
Later, at a charity event, Kenya Moore tried to bait Porsha, still seething about being disinvited to a Porsha party two episodes ago. So, she told Porsha that Mike inviting Dennis to the wedding is no big deal and asked why is she getting upset about it? Porsha decided at this point not to argue with Kenya despite a strong urge to do so. “Just dismiss yourself,” is what Porsha later said to the cameras.
Kenya’s gratuitous shadiness extended to Drew Sidora, the new cast member, noting that Porsha was picking up a “stray” by being friends with her.
Then Kenya posed the idea of a getaway, a set up for future episodes. Normally at this point of the season, the ladies might go to the Caribbean or Mexico. But the pandemic has put the kibosh on foreign travel. So, they decide to plan a trip to a beach house in Charleston, South Carolina.
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The first few episodes highlighted the tensions between Drew Sidora and her husband, Ralph Pittman.
But after Ralph’s dad died suddenly, they have been kinder to each other. “Sorry about all the agony and pain that I cause,” he said to her. “Be patient with me.”
“Ralph and I definitely have a lot of work to do in our relationship,” Drew said. “I am determined to have a clean slate. He is a good man and a great father.”
Drew skipped Kand Burruss’ charity event, saying she was quarantining. She was also packing up her house and moving.
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The charity event, by the way, was a food drive for the Kandi Cares Foundation to feed about 550 single families.
Founded in 2014, the non-profit organization was created to improve the lives of single parents and children who are the product of single parent homes, according to its Facebook page. The last 990 files with the government indicated a contribution of $25,000 in 2017. It’s unclear how large the organization has grown since then.
Marlo Hampton and Porsha each gave Kandi’s group $5,000. There was no reference to what the other ladies contributed, but Kandi said some women were less generous than she expected but chose not to call anybody in particular out.
And in a side issue, Kandi’s college-age daughter, Riley, wanted her father Russell “Block” Spencer to provide $92,000 in non-payment of child support over the years. Kandi has always had more than enough money to support Riley but said it was the principle of the thing. “He made millions of dollars himself,” Kandi said.
COMING UP IN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS
The season’s first girl’s trip to a beach house in Charleston features a racy party and possible other implied shenanigans.
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