The Real Housewives of Atlanta recap: 'Peaches Be Trippin''

Ah, yes, the classic RHOA transition episode: We begin at the end of a party and end at the beginning of a girls trip — it just doesn’t get more Real Housewives than that. When you add in that Marlo is hammered the majority of the episode, Kenya is talking ad nauseam about her husband, Cynthia is being far too generous with all the gross men around her, Kim is treating her 17-person family like an unlimited car service, Kandi is completely absent from the fray, NeNe is making an entire one-act play out of eating a bread basket, and Sheree is coining the phrase “fraggle nackle bull crap”…

Well, then we are really just firing on all thematic RHOA cylinders, aren’t we? But even if the episode is consistent, there’s not really a lot happening here. Cynthia is recovering from her sketchy new boy toy getting fully called out by planning a trip to Barcelona, so of course, all I want to talk about are the insane outfits these women choose to wear to the airport for a 10-hour flight. Though they all could have easily gone shopping for sweat suits at Sheree’s house, Porsha has chosen to wear some kind of Judy Jetson jumpsuit, and I swear NeNe is wearing a pair of earrings that connect like the spectacle chain of an elderly librarian. Don’t these women have enough to worry about without tempting the yeast-infection-and-torn-earlobes fates?

Among those should-be concerns are those raised by Eva regarding Cynthia’s date at Kandi’s party last week. At the end of the hour, when Cynthia was like, Okay, y’all tell me if anyone else knows anything bad about the dude I’m dating, Porsha was all, Sure, I’ll saddle up for an impromptu tea party. But Porsha’s tea isn’t too specific, more of the generic Sleepy Time variety: She’s heard that Will is dating someone else, but choosing to date Cynthia, “like as an opportunist.” “Opportunist” is one of those words that I’ve probably never used in casual conversation but that remain as vital to the RHOA women’s vocabulary as “hunny” or “the blogs” or “NeNe’s Girls and Gays Never Forget All-White Party Seafood Soiree.”

And what does Will have to say about being an opportunist? Well, he’s incredibly defensive when Cynthia asks him about it, and spits, “What opportunity am I gonna get from being around you?” as a reality TV camera points up at him. Without ever denying that he has another girlfriend — and while somehow managing to mention that his house has a theater room — Will repeatedly turns all of the accusations of his shadiness back around on Cynthia. It’s pretty classic manipulative behavior, and even if Cynthia doesn’t dog him on TV, I hope there’s no going back to that bozo for her.

And speaking of manipulative opportunists! Mama Joyce told Porsha at the end of Kandi’s party that she wanted to get together with her, so they meet up for a meal of Brussels sprouts and gritted teeth. Mama Joyce has been trying her very hardest all season to not seem quite so much like a shark wearing people clothes, and she succeeds in letting Porsha explain that she put her trust in the wrong pint-sized (former) member of the RHOA cast, when she should have known that the other pint-sized member of the RHOA cast wouldn’t really try to drug her. For some reason Mama Joyce is cool with that and tells Porsha, “I’mma be honest witcha: You a ride-or-die damn chick, I’m serious.” And I’m serious that this was a very bizarre scene, and a duo that I would be happy to never see together again.

Kenya goes to the gynecologist to see if she’s pregnant at 46 and gives us approximately 47 new red-flag statements about her husband/marriage, including, “Marc is looking forward to having a baby and I just don’t want to let him down more than anything.” Okay, well Marc is going to have to get realistic, and be open to some alternative conception methods, and ideally not send creepy texts like this one: “My job is to be strong in the storm. All you have to be is worth it — you have been, especially recently.” I can’t be the only one who’s creeped out by Marc’s assessing of how “worth it” his wife has and has not been at various points in the marriage, can I?

In addition to occasionally dressing like her ex, tonight Cynthia also wanted to get together with Peter to ask him why he ignored her at Kandi’s party. Peter very reasonably tells Cynthia that it’s difficult for him to see her out with another man, and that she was the one who asked for a divorce, so she has to be patient about however long it takes him to be comfortable being her friend. I mean, he doesn’t say it at all like that, but still — Peter and Mama Joyce appear to have gone to the same personality replacement center, and there are a few other reality TV brethren I hope they’ll give a referral to (looking at you, Dorit).

Finally, it’s time for Porsha’s vegan dinner party. The friends Porsha was hoping to woo back into her good graces (without cheese? I don’t think so, girl) — Kandi and NeNe, plus Kenya — can’t even come, but this dinner is all about Marlo, anyway. Because homegirl comes in hot. First of all, she’s carrying a fur into a vegan dinner, to which Sheree responds the only way one could possibly respond: “What kind fraggle nackle bull crap is this?” Well, it’s the kind of fraggle nackle bull crap where Marlo takes a bunch of lemon drop shots on Porsha’s patio, and by the time they make it through one round of berating Cynthia about Will, and into the dining room, Marlo is just describing her own behavior by saying, “At the end of the day…it’s Marlo,” which is a method that I might have to borrow.

When the conversation once again turns to Cynthia and whether or not she might still be in love with Peter, Marlo saves her from the spotlight by…burping with the force of one thousand Robert Dursts. It is truly sick; I loved it. With the spotlight firmly on her, Marlo gets up and announces that she needs to leave soon in order to visit her cousin at a 24-hour nursing home. Everyone tells her to sit the hell down. Cynthia tells Shamea that she’s invited to the Barcelona trip that everyone else seems to have already been invited to, and it comes out that even though it’s a girls trip, Kim is planning to bring Kroy.

Little orphan Annie once told us that you’re never fully dressed without a smile, and Kim seems to believe that she’s never fully dressed without a Kroy (NeNe, for the record, seems to believe that Kroy has “booty implants”). Marlo takes this opportunity to use her keen skills of persuasion: “Kim, can you do a real trip with the African American girls?” she slurs while repeatedly saying she doesn’t want Kory (not a typo) to come.

And since nobody wants Kory/Kroy to come to Spain, Kim just doesn’t come to Spain, as Porsha tells Sheree in the car to the airport. Kim’s explanation of not being able to go to Spain without Kroy is that she had her stroke a few years ago after a four-hour flight, and she doesn’t want to take a 10-hour flight without the support of her husband. That’s reasonable, I guess. But it doesn’t make it any less weird that Kroy is always waiting around in parking lots for his wife.

Also unable to travel to Spain for marital reasons is Kenya, who is completely withdrawing from her friends/coworkers now that she’s married to a man she just met…always a good sign. But the rest of the ladies are in, at least. NeNe explains her own husband’s fraught farewell to her, and, as always, Old Gregg — whom we earlier saw spill wine all over himself and then clean it up with a throw pillow — remains the ideal Papaw/Housewife husband: “Gregg was like…BYE.” See everyone in Madrid next week; I sure hope you brought some leggings and some sensible studs to change into for the plane!