'Real Housewives of Atlanta' Premiere Recap: Chateau Showdown

Warning: This Real Housewives of Atlanta recap contains spoilers.

Welcome back to the ATL! We enter Season 8 of Bravo’s peachiest Real Housewives edition with a couple of big cast moves: Out is queen bee-yotch NeNe Leakes, and in is Tootie herself, The Facts of Life star Kim Fields. Something tells us nothing at Mrs. Garrett’s boarding school prepared her to deal with these women…

Fields doesn’t even make an appearance in tonight’s premiere, but there’s still plenty of drama to keep us busy. (Enough to make it a 75-minute episode, in fact!) We start out by catching up with the RHOA ladies: Kandi is pregnant, Porsha has a new boy toy she met on Instagram, and Kenya is building her dream house. (Kenya, do you really need a three-car garage? And a freakin’ elevator?!?)

But we quickly get to the juiciest plot point of the week (and probably the season): Cynthia and Peter’s marital woes. There’s a video going around online of Peter caressing a woman’s neck and chest while out at the club. And yeah, it looks bad. We’ve heard rumors about Peter messing around before, but this is the first time we’ve actually seen it on the show. As Phaedra so eloquently puts it:

Cynthia is clearly not happy about being embarrassed in public like this. She sits her husband down for a chat, with Peter sweating like the proverbial whore in church:

He observes that Cynthia is dressed in black “like you’re about to bury somebody.” Damn right! She demands an explanation, but Peter will only admit to “having a conversation with a person.” He’s got a lot of excuses, actually, for why his behavior on the video is no big deal, and even adds: “That young lady is actually a nice person.” Yeah, that’s about the last thing your wife wants to hear out of your mouth right now.

We put a pin in that piece of drama to check in on Porsha, who’s meeting her 24-year-old boyfriend Duke for a hotel rendezvous. Duke plays professional football — that’s Porsha’s type! — and he seems pretty excited to put that hotel room to good use, but Porsha doesn’t seem to understand what he’s after: “He’s so into me… like he wants to get to know me and my personality.” Right… your “personality.”

Next, we ride along with Kenya and Cynthia as they drive up to see Kenya’s new house. Well, we should probably put “house” in quotes. They drive through the woods up a very long, very winding dirt road to see… a very unfinished home. It’s a gutted frame, basically, with exposed beams and cobwebs everywhere. Seriously, it looks like the set of a horror movie.

But Kenya is overjoyed, insisting that “it’s gonna be the home for my children” (?) and “whoever I settle with” (??). Yeah, we’re expecting to see this house finished just in time for the Season 20 reunion. Oh, and speaking of real-estate disasters: Kenya’s new house is just down the street from (dun-dun-dun) Chateau Sheree! Kenya cackles as she throws some shade Sheree’s way, saying that as neighbors, Sheree might want to borrow “some coffee… or some money for a light bill.” Damn… has she even met Sheree before? Actually, we’ll get to that.

Meanwhile, Todd and Kandi are cleaning out the garage, where we learn Todd has been keeping Apollo’s motorcycles and four-wheelers in storage. We get into Kandi and Phaedra’s “unresolved issues,” including a big one we didn’t know about: Phaedra still hasn’t paid Todd for producing her “Phine Baby” fitness DVD. (Another Phaedra fitness DVD? God help us.) He wants Kandi to talk to Phaedra about it, but as we all know, Kandi’s not great at addressing conflict. (Right, Mama Joyce?)

This is a Real Housewives season premiere, so of course, there’s a big party to get all the ladies in one place; this time, it’s the launch of Cynthia’s eyewear line. Oh, you didn’t know Cynthia had an eyewear line? We didn’t, either! But before the party, Cynthia’s sister Malorie, who’s always hated Peter, drops by to gloat, now that Peter’s doggish ways have been exposed.

Mal has seen The Video — everybody on the planet has seen this damn video, apparently — and she thinks it proves Peter is cheating. Plus, Cynthia casually mentions that Peter’s thinking of getting an apartment in Charlotte… which sounds a pretty HUGE red flag to us. She says she still loves Peter, and she’s still attracted to him. But when Mal clarifies, “With his clothes off?” Cynthia says no, adding, “He wasn’t a supermodel when I met him.” (And she actually was!) Peter deserves that, of course, but still: Ouch.

Finally, it’s time for Cynthia’s eyewear party. And it looks like all the girls are actually getting along: Porsha and Kenya are actually hugging! Ditto Phaedra and Kenya! Don’t worry, though; drama is on the way. And hey, remember Marlo, NeNe’s friend from a few seasons back? She’s here, too. She asks Kenya about her new house, which leads to Kenya talking more smack about Chateau Sheree — or, as she calls it:

Ha! We do kind of love that. Kenya dishes that Sheree’s house has been under construction for four years now, and her neighbors are complaining about it being an eyesore. Boy, we sure are talking a lot of trash about someone who hasn’t been on the show in years, aren’t we?

Peter rolls into Cynthia’s party, all smiles. Is he drunk? Let’s say “allegedly,” to be safe. But he’s definitely confrontational when Kenya doesn’t give him the love he’s looking for. And when Kenya asks him where he’s been all night, he says, “I was with my video people.” Like, the woman you were feeling up on? He’s kidding, of course, but Kenya’s not impressed.

He barks at her that “I didn’t do s–t,” and storms off in search of more tequila. A little defensive, are we? Kenya and Marlo run off to tell Kandi and Phaedra about Peter’s outburst, and Malorie chimes in to share that Cynthia’s not attracted to Peter anymore. Wow, this is a lot to process all at once. Phaedra’s reaction pretty much says it all:

But it’s time for Cynthia’s grand entrance: She arrives at her party like Beyoncé descending a staircase from heaven down to a beach on Saint-Tropez.

And wait: We didn’t even get to the best part yet! Guess who’s back?

Yes, if you couldn’t guess from all the clues, former cast member Sheree Whitfield, aka Miss Who Gonna Check Me Boo, is back this season. (Because we’re guessing without NeNe, they needed someone guaranteed to piss everyone else off.) Sheree shows up at Cynthia’s party, and hugs Marlo — which is weird, because as Phaedra remembers, the last time these two were together, they were “speaking in African tongues” yelling at each other. But hey, when a reality TV contract is offered, all is forgiven!

Sheree makes her way to the rest of the girls, where Kenya is just waiting to pounce. Someone brings up Chateau Sheree, which Sheree concedes is still under construction: “It takes time.” Kenya happily volunteers that their neighbors are “complaining to the city” about Sheree’s eyesore. Sheree’s advice to anyone who questions her home-construction schedule? “Keep renting.”

Then Sheree fires right back at Kenya, inquiring about her home: “Is it mold in there?” And she also takes a shot at Kenya’s low-elevation lot: “It’s in a ditch!” Cooler heads try to prevail, but Kenya keeps throwing daggers, predicting that when her house is ready, “you’ll be in a tent, because your bitch-ass can’t move in yet!” Sheree seems about ready to fling a glass of wine at Kenya’s skull — the first of the season! — when we’re hit with the dreaded:

Oh, and we do catch a glimpse of Kim Fields in the trailer for the rest of Season 8, asking the question we’re always asking when we watch this show: “Are we grown-ass women, talking like this?”

Real Housewives of Atlanta airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on Bravo.