Oh, reunion season. No one does reunion like the ladies of Atlanta. Whether they all sign a pact and make it the most boring special ever or shout a scorching streak that will make Sherman’s march to the sea look like a brush fire, they always bring it. (Not quite like New Jersey, but they bring it.) Last night was no exception with Kenya Moore thwapping her fan like it was a dragon wing and she was the one Khaleesi would could control it.
I’m going to look at the first part of the reunion, and we’re going to figure out just who won the season. (Then I am not writing about the Real Donkeys of Booty Borough until next season because I have Mad Men to recap and I can only do so much on a Sunday night. However, I am sad I do not get to write about Kim’s baby fat hanging out of her dress or Porsha singing “Amazing Race,” a song about Emmy’s favorite reality show.) Here are the ladies in order of who won and who lost.
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Kernya Moo-ah: Kernya Moo-ah won guys. She did it. She took the whole prize. Last night the reason Kenya was trending on Twitter had nothing to do with a earthquake or revolution in the African nation, it was merely because everyone was talking about her at the reunion. Kernya was the only interesting thing about the whole season. Period. That’s it. Without her, we would have just had a bunch of empty cackles while the ladies had smallish conflicts over, oh, who knows. With Kernya, this thing was like opening up the DSM-5 every week and finding an entirely new psychosis. That means Kernya wins. She does, she entirely wins.
But that makes me sad. She wins because she will fight and yell and never shut up. She wins because she always gets her perspective out there. She wins because Beyonce is using her catch phrase. Yes, she wins, but she is entirely wrong. There is not one fight that she had this season that she was on the right side of. She is a venom spewing slug monster, but you can’t help watching her twitch and squirm on the trail, wiping her slime on all of us in the process. Ugh, Kenya wins, and we are all dead.
PS — If I was Kandi I would have broken that damn fan.
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Cynthia’s Weave: It’s different in every single episode and it’s always flawless. I honestly tune in just to see what hair she’ll be wearing at any given moment. There’s also an honorable mention for both her glasses and her polo shirt and sweater combos. Country club realness, ch’all.
Phaedra Parks: Not nearly as eminently watchable as Kernya, the thing that makes Phaedra win is that she is right. She is always sort of right. She is entirely right about Kernya stealing her idea, mistreating her man, and treating her shabbily when she didn’t do anything to try to hurt her. Phaedra comes close to the top of the pile by dint of her moral compass. She also has a penchant for arguing, and keeps her cool while refuting every single one of Kernya’s insane allegations. Her line to “show me the receipts,” though cribbed from Whitney Houston, was the perfect rebuttal for Kernya. Phaedra doesn’t just make assumptions like her rival, she usually has some facts to back it up. That’s the difference between a lawyer and a ball of lint that has been given life through evil magic.
Cynthia Bailey: Cynthia was really in the mix this year, and even Andy Cohen had to compliment her on her shit-stirring skills. (PS — Why do the people who watch these shows and star in them think that “shit stirring” is a bad thing? Without shit stirring, where would they be?) Cynthia went from NeNe’s willing sidekick and Friend Contract Signer to a real force. She seems to be the only person who gets along with just about everyone in the cast, and she picks the right side in every argument. She’s never afraid to speak her mind and comes across and wonderful and sensible and the kind of girl you want to go wig shopping with. And her style. Fabulous.
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Porsha Stewart: Porsha is the best kind of Housewife: pretty, game, aggressive, and dumb. Yes, she is stupid through and through, but enjoyably so. Sadly Kernya got the best of her in their many fights, as she can sometimes come across as petty and immature. That said, she stood up on her own at the reunion and got in some good digs against Kernya. The thing that makes her a loser is that she’s going to defend her husband Carvell at the reunion just a few days before he goes and files divorce papers against her. I guess her loyalty should make her a winner, but we all know Carvell is a jerk so she shouldn’t be trying to defend him in the first place. I hope she’s coming back, because after being burned she can use that sympathy to turn into something that will scorch them all.
Kandi Burruss: The best thing Kandi did all season was wear a straight wig to the reunion. Flawless. Other than that, she was entirely boring. Now don’t get me wrong. I want to be friends with Kandi. I want to go and drink virgin margaritas and have a completely inappropriate conversation about sex and talk shit about Kim Zolciak and ask her what Lisa Left-Eye Lopez was really like and just generally be her friend forever. That said, she was boring this year. I worry about the Kandi Factory.
NeNe Leakes: This is going to be controversial, but NeNe lost this year. She did. She just wasn’t there to play the game and, when she was, she was thinking more about her longer success as an “actress” (come on, I watch The New Normal and I can’t pretend that she’s amazing) than about the dumb squabble of this bunch of headless chickens. Good for her. Smart move for Ms. NeNe Leakes. She is very rich, bitch. Well, maybe not, but she could be. She could do quite well for herself, but she has to leave it all behind. There is no half steppin’, and trying to make it work in both LA and ATL is not the right way to go. I guess what I’m trying to say is that NeNe is a loser for not getting her own spin-off already. I would watch her for 30 minutes every week. Who wouldn’t?
Follow Brian Moylan on Twitter @BrianJMoylan
[Photo Credit: Bravo]
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