“The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” Episode 420 “Happiness & Joy” recap:
As the long-awaited (OK, perhaps just by us) season four finale opens, NeNe announces she is proceeding forward with her divorce from Gregg. After 15 years and one child together, NeNe gives this life-changing news the class and dignity it deserves. She blurts it out to Cynthia while furniture shopping for a brown (or maybe tan!) living room sectional.
At the Bailey Agency, Cynthia and judges, including former V103 personality Elle Duncan are hosting an open casting call for aspiring Atlanta catwalk professionals. The veteran runway model/agency owner explains the job is tougher than it looks. “Being a model is not just about a sick body and good looks,” Cyn explains. “You have to have a good attitude and you have to be smart.”
Perhaps hearing our drinking straw lodge in our windpipe as we giggle uncontrollably while splashing around in our bathtub of gin, Ms. Bailey elaborates. “Yes, models have to be smart. They travel the world. They have to figure out how to get from the airport to the hotel and from the hotel to the agency and then to the castings. They have to eat. They have to figure all that out and they usually don’t have people with them.”
In other words, models have to have a sick body, good looks, a good attitude and GPS.
It’s Kroy’s 26th birthday and his baby mama bride-to-be Kim is taking him to Ray’s Killer Creek in Roswell for dinner. In the middle of the afternoon. Kim has a surprise waiting for her brand-new fiancé. No, she’s not letting him see what she looks like without plastic blond hair before the wedding. It’s a 2012 Porsche Panamera Turbo, an automobile which retails for $136,000 (If we were Kroy, we’d examine our checkbook when we get home. There may be a promissory note missing toward the back…).
Speaking of expensive gestures, John Kolaj, NeNe’s nightclub business partner/not-so-secret admirer from “The Apprentice” is back in town and wooing her with a $30,000 Rolex. “You’re the person who makes it Christmas for me every day,” he purrs sitting next to her at lunch. So, dude can clearly spring for a $30,000 wristwatch but not a writer who could craft a more original come-on than that petrified fruitcake of a pick up line?
NeNe’s reaction? “This is getting weird.”
Naturally, the season ends with the ladies assembling at the launch party for Kandi’s line of adult toys, Bedroom Kandi, featuring Happiness & Joy, a hot pink hued product that will allegedly please a lady’s nether regions to the beat of your favorite song via your iPod. Half-naked male model masseuses provide attendees with foot massages and an inadvertent opportunity for vehicular pile ups below at the corner of 14th and Peachtree. Invitees line the sidewalk outside the rooftop party at Shout inside Colony Square. Turns out, Kandi also tweeted the invite to her followers on Twitter.
All 643,264 of them.
If Kandi intends to bestow Happiness & Joy to each of her party guests, there will not be a single AA battery left on a store shelf at any CVS or Walgreens from Midtown to Alpharetta by midnight. Muses Kim: “Naked men and dildos? Must be a Kandi party.”
NeNe, Marlo, and Cynthia are not pleased that the soiree has become a tweetup. But Phaedra doesn’t seem to mind as Kandi introduces her to a bottle of her Bedroom Kandi personal lubricant. Venturing far beyond the velvet rope of TMI, Phaedra informs viewers, “I’ve never had a reason to use such.” That statistic does not prevent Phaedra from tasting said organic product, however (Apparently, it is educated consumers like Phaedra that inspired the makers of Preparation H to put the “do not take orally” warning on the tube). Kandi’s mama Joyce and Phaedra, meanwhile, unexpectedly bond over a petite tube-shaped vibrator. “I want the lipstick!” shrieks Mama Joyce. Phaedra concurs: “I want to be tickled, not stabbed.”
NeNe is ready to leave “ding-a-ling land” and waves “good night, bitches” as she puts her castmates and the fourth season in her rearview mirror.
Producers give Kim the parting shot: “Is NeNe pretending she doesn’t want a dildo? What’s her problem? What she doesn’t want people to find out is that she doesn’t need a dildo because she has a d— in her pants.”
Coming Next Week: Part one of the inevitable “RHOA” season four reunion as the ladies gather together at the Biltmore to screech at each other, host/lion tamer Andy Cohen and generally besmirch the reputation of 88-year-old historic Midtown landmark.
