Remember how Phaedra swore up and down that she was only six or seven months pregnant? Well, she was wrong, and Kim’s technical knowledge of neonatal science was correct, and Real Housewives of Atlanta again forced us to reevaluate what we believe about people like lawyers, professional mistresses and basically anyone else who aspires to reality television fame.
The baby was had, and unfortunately, my previous prediction was wrong: he didn’t covered out covered in rhinestones and eyeshadow. But maybe there’s some hope for those kinds of shenanigans from Kim’s future baby with the 25-year-old football player she hit on last week, because the news around the Internet this morning is that they’re having a kid. Life&Style has the preggo belly shot to prove it. But I digress; we have an entire episode to discuss.
First up was Phaedra, because as much as you and I might hate her, she’s totally making this show right now with her hilariously high levels of idiocy. Instead of having her baby in Atlanta like a normal person who lives in a large city, Phaedra decided it would be a great idea to have the baby three hours away in Augusta because there’s a doctor there who she met while dispensing questionable legal advice over the radio. She seems to be under the impression that he’s the best OB-GYN in Georgia, but Phaedra clearly doesn’t do a great job picking things like makeup artists and hairdressers, I’m going to go ahead and take her opinion of the “best” of anything with a grain of salt.
But still, for some reason, her husband let her schlep the entire family down to a city in which they don’t live to have their baby with some radio doctor (and we’ll get to why radio doctors aren’t to be trusted later) who didn’t seem to know anything about Phaedra’s pregnancy when they first met him. Instead of having an exam in a doctor’s office like a normal pregnant lady would with her doctor, Phaedra and Apollo sat out on a porch somewhere with the doctor and his wife, drinking sweet tea, lounging in whicker chairs and more or less trying to simultaneously perform every Southern stereotype that they could think of.
Phaedra told her doctor that she didn’t know when the baby was due (an odd thing for a woman two days from actually having a kid) with a completely straight face, and she followed it up with an anecdote about how her husband had been over eight pounds when his mom had him three months early. Apollo just kind of shrugged and mumbled, since Phaedra had clearly beaten him into compliance before the conversation took place.
Instead of telling Phaedra to stop lying, the doctor and his wife just nodded, amazed. Personally, if an OB/GYN isn’t willing to call someone out on that kind of nonsense, I’m not sure that he should be delivering any babies. Even most of our Real Housewives of Atlanta cast members were smart enough to figure out that Phaedra was lying and express some sort of disbelief that she would even try to concoct such a story. This doctor? Not a peep. Perhaps Phaedra had taken the back of her hand to him before the conversation as well.
Back in Atlanta, Kandi had a little get-together at her boutique to celebrate her 34th birthday, and all of the relatively sane cast members showed up to celebrate. And when I say “relatively sane,” I mean relative to Phaedra, and perhaps she should reevaluate her life choices up to this point if her presences make people like Nene and Kim look reasonable and logical. As always, Kim stole the show at Kandi’s party by being shameless and entirely lacking self-awareness; not only did she show up with a giant box containing a custom wig made for Kandi (on a side note, it appeared to be a version of my favorite Kim wig with red lowlights), but she also got a little drunk and dispensed lots of nursing school knowledge about why Phaedra is a lying sack of crap. At this point, Kandi was the only person who still wanted to believe Phaedra’s pregnancy timeline, but she would be set right soon.
Before that could happen, though, we had to accompany Nene to a meeting with Karen Greer, who is an actual news anchor in Atlanta who does real things which don’t usually involve reality TV personalities. How she got roped into this mess, I’ll never know. At any rate, Nene wanted to be a local entertainment reporter, and the network clearly saw plenty of opportunities for Nene to use her position in the “entertainment” industry (I’m sorry, I’m just not ready to admit that Nene Leakes is an actual celebrity) to interview locally dwelling celebs like Tyler Perry and Ludacris. Everyone’s eyes lit up with dollar signs, a deal was made, and our girl Nene had her first job since her days as a pole professional. This gig, thankfully, requires more clothes.
Still in Augusta, Phaedra was prepared to have her baby with not only a full face of makeup (we all knew that would happen, and if you didn’t, you haven’t been paying attention) but Chanel earrings and what appeared to be fake eyelashes. I’m not sure how you get up in the morning on the day your first child is going to be born and take the time to glue on your lashes, but Phaedra’s priorities clearly differ from those of people who live in objective reality. At least she wasn’t wearing that awful blue and pink eyeshadow in her hospital bed – she went with sunrise tones of gold and yellow instead, applied with a trowel as always. Tasteful.
After arriving to the hospital and being induced, we found out why Phaedra’s been lying about her due date for weeks – her mom doesn’t “allow” out-of-wedlock babies. I was under the impression that Phaedra was an adult woman with a job and a husband and the ability to make her own reproductive decisions, but apparently I was wrong. Kandi was there to hear the news from mom, as well as to watch the doctor walk in minutes later and announce to the entire room, including Pastor Mommy, that Phaedra had carried the baby to full term – 40 weeks. So much for that baby being fully cooked in six or seven months, eh Phaedra?
The baby had to be delivered by c-section in the next scene, which was absolutely icky to watch for both us AND Phaedra, whose first reaction upon seeing her new baby was a disgusted “eww.” Also, she thought the baby looked Chinese (she said Chinese, not Asian, just to be clear), despite the fact that there were clearly no other brand new babies in the room that could have caused such a mixup. That this woman has a law degree from my alma mater is something for which I will always feel shame.
Over at Sheree’s house, the subject had also turned to questionably qualified radio doctors and shady educational backgrounds. Sheree had decided to hold a Spades (which, by the way, is great fun) game at her house and invite all of the non-birthing housewives and The Love Doctor, whose real name I can’t spell, not that it matters. Lawrence, Kandi’s mom and Lisa also showed up, everyone got to drinking, and then Nene realized that she knew Sheree’s maybe-boyfriend from somewhere.
As it turns out, he used to dispense love advice on the radio in Atlanta until there was some sort of scandal about whether or not he was actually a doctor. He also used to make appearances on the Ricki Lake show, and really, that’s all I need to hear to know that he must be a consumate professional. Ricki was part of my afternoon routine when I was a kid, and I refuse to believe that she would allow some charlatan masquerading as a doctor to give advice on her esteemed program.
Except, wait, do you guys remember the Ricki Lake show? It was epically trashtastic, and I honestly wish it were still around to perk up my afternoons. And really, it’s fitting that someone who was a regular feature on Ricki would show up on something like Real Housewives of Atlanta, because both of those programs have similar places in their respective pop culture eras. It’s only logical that people who were on bad talk shows in the 90s are now on gloriously bad reality shows.
Once Nene figured out why she recognized The Love Doctor, the hunt was on. When you’ve got five drunk women, their best gay and one of their mothers grilling you about your educational background and whether or not you’re actually a doctor, it becomes difficult to keep a story straight and stick to your lies. He eventually started sweating and admitted that his doctorate was from an online diploma mill and he wasn’t licensed to practice in Georgia, which meant that he couldn’t legally call himself a doctor, and Sheree was shocked. You would think that she would have realized by now that something was up with him, but I guess Sheree isn’t exactly sharp as a tack.
Speaking of people who are too trusting, Kandi took the opportunity to announce to the group that Kim (and everyone else) had been right and she knew for a fact that Phaedra had been at full term when she delivered her baby. Everyone cackled and smirked and felt smug and self-satisfied about catching that moron in a lie, and you have to admit, that’s one of the greatest feelings ever if you’re jaded and generally convinced of your own cleverness (and let’s face it, most of us are, including me). There’s something exhilaratingly self-affirming about being right in those situations, even if the lie was a bad one. And really, how much worse does it get than Phaedra claiming to only need six months to cook a baby?
Actually, I shouldn’t ask that question, because just when these ladies seem to have hit rock bottom, they get industrious and keep digging. Phaedra’s mutant Chinese baby is a new and wonderful low, but we’ve still got plenty of season left in Atlanta.
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