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Apart from perhaps the forthcoming finale in the Berkshires, I think it’s fair to say that the most hotly-anticipated event of this season was the Alter Ego Party in Atlanta, largely in part because we knew this was when Nene Leakes would be making her grand return into the mix. We get a little bit of a history lesson at the top of the episode, in which it’s explained that the Alter Ego Party was an event during the second season of RHOA (“I wasn’t there, I was not born,” Porsha says), in which the women did a photoshoot posing with their “alter ego.” Long story short, it’s a costume party.
But before we meet everybody’s alter egos, the ladies all head to a drag brunch with the Frick to Porsha’s Frack (or the other way around): Phaedra Parks. They’re treated to a show in which all the drag queens performing take on the role of each of them, but Vicki doesn’t necessarily need a queen because she’s a drag all on her own. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I mean if you’ve been to one drag show, you’ve been to them all,” she says disrespectfully. But everyone else is having the time of their lives watching and bantering with the queens, and it even gives Teresa a chance to not only reference “prostitution whore” but also address its legacy. “I never thought saying ‘prostitution whore’ was gonna be so iconic… Michelle Obama just recently said it on a podcast,” she says in her confessional, which made me cackle… because it’s true! If this season gets a reunion, they need to call Michelle up.
The drag performers aren’t the only queens on stage, though, because from behind two feathered fans the icon herself emerges: Nene Leakes. This is my personal version of those videos of soldiers coming home from war, and the other women react as such. Kyle leaps to her feet and storms the stage to embrace her; emotions are flowing, and Luann says it’s like “long-lost family” coming together again. I could cry. It’s like the Bravo version of Hello, Dolly!’s title song. It’s so nice to have her back where she belongs.
Once they take their seats for brunch, Nene fills them all in on how she’s been and talks about the strange experience of leaving the show (and network) — which many of them have also experienced — and the weird phenomenon of seeing it all go on without her. She says it simultaneously made her feel left out, but also brought about a lot of peace. Conversations like this are the most interesting part of this show. Sure, the series is largely a clip show in which we get to run it back on some of the most iconic moments and quotes, and that’s fine. But building connections over these candid conversations about this bizarre, specific world and experience that only they can relate to is when RHUGT is at its best.
But this sisterhood can only last so long before Gizelle swoops in to do what she does best: cause mess. Because while she’s happy to see Nene, she has some beef, and her willingness to go toe-to-toe with one of the all-time greats makes Gizelle a legend in my book. She confronts Nene over a recent run-in she had with Gizelle’s castmate Karen Huger, in which Nene told her to “beat up Gizelle.” As she’s bringing this up, Nene glares at her in a way that almost sets off my fight-or-flight, and I can tell this could go one of two ways. Against all odds, Nene takes the road less traveled and apologizes. “You know, we were drinking… and we were just talking shit, so no hard feelings,” she says, along with a genuine apology, and the pair quickly make amends. Nene must have known that there’s no better way to get on Gizelle’s good side than to tell her that Karen was drinking.
Despite the bonding and light drama, I think the highlight of this brunch might have been Nene introducing the other women to her boyfriend Nyonisela, and Vicki going absolutely feral over him. It was like she was administered an adrenaline shot in the form of a man, and she came alive in a way that I’ve simply never seen. I thought she was gonna start barking. I don’t even know if a life insurance policy could have distracted her from him.
As they all get ready to head over to the Alter Ego Party, Lisa is on edge because a new batch of her castmates are set to be there. The joy Lisa has with her RHUGT cast compared with the dread her RHOSLC cast seems to bring her really bums me out — especially because of how much of this trip is championing the sisterhood of Housewives. Lisa is seeing what this experience could be for her, which only emphasized just how bad her current situation on RHOSLC is. On top of that, she’s simply exhausted from this shooting schedule, and tells Vicki that she’s worried she’s being “boring,” but Vicki assures her that she can’t be “on” 24/7 — which is a really nice moment between the old guard and new guard.
Once we get to the party, we have a lot of people and costumes to process, so let’s do a little roll call — starting with the costume that made me gasp out loud. Gizelle is dressed as Diana Ross, which I think will make anybody watching this remember Luann’s infamously ill-advised take on the same costume. That parallel doesn’t get brought up in this episode, but when they’re in the car together, you can see Lu visibly tense up, clearly worried about what clip the editors might be stitching in right at that very moment. Lucky for her, there’s no game of “Who wore it best?”
Meanwhile, Porsha is channeling her inner Stepford Wife, Lisa and Kyle are both Kemo Sabe cowgirls, and Vicki is “Jackie O,” but Lu points out that it looks more like she’s heading to a funeral. Mary Cosby is allegedly “Wonder Woman,” but to me just looks like Mary Cosby; Heather Gay is Britney Spears (though I hate to say Ramona Singer rocked the red spandex better); and Angie K is “Cher,” which some might say is a cop out because she has Cher hair no matter the occasion. Potomac’s resident pageant girl (who Gizelle seems intent to avoid for as long as she can) Candiace Dillard-Bassett is “Miss Understood,” Drew Sidora is a rock star, and Stacey Rusch is “Tyra Banks,” a costume that Gizelle mercilessly drags with glee. I love the way they love. And speaking of drag, Ashley of course won’t miss the opportunity to go into drag king mode — but then again, maybe it was just an attempt to disguise herself and hide from Kyle.
Because while we already saw Gizelle get some heat for thirsting after Mauricio earlier in the season, the real aggressors in that moment were Ashley and Stacey, who Gizelle was trying to rip away from Mo for Kyle’s sake. Ashley tells Kyle that she thinks there was some misconception surrounding what went down with her ex, at which point Kyle jumps in to point out that they’re still technically married. The word “technically” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, especially since both of them have been in relationships since they separated. Nonetheless, Ashley throws Stacey under the bus (fairly), and agrees with Kyle that she also wouldn’t want anybody on any of these shows dating her ex-husband. Ashley, I’ve got good news for you. There’s no risk of that happening. None of your fellow Housewives are lining up to date Michael Darby. Kyle and Ashley quickly make peace, but the most interesting part of this exchange comes when Kyle says, “You don’t want them pumping up their own egos more than they already are.” Clearly, she knows that years of being called the hottest Househusband have caught up to Mo, and he started to believe it.
By now we’ve all come to realize that this show titled “Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip” is really just a twist on Maury or Jerry Springer, but hosted by Gizelle Bryant. Gizelle is the MVP of this season, using every free moment she has to stir up and instigate mess, so much so that I think she deserves a producer credit. Naturally, with three more Salt Lake City wives at the Alter Ego Party, Gizelle is ready to further investigate why Lisa is in a battle with her whole cast. Gizelle quickly corners Heather, Angie, and Mary — and iconically has the entire conversation with them while talking into her prop Diana Ross mic. She’s in journalist mode, like Diane Sawyer or Dish Nation’s Porsha Williams.
The issue here, which Heather acknowledges in real time, is that it’s impossible to distill six seasons’ worth of drama into a quick explanation for Gizelle. So rather than get too into the weeds, Heather just says that there’s a lot of history that makes Lisa a person she’ll always have to question. It’s kind of a moot point though, because the RHUGT girls have already made up their minds that they love Lisa and intend to be blindly loyal to her no matter what explanation her castmates might offer. And they should be loyal to her; after all, that’s who they’re on this trip with. Everybody needs to LEAVE BABY GORGEOUS ALONE, as Porsha says.
Heather doesn’t necessarily take that advice, though, because just after that chat, she takes it upon herself to go say hi to Lisa. It seems well-intentioned and cordial at first (it even happens off camera!), but it doesn’t take long for niceties to turn sour. A playful jab about her history of slacking when it comes to costumes is not well-received, so things start to go off the rails before the crew even realizes they need to get these two on camera. I hope that the RHOSLC ladies see the sisterhood around them and take note to bring them back to that space… but so far it seems like that might be wishful thinking.
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