'The Real Housewives of Atlanta' recap: Riding the Bus with my Sisters

Kim and Kandi embarked last night on their three-city bus tour. And the way Kim said goodbye to her older daughter Brielle you'd think she was leaving for Iraq. "I have to go," Kim moaned, as Brielle looked over her mother's shoulder at Sweetie and grasped for the assistant's hand. "Why does Sweetie have to go along?" sobbed Brielle, who I'm pretty sure doesn't have a future career in the dramatic arts. Meanwhile Arianna, who'd rightly declared her mother's fame meaningless, was jumping on her canopy bed in her rhinestone sunglasses and her mother's lucite heels, dreaming up badly misspelled Facebook status updates about how 8ers are lame.

Kim seemed stunned by the demands of life on the road. There wasn't enough room for both her and Sweetie in the bathroom and the little bunks could barely fit her cartons of Kools. When Kandi's overzealous assistant Don Juan—would it kill someone on Kandi's team just to go by Robert or Michael?—told Kim there was no smoking on the bus she about fainted.  Clever girl, she finagled a deal with the bus driver in which she wouldn't tattle on him getting loaded behind the wheel if he turned a blind eye to her lighting up. Rock and roll!

It hurts me really to ever stand up for Kim, you know this, but even I wanted to slug Don Juan for giving her so much grief. While Kandi sat there with a passive aggressive smile on her face, he taunted her relentlessly. At the crappy Charlotte roadside bar, when he suggested they should have named the joint the Horny Hippo after her, I too wanted to throw a drink in his face. Then Kandi upped the ante by wondering if a more apt name was The Monkey with a Wig on. Oh Kandi, that was both nasty and terribly unclever. Then Don Juan, with a mean-spirited smirk, suggested Kim must be nervous about her new risque single, what with pushing infidelity and all. Kim had had it and demanded that Sweetie follow her outside for a smoke. Her assistant, who was halfway through snaking her bra out from under her t-shirt, snapped to and followed her peeved boss out the door into the harsh sunlight.

Maybe it was Don Juan's poor form. Maybe it was the invigorating sight of sweet Joyce and the aunties who'd road-tripped to make it to the show.  Maybe  it was because Kim did her silly best getting ready for the show by lazily running through her routine in the alley outside Club Tempo with a smoke in one hand and a plastic glass of wine in the other. But I was rooting for the girl. Enh, who cares if she forgot her dance steps and let the backup tracks do all the lifting. She held her ring finger up to the delighted crowd and gave a far kinder introduction of Kandi than her friend might have deserved. Kandi, I like your sensible nature and your heavy ballads but you need to decide if you find Kim gross or if you like her and want her in your life. Oh wait, we all need to decide that.

NEXT: Peter and Cynthia make a good case for long engagements.

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