Hotlanta = Three Wigs + Two Episodes + One Baby

(December 10, 2011) – Rumor has it that this is going to be a jam-packed Bravo Housewives week with two episodes of the Real Housewives of Atlanta . It sounds like the suits at 30 Rock are finally getting it that very few of us have any interest in seeing yet another marathon of the Millionaire Matchmaker. Or maybe the birth of Kim’s son and Shereé child support issues are epically irresistible and therefore deserve a full two-hours for us to grasp all of the significant nuances. We hope so. We love the Georgia Peaches and will gladly welcome them into our home on Sunday night (9 pm EST/8 pm Central) and then again on Tuesday (10 pm EST/9 pm Central), too.

Because we can hardly wait for either episode, today, just to get ourselves in gear, we want to focus on the preview videos that are now online at BravoTV.com. This is what we have to look forward to in Hotlanta:

Atlanta: Three Wigs and a Baby

photo: igossip.com

Baby Makes Five
Kim and Kroy are dashing off to see her ob/gyn at Maternal Gynerations. Sweetie is helping them get out the door with what initially looked like a bagel and cream cheese for Kim, though later it seemed to morph into a doughnut. Dr. Hood says that Kim is only 37 1/2 weeks pregnant, but she has high blood pressure, “a ton of fluid,” and headaches. So he’s going to send her to the hospital to deliver her baby early.

Kim’s nervous. Kroy is not panicking which is making Kim irritable because she’s worried. She knows she had a difficult birth with Ariana and she suspects Kroy has no idea what is about to happen. He tells Kim that he’s just good at remaining calm because that is the way he deals with the stress of being on a professional football team. Kim think that analogy is ridiculous, but she tries as hard as she can to be kind to Kroy. And she asks him to forgive her for whatever she says or does during the delivery. We wonder if Bravo will take two episodes to show the delivery. We suspect they’re going to use the birth of their baby as a cliff hanger from episode to another, but we hope we’re wrong.

Cynthia Takes Manhattan
Cynthia and Peter are chatting about Cynthia’s business trip to New York with NeNe. Peter says he is “not holding your hand” with the opening of the Bailey Agency. Last January Peter told Uptown magazine that he expects Cynthia to step up financially if he needs her to be there for him in the future, but he’s now telling us he will not be there for her if she needs him his emotional support while she is trying to launch her own business. It doesn’t sound like a really nice thing to say and it doesn’t sound like a fair way to balance a marriage. Is it just us or is there something wrong here in the Parks-Thomas partnership see saw?

Cynthia is also going to see Russell Simmons while she’s in Manhattan. Oddly enough Peter sounds more jealous that she’s going to be traveling with NeNe than seeing Russell, whom Cynthia dated when she was 18 years old. That’s fine. Jealousy is often irrational and – as an ex-boyfriend (who was not a rocket scientist) once brilliantly observed – “it’s a game you play with yourself.” So we’ll reserve judgment about that. But what is the story with Russell and the Housewives? Russell Simmons seems to show up regularly on these Housewives shows. He was Kelly’s friend in NYC and he was pictured briefly at a Polo event in the Hamptons with Jill Zarin.

For anyone who does not understand his importance in the history of popular music, this may seem relatively normal But truth be told Russell Simmons had more to do with shaping popular culture than most people. He is literally the Brian Epstein of Hip Hop music, and as much as we love the Bravo Housewives, we sincerely think these shows should be beneath a man of his stature. But clearly we are wrong and that makes us happy. If these shows are good enough for Russell, maybe they are not nearly as low brow as we fear.

Shereé Wants to Break the Cycle
We don’t remember ever meeting Shereé’s mother, Thelma. Seemingly out of nowhere there Thelma is at the job site for the up and coming manse, Chateau Shereé. Thelma is very pretty and looks quite a bit like her daughter. The two ladies are discussing Shereé’s ex-husband, Bob Whitfield and his lack of child support payments. Shereé tells her mother that he used one of his daughter’s gift card to buy food, despite the fact that he made millions of dollars in the NFL, over a 13 or 14 year career.

Thelma tells us that she took Shereé’s father to court child support when he failed to provide for Shereé. This seems to be the first time Shereé has ever heard this story. And hearing it seems to make Shereé feel pain she hasn’t thought about in a long time. She mentions that when she was little she wanted her father to buy her Speak & Spell for Christmas. She says he promised to do it, but he never came through with the gift.

We mention this only because for the very first time, we are starting to see how vulnerable Shereé is. As much as she boasts about her upper middle class upbringing we always knew that something happened long ago that has made Shereé very bitter. But we had no idea what it was. And not knowing it prevented us from sympathizing with her as much as we would like to, and as much as she deserves to be understood.

Here, in this job site conversation, we learn that Shereé is desperately trying to break the cycle of father abandonment she felt back in the 70s when her father disappointed her. This may be why she is so reluctant to address her ex-husband’s apparent lack of interest in their children.  It all sounds like a very sad situation.

The second episode this week looks like it is going to feature Phaedra Parks filing a motion against Bob. We’re very curious to see how this plays out. Something about Bob’s cocky attitude toward Shereé when they talked about child support in the park last week makes us think that he is somehow in full compliance with their settlement agreement. But of course, we have no idea. As dumb as the man seemed, as he appeared on national television in a show that could make him seem like a deadbeat Dad, we know Bob Whitfield is definitely a smart man. He never would have made it through three years of Stanford unless he had a brain. We’re looking forward to seeing how he’s going to use it.

Tags: Bob Whitfield, Child Support, Cynthia Bailey, featured, Kim gives birth, Kim Zolciak, Kroy Biermann, Peter Thomas, Real Housewives of Atlanta, Sheree Whitfield, The Bailey Agency

Category: Cynthia Bailey, Kim Zolciak, Peter Thomas, Real Housewives of Atlanta, Sherée Whitfield