The Real Housewives of Atlanta

What Happened in the Dungeon? Season 13 Episode 10 Editor’s Rating 5 stars *****

The Real Housewives of Atlanta

What Happened in the Dungeon? Season 13 Episode 10 Editor’s Rating 5 stars *****

It’s here. We made it, folks. The reason for the season has arrived. In a jam-packed, extra-long, jumbo-size episode we watched as the ladies descended into the depths of the dungeon, guided only by the light of Bolo’s jam-packed, extra-long, jumbo-size penis. Enter at your own peril. The safe word is Peach Juice.

We know we’re in for a truly iconic episode from the opening moments, a Basic Instinct–style confessional with Kenya Moore doing her best Sharon Stone drag, lighting a cigarette in that white sleeveless turtleneck dress. Now, I’ve never seen Basic Instinct (don’t @ me), but even I know the societal import of Sharon Stone opening her legs in that chair while wearing that white dress. Leave it to The Real Housewives of Atlanta to take that moment and make it somehow even more iconic by adding the following line: “Ms. Moore, what is a definition of a freak hoe?” “Someone who’ll basically be a hoe for anyone,” Ms. Moore says drolly, before we flash back to footage from the dungeon party. Images of twerking butts, Cynthia in a sling, and Ms. Moore herself writhing on the floor flood the screen. Some freak hoe shit definitely went down, it appears.

“There’s not enough holy water or sage in the world to erase what went down in this house,” Kenya continues in confessional, laying it on real thick. “Someone screwed the stripper. It wasn’t me, but I’m going to find out who did it.” Wow, as someone of having-screwed-the-stripper/go-go-boy experience (we salute you, 2019 Pines Underwear Party), I feel very seen by this episode and believe that whoever screwed the stripper should be celebrated rather than put on trial. However, I am not running the show, Kenya Moore is and, as such, a full-blown investigation is under way. Kenya is opening up a new branch of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, but for finding out who got dicked down by Bolo the stripper.

But before we play Murder She Wrote, we must see the events that led to the crime of sleeping with the stripper, so we flash back to one day earlier, when the women are getting ready for the dungeon. Porsha, Kandi, and Canadian Tanya get gussied up in her room, and I still can’t believe Canadian Tanya’s chyron is “Porsha’s friend.” Porsha says that she doesn’t need to wear a face shield. “I wanna be unprotected. I want it raw,” she jokes. Okay, so it’s THAT kind of party. “Take that back,” Porsha quickly adds, confirming that it actually isn’t that kind of party, which is probably for the best. Porsha is given the obligatory task of delivering the *private island all tested negative multiple times wear a mask* confessional so that viewers can feel comfortable watching these women break every single one of the CDC’s recommended COVID guidelines and absolutely throw down amid a global pandemic. Porsha, of course, knocks it out of the park, delivering the message in the funniest way possible, accurately noting that at a bachelorette party, you want to see people’s mouths “like AYY.” Truly, the only thing bigger than Porsha’s peach is her mouth, and we are blessed to have both on this television program. Please sign my petition to replace Nicole Kidman in the Lucille Ball biopic with Porsha Williams.

Soon the ladies are ready and come out in their finest dungeon attire and they all look smoking hot. Seriously, tens across the board. LaToya is serving Catwoman. Marlo’s belt is blurred by production for some reason, and Porsha’s boobs are blurred by production for very obvious reasons #freethenip. The gals are so sexy and horned up they are even able to muster excitement at seeing Detective Moore, a.k.a. Kenya THEE stallion, in her red leather getup. But Kenya hasn’t flipped the detective switch just yet; she’s ready to have fun and let her hair down at Cynthia’s Dungeon Bachelorette Party before Cynthia’s Pandemmy Weddy on Ten-Ten-Twenty. Cynthia has no idea the Dungeon Bachelorette Party is even happening and comes downstairs in a maxi-dress looking absolutely scared and confused, as the girls come out one by one in their P-Valley finest. They bring back their alter egos from the murder-mystery party (remember her?) and deliver full, choreographed introductions for Peach Juice, Chocolate, Diva, Vagena Drip (my favorite), Lickety Split, Trini Gyal, Dynasty (heavy sigh), and Kandi as Mistress Angel, running the show. Vagena Drip, a.k.a Shamea, wins for best entrance as she fully drops into a Russian split and bounces up and down like it ain’t no thang. She’s the secret weapon of this trip.

Despite the fun introduction, Cynthia is still giving Auntie when the brief specifically asked for Nieces. As such, Marlo takes her upstairs to get her dungeon outfit on and we get a full Princess Diaries–Devil Wears Prada (wow, Anne Hathaway has given us so much) makeover moment as Cynthia transforms from Cynthia to 50 CYNT. Yeah, we’re definitely not packing doggie bags for Mike Hill tonight, babe. Mistress Angel, a.k.a. Kandi, has instructed that Cynthia put a vibrator in her panties (sorry, I don’t hate that word like everyone else, grow up) that Kandi can control via remote, which is amazing organic spon for her sex-toy line, Kandi Koated Kollection. Cynthia wobbles downstairs definitely looking more in theme. “I always knew Cynthia had a wagon,” Porsha hilariously remarks re Cynthia’s ass, and she’s not wrong. Still, there’s some residual Auntie energy with Cynthia. As the saying goes, you can take the woman-of-a-certain-age out of the Auntie, but you can’t take the Auntie out of the woman-of-a-certain-age.

Finally, after so, so much foreplay, we get to the main event, which is Bolo the stripper. I truly believe I could write a 40,000 words about Bolo, but the most important thing you need to know about Bolo is that he has a massive penis. An absolutely huge schlong. Like, production had to blur it through his pants it’s so big. If that makes you uncomfortable, then I’m sorry this episode and this recap is not for you. Big dicks only here. The ladies walk out onto the veranda and take in Bolo in all his glory writhing in a glass box. “Bolo has a big bolo,” screams LaToya accurately yet unintelligibly, because yes, duh, but also what’s a bolo? Porsha shares that she already was following Bolo on social media, but a quick Instagram search seems to confirm that that is no longer the case. For the record, Bolo is also incredibly hot and has a taste for Chanel, which Marlo notes is fake, which scans in this economy. I don’t know about you, but I simply don’t know many strippers who can afford head-to-toe authentic Chanel outfits these days.

We then get Cynthia’s Basic Instinct confessional where she denies that Bolo gave her any special treatment as the bride-to-be. Footage from the event with Cynthia fully stuffing dollar bills down Bolo’s pants seems to suggest that this isn’t necessarily the case. Cynthia also seems to be so dickmatized by Bolo that she has forgotten what state they were in, saying they should leave all the events from the dungeon party behind in North Carolina instead of South Carolina, where they actually were. Good dick will do that to you, though. We then travel back to North South Carolina, where Bolo has left the glass box and is preparing to put on a show for the ladies in Marlo’s bedroom, a.k.a the living room. Kandi is casually passing out $4K in singles, and Marlo accurately points out that many of these women are singleish and ready to mingleish.

Bolo puts on a show, and Cynthia gives him a whopping $4, which seems cheap even if he weren’t a stripper with the world’s longest ding-a-long. Pay this man what he’s owed! Bolo proves his worth by doing a literal back handspring into a diving humping motion into a headstand, which is no easy feat! As a Black man who used to do competitive gymnastics (true story), I love to see another brother practicing the art form. After Shamea has a great confessional moment calling Kenya out for showering Bolo with money after #CrabCakeGate, Bolo whips it out. And when I say he whips it out, I mean he literally whips it out for all the women to see. Here are reaction shots of the women taking in Bolo’s pogo-stick-long member:

Wow, a picture really is worth 1,000 words. The girls proceed to get properly wasted, and, per Kenya’s request, Porsha asks Bolo to stick around and party with them after the cameras stop rolling. Here is the moment where the fourth wall rears its head again and we have to contend with the fact that we are, in fact, watching a reality-television program. They want the REAL party to start, so they want to turn the cameras OFF so things can really go DOWN. We see production and camera crew say they are gonna see when they wrap (that’s a showbiz term for “stop filming,” you’re welcome), and LaToya says that they can’t really have fun until all the cameras are gone. This makes me existentially sad because it implies that whenever we are watching a Real Housewife on-camera she is never truly having fun because she is at work. However, Kandi says she doesn’t give a fuck about the cameras, so I am allowed to stop thinking about this entirely and go back to my natural state of dumb bitch. We then see the actual camera crew leave at 12:45 a.m. and switch over to night-vision footage, which appears to be just whatever the cameras that are on the property were able to capture. And from the looks of it, things stayed turnt up well beyond what we were able to see …

And then, it’s the next day. The house looks like an absolute disaster and everyone is hung-over except Kenya, who apparently left the party around
1 a.m. (lame) to take care of Brooklyn (understandable). Kenya claims that when she woke up at 6 a.m. and came into the kitchen, she heard “moaning and groaning” in the spare bedroom between Portia and Kandi’s room and knows Bolo didn’t leave till 7 a.m., i.e., someone screwed the stripper. Due to the delicate nature of the alleged activity that went down with Bolo the stripper, it’s best to present the timeline of events in the clearest way possible:

12:45 a.m.: Production wraps for the night.
1:18 a.m.: On the night-vision camera, we see a nanny bring Brooklyn up to Kenya’s room. Downstairs, we see Cynthia and Bolo through the shades. In confessional, Cynthia confirms what we’re all wondering about Bolo: “It’s real.” Well, that settles that. Porsha, who says she’s feeling a little bisexual this evening, is caught on-camera making out with LaToya. Tired: KenToya. Wired: PorToya.
3:48 a.m.: Drew seems to be doing some rhythmic table humping. In conversation with Cynthia the next morning, she shares that Bolo flipped her and threw her on the table (take that, Ralph). She describes being face down on the coffee table and “feeling very free.” Tanya says she’s going to “get in trouble,” and Porsha says that she won’t.
4:52 a.m.: We hear Bolo through the blinds saying “Oh my God” and can see an unidentified person walking through the room.
6:00 a.m.: Kenya is up walking around and claims she hears noises: “Moans and groans and I heard voices coming from the hallway.” We get a literal floor plan of the house and see there is one open bedroom in between Porsha and Kandi’s room. Later it’s revealed that Marlo goes to the kitchen around this time and also hears “moaning and groaning.”
7:06 a.m.: Bolo the stripper and his ginormous package finally leave the house.

While a lot about what transpired after the cameras stopped rolling is unclear, what is clear is that the Atlanta girls are fun as fuck and know how to turn up. Best franchise to party with, hands down (RHONY’s a close second, of course). The next day, half the hung-over women go on a fishing trip while the other half stay at the house and have to stand trial at Bolo Court with prosecutor-judge Kenya Moore. Even though the boat is definitely a fishing boat and not a yacht like Porsha wanted, it’s cute and fun and Shane, the white boatman, at one point says, “Keep your raw tip up,” which brought me back to Bolo-land and made me laugh out loud. Also, Marlo fully caught a literal shark. Like, not a baby shark, but a full-grown Bruce from Finding Nemo, could probably bite your leg off shark. Kandi confirms that the shark is the only thing in the known universe that’s bigger than Bolo’s penis.

Back at the ranch, Kenya Moore returns to form and has to ruin everything, taking what could be a fun, semi-innocent game of “Who Bopped Bolo?” and turning it into the Salem Witch Trials. That’s the problem with Kenya; she doesn’t know where to draw the line. As such, she grills Cynthia, then LaToya, then Shamea and Tanya about exactly what happened between
2 a.m. and 6 a.m. at the dungeon party. Look, anyone who’s ever been to a bachelor or bachelorette party knows that you don’t talk about what happens at the party, in part because you get so fucked up that you don’t remember. The last (read only) bachelor party I went to I got so high that I forgot how to speak, got lost wandering the hallways of the hotel attached to the casino alone, and all my friends thought I died. When I eventually Ubered back to the house at five in the morning and they asked “what happened?” I said, “I don’t know,” because, in all honesty, I didn’t know. To this day, I still don’t know. So, I stand with the women who say they don’t really recall the events of the night.

Cynthia recalls watching Porsha and Canadian Tanya make out, which we have on-camera, before eventually going to sleep. A titty may or may not have fallen into someone’s mouth. LaToya says she didn’t kiss anyone (a lie) and that she couldn’t have been the one screwing the stripper at 6 a.m. because she was filming an Instagram video at that time and we have the footage to prove it. It’s the only time being an influencer has helped someone avoid scandal. Marlo went to sleep before Cynthia (“Okay, I’m not staying for this”), and Porsha on the bus to the fishing trip smartly says she doesn’t remember what went down but knows she interacted with just about everyone. A good-time gal after my own heart. During Bolo Court, Shamea says she went to sleep around 4 a.m. and Canadian Tanya says she doesn’t remember much of the evening. I’m a little confused as to why no one wants to step up and say they slept with Bolo the stripper as he is hot and has the largest member known to mankind. I’m just saying, if I were blessed enough to sleep with Bolo, I’d be shouting it from the rooftops, honey.

Somehow, even with all this content, the producers are able to shoehorn in a Kenya and Marlo reconciliation moment. Somebody run them their overtime check. While their reconciliation does feel slightly forced, it’s compelling to watch because these women really do have a long history. I hope these two crazy kids make it. As the ladies get ready for their first post-Bolo dinner, Shamea and Canadian Tanya inform Porsha that Kenya is saying that she and Tanya had a threesome with Bolo. Kenya’s speculation started off as fun and harmless, but devolved into something sinister, and I think it happened the moment she said that something “inappropriate” went down in the extra bedroom with Bolo. It is never inappropriate for two consenting adults to have sex in the privacy of their own room. Let’s not be the prude police, Kenya. We’re not Gen-Z TikTokers; we’re adults. That aside, clearly the girls didn’t want any of this on-camera (hence production leaving), so Kenya insisting on getting to the bottom of this on-camera is shady at best and an explicit violation of her castmate’s wishes at worst. Either way, Porsha isn’t having it and calls Kenya “tired” and is sick of her “Auntie bull.” “It’s fuck, Kenya,” she says point blank, period, and with that, a new feud between Porsha and the newly allied Kenya has been ignited. Bolo and his donkey dick may be gone, but the deep, deep impact the Chanel-clad stripper made on the Atlanta housewives will surely be felt for days, if not weeks, to come (pun absolutely intended).

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