As Elton John once crooned, the bitch is back.
He must have known that 30-some years later, Joseline (or Shenellica Bettencourt, as she was known back when she popped on a headstand for Luke and them) would return to Atlanta to continue her reign of improper subject-verb agreement and unsavory weaves.
This week’s installment Love and Hip Hop Atlanta Season 5 marked the triumphant return of the series’ resident rabble rouser and professional word mangler, newly arrived from California and reformed of her former bottle throwin’ ways. Mmmhmm. Hurricane Joseline, Part 2, matched the general episode theme of trying again: Tiarra trying again with Mimi, Karlie Redd trying again with Joseline, K. Michelle trying again to convince us it’s ok to be shaped like a capital letter A, etc.
When we last left off, Scrapp’s tete-a-tete-a-tete with baby mama Tiarra and current skeet receptacle Tommie had gone completely off the rails. This week’s episode opens with the conclusion of brawl no. 427 this season, which ends with Tommie stalking out one entrance, Tiarra escorted out another - but not before she socks the crap out of him. Yes gawd!
Life is so hard for Scrapp. He’s going to jail. His steady supply of vajeen is threatened. And no amount of Dr. Miracle’s will mend his ends. He just wants his family together before he goes to spend five years washing another man’s drawls. And so he meets with Tiarra again to talk turkey about what it will take to fix their relationship and get him some face time with his son before it’s too late. Tiarra offers him access to his son (which, all jokes aside, she really shouldn’t be denying him) on the condition that he get his mother to stop beefin’ with her.
I don’t see the connection, but Scrapp does, so he arranges a sit down with girlfriend/mom KK, who kills a little time making creepy, overtly sexual comments (“When you eat off my plate, I feel like I’m tasting your girlfriends!”) before letting it be known that she ain’t making peace with that tramp. Bih tried to send her to jail and is sleepin’ with her man manipulates her son, so it’s a nawl. But did she kill your dog bih? ‘Cause if she didn’t kill your dog, this is petty, IJS. Scrapp knocks over a chair and storms out in protest, securing his reputation as the James Evans Sr. of LAHHATL (see: nostrils always flaring, hairline never quite right, perpetually losing right on the cusp of greatness…).
Elsewhere in the city, Joseline and Stevie J. are shopping for a ring as a consolation prize for her agreeing to abandon her burgeoning success in Hollywood (CHILE) to join her husband’s side in Atlanta. Joseline has left the heroin drama of her past behind and has traded using her fists to settle beef for using her brain. Someone’s been talkin to Furious Styles I see! Each one teach one. Anyway, all this spiritual reinvention hasn’t stifled her petty, and she lets it be known that she has endless tea on all the LAHHATL cast members, which she plans to spill at a video release party coming soon. Another Joseline video?? Lort, black people ain’t got nobody but jaysus.
Rasheeda is having trouble with the staff at her “store,” so she calls a meeting at which her moms promptly gets into it with her stepdaughter. Is there something this woman can take to turn down? A pill or a tincture perhaps? Kirk shows up to the store and the type of bullshit argument only Mona Scott could engineer ensues. Sumpin about whose fake business is holding the family down. Later on, Rasheeda uses this argument as the basis for her visit to Scrappy’s Grustle Girls photo shoot, where she confronts him about their court house beef before inviting him to try again with Kirk at a talent showcase they’re hosting. How does any of that add up? It adds up about as well as them crow’s feet plus them high school photos of her and Father Time in ‘80s drop socks add up to Rasheed being 33. But let me stop - Rasheeda’s face is everything, especially when her beat is on point. But she should let that 33 shit go like, immediately.
Before I forget, yes, Scrappy had a photo shoot. No, I won’t dignify it with more than a passing side eye. Nothing from nothing leaves nothing. *Yeezy shrug*
This week’s C storyline: Jessica Dime brings Tiarra to get drinks with Mimi. The same Tiarra who was fighting at Stud Bae’s birthday. Mimi is shocked - SHOCKED! - to be in the company of a woman who fights. Churl. These bitches fight at church. They fight at baby showers. Their fake asses are fighting gravity. Let a sista live! Mimi spends a strong 45 seconds shading the girl before bonding over tales of ain’t shit niggas. In other news, I’ll be using the bathroom during Mimi’s non-Stud Bae scenes for the foreseeable future.
Also returned for no good reason this episode was K. Michelle, who pops in on Karlie Redd at her California store *eyebrow raise* to update her on where she’s been (in Europe riding white dacks - no seriously) and encourage her to give former friend Joseline a little space and time to come back around. Karlie Redd chokes up while discussing how betrayed she felt by Joseline turning on her and how even though she’s busy doing important things like posing in ol horny ninjas weekly Playboy and tossin’ Lyfe Jennings’ wilted salad, she still misses her friend.
I must say that I’m really liking Joseline’s testimonial look, what with the soft body waves and the toned down makeup. It almost makes up for the battlecat weave and rock-ho couture she donned for her end-of-episode meeting with Karlie Redd at a hookah bar. Karlie comes extending an honest, if wary, olive branch. Joseline responds by hitting her over the head - this time metaphorically - with a crumpled document and promises that she will spill mega tea on Karlie if the original superhead doesn’t put some respec’ on her name (see what I did there!)
Nice try Shenellica. But unless you’re gonna tell us that chile’s hymen is intact, there’s not much you can say to shock us about Karlie Redd. Until next week!