Basketball Wives Season 4: Apple Pie Face

Is it weird to say that tonight’s episode of Basketball Wives was focused? After a premiere that bounced around to 100 different get togethers and a second episode that followed Suzie on her path of destruction, the third episode of season 4 seemed downright quaint in comparison. There were no major takedowns or public screaming matches, nor did we get that much gossip behind so-and-so’s back, at least compared to previous episodes.

Instead of all that, Basketball Wives did what it said it’d do at the end of last season and focused on something other than who hates who. Mainly, the episode focused on newbie Kenya and her bid to not be a hot mess, which ended up falling flat. Y’all, Kenya’s a mess and I’m not even talking about her appearance, which, for a fledgling singer, could stand to be a bit more polished. No, Kenya’s a mess because she’s ill-prepared and seems to have no idea how to interact with people. The little jab at Kesha during her “victory speech” was so unnecessary and sounded like bitter, bitter gloating; all that was missing was a damn touchdown dance at the end. And she didn’t get why Kesha was upset, even after Evelyn and Tami, of all people, explained that maybe it wasn’t the time nor the place to bring that up. Kenya has the self-awareness of a dish towel if that didn’t sink in or she’s just got it out for Kesha and is playing dumb, because it’s not that hard to see why her comment got the response it did.

Plus, Tami’s little glam squad intervention highlighted the amateurish approach to Kenya’s career that Kesha hinted at, in that homegirl is not ready to make this a career or come for that Grammy she mentioned. Obviously, if Kenya had been extremely polished, she’d have a deal or be closer to achieving her goal, but she needs to get it together quickly if she wants to do this at the accelerated rate she’s going. We still haven’t heard any music from her, minus that muffled song playing in the meeting, but to make it in the pop/r&b world today, you don’t have to have a voice, you have to have an X factor and a killer look. As of now, Kenya’s 0-for-2 and I don’t know if she can improve on that.

And how tired was Suzie at Royce’s charity event? Breaking news: if you can’t be at a bar without having a drink, I’m fairly sure that’s a sign of alcoholism. But really, Suzie pulled a total punk move by getting drunk and loud during the event; for one, this chick wasn’t even invited to the thing and is lucky Royce is even talking to her. Suzie’s not been good to Royce since around season 2 and many, many people would have cut ties already, particularly once Kesha came on the scene. But no, Suzie takes all that for granted and does her patented “say one thing, do another” schtick, claiming to be there to support Royce but ending up passive aggressively embarrassing her and causing a scene for no reason. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that she has some animosity toward Royce and instead of choosing to woman up and talking about it, she does stupid stuff like this and putting Royce, alone, up against Evelyn and Jennifer last season. Suzie has this thing about not wanting to come off like the bad guy, so she talks it up like she’s a total angel but acts like the spawn of Lucifer himself. She’ll go to the charity event, but she has to get piss-drunk to make it through it and then has the balls to tell Royce “at least I came”? Girl…

The most arresting thing about Basketball Wives tonight, though, was Tami’s therapy session. When Shaunie and company kept talking about showing other sides of themselves, I figured it’d be more hot air, as all the ridiculous drama is what got Basketball Wives to be as popular as it is. But I’ll be damned if they didn’t follow through, at least in tonight’s episode. In addition to Royce getting involved with a donor-drive charity, Tami may be working toward getting through her issues, issues that run deeper than anybody knew. I don’t know if there’s been a realer moment in the four seasons of Basketball Wives than hearing Tami talk about being raped, tortured, and beaten, but it was powerful to see the roughest, toughest wife be that vulnerable and yank off the band-aids currently holding her together. Although I may not agree with how she handles people sometime, I really enjoy Tami and respect her for revealing something like that to millions of people and admitting that she has personal progress to make. It helps to explain (not excuse) her past actions on the show, in that you knew she was angry but you didn’t really know why.

I only hope she continues therapy, even though she claimed it didn’t really help her. A lot of the criticism about wives reality TV lies in its superficiality and petty in-fighting, so to be able to follow a personal journey like that would be a step in the right direction for Basketball Wives.

Thoughts, Quotes, & Observations:
-“It’s a little to the left. It’s leanin’.”
-“She is weird and here she comes.”
-“You look like one of our aunties.”
-“Dance, get to tap dancing.”
-Tami on Kenya’s dancing: “And it was everything I’d hoped it would be.”
-I really liked Kesha immediately calling Kenya on her messiness (without being messy herself) instead of letting it fester.
-Two Basketball Wives got into it in Tahiti. Who won?
-Evelyn clarifies last week’s epiode and her arrangement with Ocho.
-Tami spoke to The Huffington Post about a variety of topics.
-Next week on Basketball Wives: Shaunie and Tami fail to show up to Jennifer’s lip gloss line opening, while a racial comment is made about Kesha.