Welcome to the Jurassic Snark excavation site, where we’re digging up the very beginning of the Atlanta Housewives dynasty. Before the wigs became national news, before the ladies were throwing tables, before the reunions required multiple episodes and a forensic accounting team, there were five women, one Andy Cohen, and a whole lot of unresolved business.
We’re going all the way back to 2008 for the Season 1 reunion. The hair is different. The fashion is different. The reunion set is considerably less elaborate. But the mess? The mess is already fully developed.
And sitting at the center of this prehistoric social disaster are NeNe Leakes and Kim Zolciak, two women whose friendship has deteriorated so thoroughly that we’re probably going to need a geological survey to locate the remains.
Let’s get digging.
The original Atlanta five are assembled: NeNe Leakes, Kim Zolciak, Shereé Whitfield, DeShawn Snow, and Lisa Wu-Hartwell. Andy Cohen is hosting, and the women are here to revisit the first season’s conflicts, friendships, marriages, business ventures, and assorted questionable decisions.
Looking at this reunion now is almost an archaeological experience in itself. The women are dressed nicely, but we’re not yet at the era of elaborate reunion gowns, professional glam squads, and hairstyles that require their own zip code. This is a much more casual affair.
It’s also a reminder that the show was still establishing its identity. Nobody quite knows yet how enormous this franchise is going to become. But the ingredients are already there: enormous personalities, complicated relationships, a little delusion, and women who are absolutely not going to let somebody else have the last word.
We begin with the obvious problem: NeNe and Kim.
Once upon a time, these two were friends. They shopped together, socialized together, and seemed to have a genuine connection. But the season has exposed some significant cracks in that relationship.
NeNe has become increasingly critical of Kim, particularly her relationship with Big Poppa and her aspirations to become a country singer. Kim, in turn, has not appreciated NeNe’s commentary and has made it clear that she doesn’t particularly enjoy being the subject of her friend’s running monologue.
And now they’re sitting across from one another with Andy Cohen, who is about to discover that hosting a reunion is less about asking questions and more about surviving the answers.
The Big Poppa situation is an obvious point of contention. Kim has spent much of the season enjoying the lifestyle provided by her wealthy boyfriend, who is married and whose identity remains a closely guarded secret.
Kim has been very comfortable accepting the benefits of this arrangement. The shopping, the gifts, the financial support. She’s living rather well, thank you very much.
The problem, of course, is that Big Poppa is not exactly available.
And NeNe has thoughts.
A lot of thoughts.
Kim’s relationship is one of those storylines that feels almost impossible to explain to somebody who has never watched early Atlanta. She’s not particularly interested in discussing the arrangement in a way that invites criticism, but she also seems to expect everyone to accept the situation without asking too many questions.
Well, Kim, you’ve joined a reality television show. Asking questions is literally the business model.
NeNe is not inclined to leave the subject alone. She has spent the season making comments about Kim’s relationship, and the reunion gives her another opportunity to express herself.
And then we get the line.
The line.
The phrase that would become one of the most recognizable Housewives quotes of all time.
NeNe tells Kim to close her legs to married men.
Excuse me?
We’re barely through the first season, and NeNe has already handed the franchise a catchphrase that will be repeated, quoted, printed on merchandise, and resurrected in conversations for years.
It’s a spectacularly blunt insult. No elaborate setup. No lengthy explanation. No attempt to soften the message.
Just close your legs to married men.
And what makes it particularly effective is that NeNe delivers it with the confidence of a woman who believes she has just provided a public service announcement.
Kim is not amused, naturally. She doesn’t appreciate NeNe’s judgment of her personal life, and the two are clearly nowhere near repairing their friendship.
This is the beginning of a very long Housewives tradition: one woman makes a judgmental comment, another woman takes offense, and suddenly everybody is discussing somebody else’s sex life as though they’re conducting a congressional investigation.
And we’re only at the first reunion.
Kim also discusses her hair and the wigs she’s been wearing. Her explanation becomes one of the more bizarre moments of the reunion.
She describes a frightening medical situation involving the possibility of cancer, hair loss, and a doctor who apparently gave her an alarming assessment. The story is confusing, particularly as she tries to explain what she was told and what ultimately happened.
Bravo itself would later look back on this as Kim’s shocking confession about having, and then not having, cancer.
It’s a strange and uncomfortable conversation, and Kim doesn’t exactly provide the sort of clear explanation that would put the matter to rest.
The wigs, however, have become part of her identity on the show. They’re practically supporting cast members at this point.
And Kim’s ability to turn a discussion about her personal life into a conversation that leaves everyone with more questions than answers is already well established.
Meanwhile, Shereé is sitting there with her own collection of unresolved issues.
Her relationship with NeNe has been rocky throughout the season, and the reunion revisits the tension between them. These two have a history of disagreements, mutual irritation, and competing opinions about who is behaving badly.
Shereé has been navigating life after her divorce from Bob Whitfield, attempting to establish herself as a successful independent woman while developing her fashion business, She by Shereé.
NeNe, meanwhile, has not exactly been Shereé’s biggest cheerleader.
The two women have a complicated dynamic. There are moments when they seem capable of getting along, followed by another disagreement that sends them right back to square one.
The reunion asks whether they will ever be friends again, which is a reasonable question considering the season we’ve just watched.
And honestly, I appreciate that we’re already establishing one of Atlanta’s most enduring traditions: two women insisting they don’t care about each other while dedicating an extraordinary amount of time to discussing each other.
Shereé has also had a season of professional ambition. Her fashion line has been a major part of her storyline, and the disastrous fashion presentation has not exactly helped matters.
She wants to be taken seriously as a businesswoman and a fashion designer. She has ideas, aspirations, and a very clear picture of the success she expects to achieve.
The actual execution, unfortunately, has been somewhat less convincing.
But Shereé is not someone who enjoys being questioned about her ambitions. She has a vision. She has a plan. And if the plan isn’t working, perhaps the rest of us simply haven’t caught up with her yet.
The reunion is also a chance to revisit the season’s other conflicts, including the disagreements involving Lisa and Kim.
Lisa has been trying to navigate the social dynamics of this group while balancing her own marriage, family, and business interests. She and Kim have had their disagreements, and the reunion includes some particularly tense moments between them.
Bravo even promoted a preview of Kim and Lisa fighting, which tells you that the ladies are not simply sitting around exchanging compliments and reminiscing about the good old days.
The good old days, apparently, lasted approximately six minutes before somebody got offended.
Lisa is an interesting part of this original cast. She’s ambitious, athletic, and entrepreneurial, with a family life that includes her husband Ed and their children. She’s also trying to establish herself in a group where NeNe and Shereé have already developed a complicated history and Kim has a tendency to become the center of attention.
It’s not an easy environment.
But Lisa is not exactly a shrinking violet, either.
And then there’s DeShawn Snow.
DeShawn is the most unusual fit in this group, largely because her approach to life is so different from the other women’s. Her first season has revolved around her family, her enormous custom-built home, and her attempts to establish herself as a philanthropically minded society woman.
She’s wealthy, polished, and seemingly determined to create a world of gracious entertaining and charitable giving.
Which is lovely.
Unfortunately, she’s also trying to organize a group of women who seem to regard a peaceful social gathering as a personal challenge.
DeShawn’s attempts to bring the ladies together have not always gone smoothly. She wants harmony, friendship, and a pleasant social circle. The other women want to argue about who said what, who is friends with whom, and whether somebody’s boyfriend is actually somebody else’s husband.
It’s a difficult assignment.
DeShawn is almost operating in a different television genre. She’s trying to host a philanthropic society drama while everyone else is auditioning for a verbal cage match.
And while her role in the franchise will be brief, she is an important part of the original season. She represents a version of Atlanta society that the show initially wanted to explore: wealth, marriage, family, and social status.
The problem is that the women are much more entertaining when they’re fighting.
By the time we get through the reunion, the central relationships are not exactly repaired. NeNe and Kim remain deeply estranged. NeNe and Shereé are still dealing with their issues. Lisa and Kim have their own disagreements. And DeShawn is left among a group of women whose definition of friendship appears to involve a considerable amount of emotional property damage.
But the most significant thing about this reunion is what it establishes.
NeNe Leakes is already a force of nature. She has the timing, the delivery, the confidence, and the ability to turn a sentence into a permanent piece of popular culture.
Kim Zolciak is already a fascinating combination of ambition, defensiveness, glamour, and inexplicable explanations. She wants the lifestyle, the music career, the romance, and the attention. Preferably all at once.
Shereé Whitfield is already Shereé Whitfield. The confidence is there. The ambition is there. The certainty that she deserves the very best is absolutely there.
Lisa is trying to build her own life and business while navigating the personalities around her.
And DeShawn is trying to make everybody behave like civilized adults, which is perhaps the most unrealistic storyline of the entire season.
It’s remarkable how much of the Atlanta formula is already present. The friendships are unstable, the business ventures are ambitious, the romantic arrangements are questionable, and the women are more than willing to say exactly what they think.
There is no need for a complicated production. No enormous cast. No elaborate themed reunion set. Just five women, Andy Cohen, and a collection of grudges that have been marinating all season.
And then there’s that phrase.
Close your legs to married men.
It is almost impossible to overstate how important that moment became to Housewives history. NeNe didn’t just insult Kim. She gave the franchise one of its foundational catchphrases.
A sentence so iconic that it deserves to be displayed in a museum, preferably next to the table flip and the Amsterdam dinner wine glass.
The fossils are barely formed, and already they’re throwing verbal boulders.
This is where it all began, folks. The original Atlanta excavation. Five women, one reunion, and enough interpersonal conflict to keep an entire paleontology department employed.
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