The Real Housewives of Atlanta aired the 16th episode of it’s 7th season last night (March 9, 2015).

Last week, Phaedra Parks exploded during a group dinner after Cynthia Bailey & Kenya Moore grilled her about ‘Mr. Chocolate’.

[READ: RECAP: #RHOA S7, Ep15 + Watch Full Video]

This week’s episode is titled ‘Southern Discomfort’ as the ladies all attempt to get through even more ‘uncomfortable’ situations.

Bravo Synopsis:

Kandi and Todd confront their issues in marriage counseling. NeNe proposes a surprising solution to try to heal the broken relationships.

Kandi is blindsided when told that an unexpected rift might be forming with one of her closest friends.

Read recap + watch full episode below…

VIDEO: RHOA S7, Ep17 ‘Southern Discomfort’

Life Lesson #1 – ‘Housewives’ in glass houses shouldn’t spill tea…

Last week, Cynthia shared a bit of information that she’d ‘heard’ about Phaedra and ‘Chocolate’ and the rumor took on a life of it’s own. This week, Phaedra meets with Porsha and the two spill a bit of tea about Cynthia’s relationship.

As you know, Porsha and Cynthia already fell out earlier this year and Porsha uses her screen time to bash Bailey and her relationship with Peter Thomas.

Porsha brings up Peter’s failed buisness ventures and also says that he’s ‘sleeping with everyone in Atlanta’. *clutches pearls*

But wait… Cynthia isn’t the only one on Porsha’s hit list. She also points out how Kandi should have had Phaedra’s back during the explosive dinner.

The conversation forces Phaedra to examine her friendship with Kandi and she admits in her confessional that things have been a bit strained between them lately.

Life Lesson #2 – First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a pre-nup and now we’re questioning our love.

Kandi and Todd have been married for all of 6 months and it seems that money has gotten in the way of their love life.

Todd agreed to marital counseling after Kandi forced the issue about their declining sex life and during their session, he reveals that he’s been feeling ‘somekindaway’ since they argued over the pre-nup prior to their marriage.

Kandi still feels that Todd has been cheating because he spends so much time working in L.A. When he comes home to Atlanta, his mood changes but Todd says it’s family issues that has him dreading returning home.

Whatever the case, the issues affecting the couple has manifested in the bedroom and Kandi has been forced to utilize her sex toy line without the help of her hubby.

Todd admits that they do have problems but he’s willing to work on them, so they end the session and agree to unplug for a one on one date night to reconnect.

Life Lesson #3 – You can’t play the middle between two adversaries. One person is guaranteed to get the short end of the stick…

Peter Thomas throws an awards show and prior to the event Kenya grills Kandi about Phaedra and the situation that occurred during their last dinner.

[PHOTOS: Peter Thomas & Deb Antney Host ‘Salute To Excellence’ Awards]

For whatever reason… Kenya is still very much invested in Phaedra’s marriage and she tries to force Kandi to admit that she knows about Parks’ ‘affair’… what Kandi might actually know about is the ‘affair’ Apollo had with Kenya, but I guess that’s beside the point.

[READ: Phaedra Parks Outs Kenya Moore’s ‘Affair’ With Apollo Nida!!]

While Kandi tries her best to remain ‘neutral’ she does manage to show a bit of allegiance to her longtime friend by refusing to discuss her marriage with Team Pretty Petty.

Messy Kenya tries her best to get Kandi to diss Phedra and she eventually refers to Kandi as ‘the most loyal friend ever’ while Burruss admits in her confessional that regardless of her fence riding Phaedra is ‘the one she really cares about’.

Kenya loses again. Moving on…

Life Lesson #4 – Fact check.

Cynthia invites Phaedra to lunch to ‘discuss’ what happened and to attempt to smooth things over about the ‘Chocolate’ rumors but things don’t quite turn out as planned.

Phaedra shows up, thinking that Bailey is going to apologize, but apparently Cynthia is having problems putting that apology ‘on the table’ like she did that rumor last week.

Since Kenya isn’t there to set things off, Bailey stumbles through yet another uncomfortable confrontation. Phaedra breaks through the pleasantries and tells Bailey that she feels she should have ‘fact checked’ before spreading lies.

Cynthia get’s confrontational and says that Phaedra doesn’t have her ‘facts’ straight. In essence, it was a forced scene put together by RHOA producers that didn’t ‘fact check’ to know that Parks wasn’t having it.

Bailey was about 2 minutes away from the beating that Parks owed Kenya, but Phaedra miraculously managed to keep it all together before walking out on the nonsense.

Cynthia… I like you, but you need to do better. *sigh*

Life Lesson #5 – It’s the ‘Queen’ Bee’s job to keep the workers bees working…

As friendships hang in the balance, NeNe decides it’s time for everyone to seek counseling. She enlists the help of Dr. Jeff Gardere, the relationship psychologist who helped she and Gregg to heal things between his adult kids, to ‘fix’ the drama going on between the ladies on the show.

Leakes admits she was closest to Cynthia Bailey and thought of her as a sister, and wants to understand what went wrong.

She also is attempting to play peacemaker between Kandi and Phaedra, who were also as close as sisters, and hopes to repair their relationship as well.

NeNe invites the ladies out to discuss her relationship therapy idea. She thought it was best not to invite Kenya and Phaedra to the sit down. That wound is still a bit too fresh, but plans to invite them to the counseling session.

In the meantime, all of the ladies show up for margaritas and conversation (including Demetria McKinney for whatever reason).

[Sidebar: McKinney has given ‘background’ character a whole new meaning this season! She’s been in a ton scenes and sometimes it seems she’s not even mic’d up for the scene it’s starting to become a running joke. But I digress… 😆 ]

Nene tells the group that they all could benefit from counseling because they haven’t been acting like ‘grown women’.

Cynthia seems to take offense to that but being that she’s co-captain of Team Pretty Petty, it’s her job to throw digs when Kenya isn’t around.

After a bit of back & forth with Nene, Cynthia admits she’s willing to give peace a chance and her fellow Team Petty members follow suit.

Fence riding Kandi doesn’t feel she has any conflicts to resolve so she decides she’s sitting out of the counseling.

It seems Kandi didn’t have a clue that Phaedra felt ‘somekindaway’ about their friendship until Porsha clued her in about it, but she eventually decides to participate in the group session for the sake of her friendship.

See… Nene has a role this season after all.

**Honorable Mention** Mama Joyce also made an appearance this week after a brief absence… and she made Kandi cry after one of her guilt trips. *sigh*

What did you think of this week’s episode of RHOA?