“Love and Hip-Hop New York” Recap: The Fallout

It seems as though we can expect the latest season of "Love & Hip-Hop: New York" to bring the drama when it really isn't that serious. And last night’s episode was definitely no different.

The night kicked off with yet another proclamation from Rashidiah saying that no, as a matter of fact, she can't figure out what Tahiry's stressing over Joe about, especially if they're not supposed to be together. (Don't worry, I can't figure it out either...)

We then finally get the opportunity to meet the happy couple of Jen the Pen (best known for her "gossip blog" and starring on the radio with DJ Whoo Kid) and Consequence (the "best ghostwriter in the history of rap"). Not since George and Laura Bush has a couple been more boring. I think there was some drama about Jen the Pen having to return to work to help feed the couple's son, Caiden Amir Mills, but I can't say that I remember, since I found myself dozing off during their segments. I've seen episodes of  "How It's Made" that are told with more enthusiasm, and at least I learned something at the end of those episodes. If you're this connected in the industry, Jen, make a few phone calls, get off your ever-thinning ass, and get back to work. You aren't the first working mother, and you won't be the last. And if you're really the reason that Sean "P. Diddy" Combs has any chart success, Consequence, have your lawyer work out a better royalty rate for you so you can get out of Staten Island. And stop driving Bentleys while crying poverty when it comes to paying for your son's first birthday. Problem solved. Moving on.

Jen the Pen has a friend, Winter Ramos, who is best known as "Fab's assistant." Right off the bat, I was under the impression that she and Emily B never really got along...and the thought doesn't have a minute to settle in my brain before Winter's rattling off the list of famous rappers she's slept with (including Loso!), while bragging that she knows "the wife, the girlfriend, the baby mama, and even the side chick." You know, because she knows these guys; She's worked with these guys. And, this classy broad has a "tell-all book" coming out documenting all her ups and downs in the music industry. We can blame Jadakiss for this mess, because according to Winter, he was the one that encouraged her to pen the tome. First he splits up D-Block, then he does this. Thanks, Jadakiss. Thanks.

Then there was more BO-RING drama between Olivia, Rich Dollaz, Tahiry and Erica Mena. Rich and Erica don't want to mix business with pleasure...zzzzz. Erica wants to record an album with "the best rapper in the world, Lore'l" (WHO?!)...zzzzzz. Tahiry asking Rich Dollaz for a lawyer so she, too, can release Hoy Se Bebe or whatever her "mixtape" is going to be called...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The real storyline of the evening is the fallout of Joe Budden's pool party. As we saw last week, Tahiry and Raqi got into it over someone saying to someone else that she may or may not have slept with Joe Budden. But what was not known, up to this point, is that Joe Budden was high at the time of the pool party...his first relapse, he tells his mother Fay, in fourteen years. This realization that Joe is quickly falling prey to the grips of his addiction—starting off first with pills, then moving on to "other things" (hopefully not PCP, which industry rumor suggests was Budden's drug of choice at the height of his addiction)—not only devastates Budden himself, but has a ripple effect on the people around him: His mother, Raqi, and his new girlfriend, Kaylin Garcia. Of the three, the latter is most committed to seeing him through his sobriety. Garcia's father was a drug addict, she says, and though seeing Joe in an altered state is "deja vu" for her, she feels that God put her in Joe's path for a reason, and that reason is to help him get back to a better place. While her naivete is stunning—and, quite possibly, dangerous for her—there is a pervasive kindness about Kaylin which makes her infinitely more likeable than any of the other women on the show...especially Tahiry, whose sour, hateful, bitter ways make her an anathema to the pleasant, sweet-natured, docile, loyal Kaylin.

At the end of this episode of "Angry Birds"—I mean, "Love & Hip-Hop"—the only people I was left rooting for are Joe Budden and Kaylin Garcia. Joe may be crazy, but he's honest to a fault, and he has a heightened self-awareness that the rest of the cast so glaringly lacks. And Kaylin may be naive, but she's got a real sense of "ride or die" loyalty, and her sweet heart isn't tainted by "the industry" like the rest.

Until next week, cats and kittens...—Bernadette Giacomazzo (@bgiacomazzo)