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'Basketball Wives' Episode 2: Weave Wars

Tasha Marbury, wife of Stephon and longtime friend of Evelyn, finally gets her moment this week on Basketball Wives. Evelyn's still in L.A. and meets up with her friend of fourteen years to catch up, drink a little wine, and get her psyched to meet the girls. Even Tami.

Stephon has been playing ball in China for the past four years, leaving Tasha alone with their two kids to rule the roost. It's a lonely life, and it's time for her to come into her own. "She's just at a point in her life where she wants something for herself," Evelyn explains.

Tasha asks the very important question of whether or not Evelyn is going to start dating again, and Ev says that she and Chad still share a spiritual connection, so she's not quite ready. Like Suzie, she says she'd rather be celibate than jump into the dating pool any time soon.

And Evelyn drops a bit of a bomb on Tasha when she admits that in her novel, The Inner Circle, she told a story of a basketball player who had an affair with a chef, and the details of Evelyn's fictional story mirror a reported dalliance Stephon had with a chef. "I never alluded to who, what --- everything was real fake," Evelyn says to Tasha, and Tasha seems okay with it.

"I didn't put it in to be malicious," Ev explains, "I just wanted my book to be juicy." This is hardly the last we'll hear on this rumor, however.

Tasha has yet to meet Tami, and Evelyn explains "For some reason, I don't know how that's gonna go." Hmm...let's think back. Historically, Tami doesn't quite get along with the newcomers to the show. Meeka. Kesha. Kenya. Gone. Gone. Gone. And all faced the wrath of Ms. Roman. Evelyn's concerns are not unfounded.

Tasha and Tami have a lot in common, they're both opinionated women, they both have hair-related businesses (Tami's got a weave line, Tasha's opening a weave bar). "Even before their meeting, I just get the feeling there might be a weave war," Evelyn says.

Ev heads to New York for some quality time with her mom and sister, and it's an emotional roller coaster because they're all still mourning the loss of her brother-in-law, Anthony. As soon as Evelyn starts talking about those dark days after her altercation with Chad and the death of Anthony, all three women start to cry and Evelyn reveals that there was a time that she really wanted to die because she lost the two men in her life that she adored.

Her mother, always the one with just the right thing to say, tells her, "Just give it time, mama." No parent, sister, or friend ever wants to hear that their loved one wanted to die, and Evelyn needs all the support she can get from her family.

Evelyn brings up the fact that Tami thinks she should give Chad the benefit of the doubt, because she believes people can change. Evelyn now tells her family she doesn't really believe that, even though last week it sounded like she might have been entertaining the idea. "My biggest fear is going back to Chad and ending up in the same situation that I was in before."

Tami has been working her ass off lately. Not only is she killing it in the acting world, but she's also going back to her business roots.

As soon as Tami mentions that she's starting her own line of cosmetics, it took me back to the episode where she was making fun of Jennifer's lip gloss line. But while it seems ironic that she's branching out into makeup just like some of her co-stars ad so many other celebrities, I was immediately swayed when I saw the color palette for her spring line of nail polishes. Must. Have. All of them.

And not only is the line, called Love, beautiful, it's also socially and environmentally conscious. Tami, call us so you know where to send samples!

Evelyn makes plans with Tasha to be introduced to the rest of the group, and outs it out there to Tasha that Tami can be a hard nut to crack. "I'm not worried about it, I'm a little like 'What's gonna happen?'-type of thing,'" Evelyn says."I don't think anything is gonna happen." Just a little weave war, that's all.

Evelyn tells Tasha the only thing they should do to make sure things are copacetic to to keep Tami from having too much to drink. "How do you tell an adult 'Put that drink down?'" Tasha asks. "I'll tell her!" Ev says.

When Evelyn tells Tami that Tasha wants to set up a meet-and-greet party, Tami's very first question is "What type of person is she?"

Even if she didn't ask that, you can just tell by her face that she's, oh, a wee bit wary.

Evelyn explains she's Stephon's wife and she's a cool lady, slightly edgy and wants to meet everyone. "She wants me in the house?" Tami asks.

Tami doesn't seem into the idea of a party at Tasha's saying "I just don't want it to go all the way wrong."

Let's think positive, because we're like, positive human beings now," Ev says rolling her eyes at the show's new image.

"I'm always a little uneasy when new people come into the group," Tami says. "Because I'm a really nice person! But nobody ever gets the chance to experience that because of, you know, other incidents that may have occurred," she laughs.

Suzie appears to be having an existential crisis this season and she's concerned that life is passing her by. All that celibacy seems to be clearing her head. (Wasn't that a Seinfeld episode?) Tami meets her for a drink to see why she's in such a funk.

Suzie says that she's thinking of going back to school because she's just not happy with all the nothing she's done. (Again, her life is Seinfeld.) Tami tells her that they're all going to Tasha's to meet her and then reveals the story from Evelyn's book that's reminiscent of Tasha's life, with the chef and the basketball player having an affair. "That's pretty juicy!" Suzie says.

Tami really wants to know more dirt on this story so she tells Suzie that when they're at Tasha's party "You can ask her."

"I'm always saying the dumb s---," Suzie admits. "'Have you ever had a chef?'"

Tami also tells Suzie, who is now the pawn in her game, to go on TMZ and find out everything she can about a reported hush money settlement that Stephon made to this chef. This dinner really is going to go all the way right or all the way left.

In case you were wondering why everyone keeps thinking things could go wrong with Tasha and Tami, the night of the party when we see Evelyn and Shaunie arrive, their first directive is to take off their shoes. It's a rule in Tasha's house.

"She's very OCD," Evelyn explains. "It may be a bit much, but at least she's not a hoarder and a pig." True. But is this move just a symptom of the bouge that draws Tami's ire?

Actually, no! When Tami arrives, she immediately offers to take her shoes off with no problem. "The old girl cleaned herself up because, you know, I'm amongst the bougie and fashionable," she explains.

Once Tami learns that Tasha's opening a weave bar, her ears perk up because she doesn't view this as competition at all, rather she sees her as an ally. One who can sell her product at her new salon.

When the (male) chef comes out to tell the ladies what they'll be eating for the night, Suzie decides that it's an opportune time to bring up the whole other chef question.

"You can tell me to shut up," she begins, "but is the chef thing a true story?"

"What do you think? Tasha smiles, while all the other ladies lower their eyes.

We don't know, Tasha! That's why she's asking!

But since we have a week to let it marinate, what do you think is going to happen at the dinner party, part II? Will things go really left, or will the ladies really be the positive human beings they're supposed to be? Discuss.