This season of RHOA ended not with a whimper but with a bang, which may be the inverse of T. S. Eliot’s words, but the rest of the season definitely resembled the bleakness I felt when being forced to read the poem. As chaotic as the final moments were, I was left asking myself why the hottest, juiciest tea has been served off-camera — well, off Bravo’s cameras — or in the last ten minutes of the show.
We can largely ignore the beginning chunk of the episode to get to the main event. I’ll sum it up in a sentence: Shereé bonds with her granddaughter, Marlo accompanies Sanya to another Dr. Jackie appointment, Kenya’s dad visits, and Kandi plans the trailer-release party for The Pass. Amidst these boring scenes is the foreshadowing of the demise of Drew and Ralph’s marriage, which is on its last leg now that Ralph has moved out of the bedroom and is sleeping in what seems to be a bunk bed in one of the kid’s rooms. During an excruciating session with Dr. Ken, Ralph claims his departure from their marital bed is to avoid being woken up late at night as Drew returns from set, but it doesn’t take Bo Dietl to uncover that there’s so much more going on.
When Drew shows Ralph the video evidence of Courtney calling her a bitch, she’s disappointed by his lack of a response, and he basically argues that she’s been called a bitch by many people, so what’s one more. The fight escalates in the kitchen after Allison is brought into the conversation, and Ralph points out, with the shadow of a sinister smile on his face, that Drew’s own sister has called her a bitch. Drew takes her mic off and begins to cry, and Ralph’s immediate response is to question her display of emotion. You can feel their disdain for each other through the screen, and it’s evident that beneath this argument, the conversation is really about the million unsaid things regarding the state of their relationship.
The difficult part about analyzing their marriage from the outside is that neither Drew nor Ralph are reliable narrators. While we’ve seen Ralph gaslight and emotionally manipulate Drew with our own eyes, we’ve also witnessed Drew lie as her castmates similarly question whether her outbursts are genuine or an act. I’ll always support a woman emancipating herself from an abusive partner, but the events leading up to the divorce aren’t easy to decipher. Even in their individual interviews, when asked point-blank by the producers what the catalyst for filing was, Drew and Ralph both call their lawyers before divulging details. It’s hard to know who or what to believe, but three months after filming wrapped, production caught the aftermath of Drew and Ralph’s race to the courthouse to file for divorce, allowing us to fill in the blanks on our own. Finally, RHOA dismantles the fourth wall for the most authentically drama-riddled moment in the last two seasons.
Coinciding with the news of Drew’s divorce is a widely spread rumor that Drew and WNBA player/Love and Hip Hop star Mimi Faust’s ex Ty Young (whom Drew coincidentally met on the set of The Pass) were dating. Marlo and Shereé are shocked by the news and connect the dots between Drew’s impassioned denial of kissing LaToya and her possible affair with Ty. Randomly, Monyetta swoops in with the smoking gun during her confessional: Monyetta admits to Drew telling her that if her marriage doesn’t work out, she’ll try things out with Ty, whom she refers to as her crush. Then, Monyetta passes the ball to Courtney for more evidence of a dalliance between Ty and Drew.
In her confessional, Courtney admits to being told that Drew is, in fact, bisexual, and after confronting Ralph, she found out that it was “no secret†that Drew “has fun with girls†too. Then she says she’s aware that Drew visits Ty in Texas and that Ralph has evidence of the relationship he’ll use in the divorce proceedings. Once she believes she’s no longer being filmed, Courtney has an unfiltered hot-mic moment revealing that she has pictures of Ty and Drew on her phone, but she “wasn’t going to say that on-camera.†She continues speaking freely, hinting that the reason Drew pushed for Ralph to adopt Josiah was so she could “go be in [her] gay lover relationship and [Ralph] pays the bills.â€
The episode wraps with Drew answering questions about Ty, maintaining that their relationship is platonic, though literally minutes before, Mimi Faust posted a cryptic IG Story alluding to her ex’s alleged relationship with Drew. The post featured a picture of Drew and Ty at Ralph’s birthday party with lyrics from the song “Munch,†by Ice Spice (remember, Ralph used that exact slang when discussing Drew’s sex scene in The Pass). Mimi never explicitly explained the meaning of her post, but in an interview, she ominously said, “What is done in the dark will come to light.†After asking if the cameras were still rolling, Drew says she believes Ralph “conjured†the rumor and leaked it to the press himself. Her ending title card explains that she and Ralph are continuing to cohabitate and co-parent their children.
This ending is just as perplexing as the rest of season 15’s episodes. There’s little closure, rushed story-line endings, and only flashes of entertainment. So, where does this leave the future of RHOA? This question has loomed over every single episode of the season, and the finale didn’t give us that much hope unless you’re actually invested in Drew and Ralph’s relationship. After watching the second half of Kenya’s interview with Carlos King, it appears that some alleged (said in Carlos’s voice) production choices have resulted in this lackluster season.
Let’s start with the obvious: Why was the construction of Kenya’s spa reduced to a seconds-long flashback and a cute filler scene of Kenya washing Brooklyn’s hair? After witnessing Kenya build her hair-care brand from the ground up, this huge step in her life is treated as an afterthought. It’s like slowly erasing Skinny Girl’s growth from Bethenny’s RHONY story line … although they should have tried doing that by the time she was giving out Skinny Girl red blenders and making jeggings. Positioning Kenya pondering whether to use her embryos with Marc as her main story line is doing an injustice to who Kenya is to RHOA.
This is the most I’ve ever defended Kenya; I’ve never been her biggest fan, but I don’t watch Housewives for likable personalities. I watch for the magic that happens when the right group of unhinged women comes together to make great television. Like her or not, Kenya’s been an essential element in making that magic happen, and I find it strange she’s being sidelined in favor of boring/manufactured story lines. Kenya’s theory that she shared during the interview with Carlos is that production is protecting Marlo for an unknown reason, and she gives us the best read she’s had all year. Kenya states that she believes Marlo getting a peach ruined the show, rattling off the many aspects of Marlo’s life that make no sense, like where she gets her money and why she has an electric stair lift if not to help “old white men†get up to her bedroom. She condemns Marlo’s inability to show her truth instead of making up fake beef with Kandi. Kenya goes in on Courtney too, saying she’s sleeping on someone’s sofa and passing off paper clips linked together as a jewelry line.
Where the hell was this Kenya all season? Her excuse is that she’s not interested in fighting with inauthentic cast members looking to create a moment. According to her, production edited out many of her explosive group scenes, including one where Marlo chased her around a restaurant (???) and one of her breaking the fourth wall in Portugal and cussing the cast out for ruining the show. Why would production cut these things out? We would’ve eaten that up as viewers. It makes me question what’s going on behind closed doors at Bravo and if the powers that be will listen to the fans and the cast, who are saying that the magic of one of the greatest reality shows of all time is gone.
As everyone from NeNe to Kenya to Carlos King to myself to random Twitter accounts have screamed from the rooftops: RHOA needs to deal with its casting problem if it wants to regain viewership and high ratings. Whether this means bringing back old Housewives (ideally reassembling a version of the season-six dream team) or rigorously auditioning new faces, this season proves that the current cast is unable to sustain the show’s legacy. I’m cautiously optimistic that RHOA will redeem itself; we’re seeing it happen in real time with RHOC. Will it actually happen? Only time can tell, but I’ll catch y’all next year to see how it all turns out.
Peach Tea To-Go
• The reunion actually looks kinda good! I’m ready for all the receipts, especially these texts between Drew and Ty.
• Sending love and positive energy to the Richards-Ross family. The news of the miscarriage was heartbreaking, and I am overjoyed to see her pregnant with her rainbow baby.
• Shereé telling Tierra that she doesn’t let things stress her out, including bill collectors hounding her down, is hilarious because we all know she’s never been worried about paying a bill or invoice … she’ll just ignore it!
I shadily said The Pass could be a Tubi movie, but Peacock jumped onboard, presumably through the NBC connection, but it’s a big deal nonetheless. I rushed to watch it this morning, and it was … interesting. Stream it now so we can discuss in the comments!