If Kenya’s poster-board swan song was a lesson in what not to do as a Bravo villain, then Phaedra’s homecoming serves as a case study on how to return from exile. Whether you love or hate her, she brings a polarizing energy to the show that’s been missing since Kenya’s departure. While I’ll always think her season-nine offense is the darkest moment in the show’s history, as a proud member of the I Don’t Watch Reality TV for Morality Club, I welcome any dynamic shift that could bring RHOA back to being a staple of the franchise.
However, that doesn’t mean shady Phae-Phae is getting off easy — after leaving my Married to Medicine girls in the dust, we must hold her feet to the fire. The way Phaedra crawled out of the ashes, first with a test run on Ultimate Girls Trip and The Traitors, then with a full-time spot on Married to Medicine, only to disrespect the hand that fed her, is indicative of her shitty character. Though it’s arguably one of the best series on the network, like other fringe shows on Bravo, Married to Medicine often plays second fiddle to Andy’s precious Housewives, and Phaedra’s attitude when the call came to get her peach back proved that she only viewed the show as a strategic move in her larger game of chess. Tonight, she triumphantly returns to RHOA, practically fresh off the flight from her final cast trip on Married to Medicine, ready for a new start with Porsha, the Frick to her Frack.
But before Freak and Fraud, as NeNe iconically dubbed them, reunite, the rest of the cast hold down the episode as they humor Brit’s attempt to prove she has what it takes to be a Real Housewife. The attempt backfires with a hilariously confusing event that highlights just how out of place Brit is in the world of Bravo, though the absurdity of it all is more entertaining than anything she’s brought to the show thus far. She invites the women to her local country club to celebrate the pre-launch of her shapewear line, Bear Naked. The attire is garden-party-themed, but she forces Shamea and Kelli to play a round of golf in their microskirts while their stilettos awkwardly sink into the green.
Things get stranger as the rest of the guests file inside (Brit’s husband looking like a toddler dressed up for Easter Sunday), awaiting brunch and Brit’s brand announcement. Except, apparently, brunch is only for the Housewives, with the peasants meant to mingle separately with hors d’oeuvre. The event planners forgot this detail, placing menus and chairs at the tables for everyone, giving her guests the assumption they would be fed, too. Brit goes off on the staff as the other Housewives poke fun at the blunder, with Cynthia snarkily saying she can split her salmon if necessary and Porsha joking that she’s avoiding eye contact with the other partygoers. The tacky-meter reaches new heights when Brit presents the Housewives (of course no one else got gift bags) some of her shapewear in sad cardboard boxes without a lick of tissue paper or even a measly bow.
Although it didn’t come in a pretty package, there was at least one Housewife-worthy gift (for us viewers, at least) in the limp boxes: As Brit points out that she selected the women’s sizes, Angela finds that hers is an extra-large. It’s a passive-aggressive dig that’s a continuation of their beef from the Bailey-cue, but Angela is already a pro at this, saying in her confessional, “Maybe she got this confused with the size of her toothbrush for her big-ass mouth.” Since Charles is accompanying her, Angela shows her fellow newbie how a real boss bitch moves and randomly announces to the table that her husband doesn’t have a side baby, causing everyone to clutch their proverbial pearls, as Porsha put it. Brit sardonically denies being one of Charles’s whores, which is another callback from the Bailey-cue, but they agree to move forward.
With Brit and Angela deciding to bury their beef, Drew pipes in, saying she’d like to have a private conversation with the host so they can smooth things over as well. Kelli interjects, encouraging Drew to remain honest when the time comes to speak with Brit, noting in her confessional that she doesn’t know much about Drew besides her being a liar. Shamea agrees, calling her “Drew-nocchio” because her nose should grow with all her lies. Soon, the topic of Drew’s lies moves to Shamea’s grievances about being labeled Porsha’s lap dog, specifically because she relayed Drew’s comment about paying for Pilar’s college. Although Drew tries to downplay it, Shamea stands by Drew’s comment being inappropriate. The two continue to bicker with Shamea making barking noises while telling Drew to kiss her “motherfucking ass, bitch.”
Although Brit’s event is tacky as hell, it’s proof that the current iteration of the cast is rife with potential to rescue RHOA from being a sinking ship. But at the time of filming, production had no idea how this new cast would be received by fans, especially in the aftermath of pistol-gate, so bringing Phaedra back was one of the tricks up their sleeves to ensure we didn’t get another flop season. Like a gift for doing her time in reality TV jail and working her way up the ranks of Bravo’s second-tier shows, Phaedra gets an official peach and title card, which is unheard of this late in the season. For those who didn’t watch Phaedra’s two-season tenure on Married to Medicine, here’s a quick recap: Phaedra won back the fickle hearts of fans via Traitors, concocted a fake relationship with a medical professional we never saw, and continued her reputation as a confessional assassin, spewing reads everywhere but to her castmates’ faces. Then, when it became too hot to bear, Phaedra skipped out on the reunion, telling her castmates she “wouldn’t help this show for shit.” Her parting gift? One last shady confessional, where she says the other ladies are “demonic minions of hell,” “mean angry Black women,” and jealous because they’re “fat” and “funny-looking.” Granted, part of this is because another cast member invited her ex-husband on a trip, but, as Dr. Simone pointed out at the reunion after Phaedra’s final words, no one on the Married to Medicine cast “has done the trash that she used to do” to warrant such a disrespectful good-bye.
The “trash” Simone is referring to is bringing a sexual-assault allegation onto RHOA as part of a revenge story line, though from the way production is allowing Phaedra to rewrite history in her montage of memories, you’d think it was only a salacious rumor. (She calls it “playing with fire.”) But this was expected; since her firing, she’s remained mum on the issue, only uttering cryptic platitudes like “there are two sides to every story.” Tonight, we get a smidge of begrudging accountability, probably at the behest of production, with Phaedra saying she “regrets” how she left the group, but “let he who is without fault cast the first stone.” Girl, whatever.
Phaedra barrels into the season like the sound of a starting pistol at the beginning of a race, with the good-bye interview on Married to Medicine being only a warm-up for the confessional assassin. She haughtily tells the cameras in her first RHOA confessional of the season, “I’m back where I belong. Baby, I am home!” And as Porsha gives her the rundown on the new set of ladies, Phaedra has a quippy line for everyone, with only Porsha and Shamea safe from her line of fire. According to Phaedra, Brit is a “woman about town” who “has more bodies than Willie Watkins,” Kelli is “Strawberry Shortcake on steroids,” Angela is Charles Oakley’s “secret wife,” and Drew is “more into tacos than hot dogs.” I’ll bet money that none of this will be said to the women’s faces.
The episode ends with Porsha inviting Phaedra to the forthcoming cast trip to Grenada led by Shamea and Kelli. They’re a promising budding duo, with Kelli continuing to be a great parody Housewife (her dog losing a fake eyelash during a lymphatic message was everything) and Shamea craving genuine friendship since she’s not getting it from Porsha. And as the season comes to a close, another change of scenery after the disjointed Nashville trip could help production land this plane successfully. The trailer for next week teases lots of laughs, Drew in the hot seat (where she does her best work), and a finally activated Porsha. As Phaedra says, let’s get ready for this “buffet of foolishness.”
• Porsha’s silence as Shamea went at it with Drew over the comment about Pilar’s tuition was unignorable after their conversation last week. I agree with Shamea that Drew was being distasteful, and it would’ve been nice to see Porsha jump in and thank her friend for being loyal. But we know that will never happen.
• Dennis is following in Peter Thomas’s footsteps as a male obviously vying for a full-time peach. Porsha may have said he can’t physically film with Drew, but she didn’t say anything about video calls! The FaceTime session, while Drew is signing her record deal, is just another convoluted way for him to stay in the conversation.
