The Real Housewives of Atlanta Recap: Rookie Moves

Oh, Mrs. Oakley, how I underestimated your game. In my recap for the premiere, I almost forgot to mention Angela until I remembered she was full-time, so I threw her a bone for making us laugh with the wig malfunction. Fast forward to last week, where I mentioned her name a whopping 18 times. Tonight, she reinvigorates an episode that would’ve been a flop without her pot-stirring. She’s had a phenomenal run as a rookie, already earning a stan name for her followers (the Fangelas) in less than ten episodes, with many advocating for Bravo to bestow her with the coveted chair next to Andy at the reunion.

If this happens — and I believe she has a fair shot — Angela would join the exclusive club of iconic newbies who leapfrogged the OGs for the prized seat on their first try. This group includes Housewives like RHOC’s Shannon Beador, RHOSLC’s Monica Garcia, and, of course, our very own Kenya Moore. By no means has Angela surpassed Kenya in terms of performance, but we haven’t witnessed a rookie season like this on RHOA since Kenya twirled into the city with a fake boyfriend, a decades-old pageant crown, and nothing to lose. Angela’s performance is more mature and rooted in reality; she’s woman enough to remain respectful while still messily pushing storylines that have nothing to do with her, hence why fans often compare her to members of the original cast like Nene and Shereé.

In this episode alone, Angela gracefully resolves her conflicts with Porsha and Kelli, carries a bone that throws a wrench into the cast’s longest-standing friendship, and promotes her overpriced rental property with ceilings so low she was dodging the light fixtures. (I desperately wanted someone to make a joke about Kelli buying it because she’s so short.) And, most impressively, she tackles a dirty rumor head-on with an open and honest answer no one can argue with. Some other Housewives, including a few on her cast, can take notes! The rumor that Charles had a baby outside his marriage to Angela has followed her since the Nashville trip, finally coming to a head at Cynthia’s Bailey-que. Although Brit is the one who put the salacious tea on the table, Kelli is the one who apologizes for repeating it during a tour of Angela’s rental property.

Instead of meeting Kelli defensively or in hostility, Angela calmly shares her side, telling Kelli she wishes the group had asked her about the rumor instead of weaponizing it. As usual, most of the rumor’s credence stems from “the blogs” reporting that Wendy Williams claimed that while she was dealing with infidelity from her husband, Angela told her that, speaking from experience, an outside baby doesn’t have to be a reason to end a relationship. (It is in my world!) Since Angela was already married to Charles, Wendy assumed he was the man who put her through the mutual experience. Angela clears it up with Kelli, saying she was actually referring to her daughter’s father, but she admits that Charles has cheated on her in the past.

After gifting us this masterclass in shutting down a rumor while still being candid about her personal life, she seamlessly shifts gears to bone collecting, relaying a conversation she had with Shamea to Kelli. She’s the gift that keeps on giving! According to Angela, Porsha never wanted Shamea to be a full-time Housewife, and Shamea is still hurt by Porsha skipping out on her African wedding ceremony in Kenya. She goes on to say that Shamea doesn’t want to be seen as Porsha’s sidekick, but she’s afraid to confront Porsha about the issues in their friendship. Then, working above and beyond as the season’s MVP, Angela invites Porsha to play tennis, where she broadcasts the information once more, saying Shamea feels like she may be in a one-sided relationship and “doesn’t want to be looked at as Porsha’s lap dog.”

Dumbfounded that her bestie would confide in a peripheral friend about their relationship, Porsha begins crying, unable to hide the hurt and surprise from Shamea’s actions before leaving the scene altogether. It’s especially ironic that Angela triggers a rare genuine reaction out of Porsha, as the inverse of Angela’s terrific freshman run is Porsha’s continuously disappointing return. Tonight, she enacts revenge on Drew by giving Ralph a platform to discredit his estranged wife. This isn’t at all how she frames it; if we take Porsha’s word at face value (but who the hell would do that?), she simply joined Shamea for dinner, and Ralph happened to be there. And if we believe Shamea, who will do anything to defend Porsha, she harmlessly asked Ralph to dinner to discuss his next podcast venture since she hosted his old one. Frankly, it smells like a ruse to put Drew in her place while maintaining as much innocence on-screen as possible. They talk about the podcast for about two whole seconds before diving into the real purpose of the dinner: disparaging Drew.

Porsha shows the table a text from Dennis saying he wouldn’t fuck Drew and she needs to “run him his money” instead. In her confessional, Porsha innocently says she shared the text to prove Dennis and Drew never had a physical relationship, but the implied subtext is that if it were up to Drew, she would’ve used sex as a way to pay for Dennis’s services. Porsha tries to cover her ass with a hilarious paradox, telling an enraged Ralph that just because there are rumors about Drew in the streets with Dennis doesn’t mean it’s true by asking Ralph if the rumors about him are accurate. Ralph, who’s determined to continue building a delusional case that he’s the victim in his divorce, is forced to either admit he’s indeed “in the streets” or acknowledge that Drew may be innocent. He chooses the latter, but doesn’t back down from the point of the dinner and continues the smear campaign as Porsha and Shamea goad him into divulging more details about Drew’s alleged affair with Ty.

The dinner is an obvious attempt from Porsha at eye-for-an-eye style retribution, delivering a clear message to Drew that if she wants to play with baby daddies, Porsha will play right back. The issue is, Porsha will never call it as it is (she claims she’s “grown” since she isn’t fighting with Drew to her face anymore), which would be so much more entertaining than listening to another contrived story and watching her attempt to play puppet-master behind the scenes with Shamea to protect her image. Unfortunately, Porsha isn’t cunning enough for this to work. Her strengths lie in her humor and relatability, but nothing about this storyline is funny or authentic.

As we saw while she broke down with Angela, the only authenticity Porsha portrays, albeit reluctantly, is within her relationship with Shamea. The relationship problems between the two childhood friends are very real, and it’s something anyone who has maintained friendships since grade school can understand — sometimes, the wounds run so deep in these relationships that it’s more convenient to save face with the person who is a permanent fixture in your life than to have uncomfortable conversations. Neither woman wants to rock the boat, but the fractures in their friendship are impossible to ignore while under the microscope of a reality show, so an implosion is imminent.

Frustratingly, Porsha again refuses to initiate any conflict resolution because she doesn’t “have the bandwidth,” which seems like her perpetual excuse not to engage this season. It’s Angela and Kelli’s pot-stirring (thank goodness for the newbies) that forces Shamea and Porsha to address issues that have lain beneath the surface of their friendship for years, most notably Porsha’s absence at Shamea’s wedding. During Porsha’s sexy sleepover “event” for Pampered by Porsha sheets (it’s clearly a scheme for free promo, but I’m happy there’s finally an event where scantily clad outfits are actually appropriate and on theme), Kelli fills Shamea in on Porsha leaving the conversation with Angela in tears.

Kelli must’ve gone to Shereé Whitefield’s school of bone collecting because she delivers the information as messily as possible, further instigating the situation instead of helping it. Shamea is mostly upset that her grievances were misinterpreted through Angela’s game of telephone, and instead of coming directly to her, Porsha chose to believe the worst. Shamea, unable to keep her feelings at bay during the group meditation at the event, emanates so much frustration that Kelli checks on her, delivering another bone by telling Shamea that everything she confided to Angela came back to Porsha.

Once the meditation ends and Porsha’s sister Lauren encourages the ladies to air their grievances in a sister circle moment, Kelli forces Porsha and Shamea to have a face-to-face conversation, prefacing it by saying the group believes Shamea is stuck in Porsha’s shadow and unable to “truly shine” because Porsha “won’t allow her to be her best self.” Shamea interjects, saying those were never the words she used and that she addresses all of her issues with Porsha directly. While Shamea admits there have been challenges in their friendship, she’s more disappointed that Porsha never rides for her as hard as she rides for Porsha. Predictably, it’s this statement that triggers Porsha to ditch the passive and head straight for the aggressive (she hates anything that makes her seem villainous), pulling Angela into the discourse.

Fangelas can rejoice because not only did Angela start this whole mess, but she also gets Porsha to inadvertently admit to one of her past lies. Back in season nine, Porsha and Shamea struggled to rebuild after the fallout from all of Porsha and Phaedra’s lies. Although the slander against Kandi was the most egregious element, we can’t forget that Phaedra claimed on-camera that Shamea “slept with everybody’s husband” while Porsha sat silently, another instance where loyalty wasn’t reciprocated. And instead of doing the smart thing and leaning into being a good friend during her season ten redemption arc, Porsha bailed out of her bestie’s wedding with a half-assed medical excuse that would prevent her from taking the long flight to Kenya. Now, years later, Porsha admits she didn’t book the flight because the two hadn’t been on speaking terms, once again proving Shamea’s point about Porsha’s terrible communication.

Shamea shuts down, swallowing any rebuttals as Porsha trips over her words as she tries to return to the original lie about the flight. It’s indicative of the relationship pattern the women were trying to resolve in the first place, with Shamea choosing to keep the peace instead of holding Porsha accountable. Angela pushes for Shamea to stand her ground and continue to challenge Porsha, but Shamea shrinks back into her role of loyal foot soldier. She acknowledges that they won’t come to a resolution at the event, but she will continue to give Porsha grace. We’ll see how much grace Shamea has left as we count down the episodes until Phaedra Parks returns to the scene.