When you think of iconic Real Housewives of Atlanta moments, what comes to mind?
Maybe it’s Phaedra Parks and her increasingly confusing pregnancy timeline. Maybe it’s Cynthia Bailey whispering “win a case” at the reunion. Or maybe it’s Nene Leakes treating Kenya Moore’s apartment like a crime scene, destroying the reputation of white refrigerators everywhere.
And yet, the rebooted RHOA relies entirely on “lifestyle porn,” over-the-top editing, and fervor for… Shamea. Formerly a forgettable friend-of, Shamea Morton is now the nucleus of the group, introducing newbies Brit Eady and Kelli Ferrell, while ushering back the long-awaited return of Porsha Williams. Whatever that means!
The Real Housewives of Atlanta has been revitalized, for sure, but in a way that seems ashamed of its past. It’s so busy and distracted that I half-expected Subway Surfers to pop up in the top-right corner—a major shame, given the moments the premiere can breathe are far and away the most enticing.
From the busy opening sequence, it’s clear this production team doesn’t have what it takes to bring in that avant-garde style The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City has perfected. It’s actually disastrous to compare these random shots of Porsha preparing for a run with the stunning cold open we got on RHOSLC.
And it’s an even worse jump scare when the first confessionals of the season pop up, revealing RHOA has borrowed from the late Real Housewives of Dubai to deliver full-body confessionals. The only issue is these look superimposed using an iPhone 4S, so glaringly ugly that it looks like the women are floating in space. It’s hard to even find Shamea in those busy shots. That’s followed by a sneak peek of the revitalized intro, which borrows the eclectic way the new Real Housewives of New York hold their signature fruit, looking more like a cast photo than an intro.
The first true scene of the season is a walkthrough of Shamea’s massive house, where her charismaless slay goes on full display. This is what a Real Housewife looks like: boring, barely seems to be nice to the cameras that are there, and kind of just lollygagging around. We’re all going to need to reverse engineer ourselves to accept that Shamea’s so-bad-it’s-good in order to survive this season. She’s the worst confessionalist I’ve ever seen, her “to the lef……..t” moment seared in my brain for the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, the single returning housewife from last year is Drew Sidora, who keeps surviving cast shake-ups by mere happenstance. Of course, Kenya’s here too (for now), but given a ghost edit with no confessionals as we await her midseason departure. We’re reintroduced to a Drew awaiting divorce, cohabitating with her evil ex-husband Ralph, who has been banished to the basement.
Drew is embarking on an exciting musical journey, partnering with Porsha’s ex Dennis to make some tunes. It’s kind of a classic Real Housewives storyline, one that’s already proving solid intrigue in the premiere. It probably won’t amount to anything more than a C-tier feud, but that’s the Drew Sidora specialty.
On the newbie front, there’s Kelli, doing a very new-age Housewives performance a la Mia Thornton or Noella Borgener. She’s loud, proud, and here to do the bidding of the hyper online fans. She’s not exactly reinventing the wheel, but she pops on camera much more than the other newbies, and she’s already eager to start drama.
At lunch with Shamea and Brit, Kelli says Porsha “probably should have never taken that girl’s man,” referring of course to the Porsha/Simon/Falynn love story overlap. And, yes, Porsha did have an affair with a creepy, ugly man who she married just a few weeks later, but that’s old news. That was 2021. It just feels too little, too late at this point.
That’s kind of the whole issue with the grand return of Porsha. She’s not leading lady material, and late era RHOA has suffered majorly by consistently pushing her into the spotlight, when she’s always better served as a jester. Her choice to leave the show the second her life got interesting represents Porsha’s inability to be anything but fake and phony on camera. She’s always funny, but she’s not exactly real.
We live in the RHOA upside down now, where Porsha’s the HBIC, Shamea is an Atlanta Kyle Richards, and Cynthia Bailey’s a drama-free friend of everyone. Okay, so at least that’s staying the same. There could be a nuclear blast, and Cynthia would emerge from it unscathed, ready to throw another Baileycue to reunite the group.
At this point, Bravo might as well have given Cynthia her peach back, but she shines just the same on the sidelines. Every little moment of Cynthia is beautifully nostalgic, no matter how mild-mannered she is. I want her to read me a bedtime story.
As for Brit and Angela, we’ll just have to wait and see. Brit has already bumped heads with Kenya—certainly not by any fault of her own—and we all know how that ends. If you don’t, there are rumors Kenya spread revenge porn of Brit at one of the season’s events, and that’s why Kenya was banished by Bravo. We’ll see if that airs.
Angela doesn’t really do anything in the premiere, but she has a nice energy. The wife of NBA star Charles Oakley, Angela’s a solid casting on paper. She’s a bit older than the other newbies, seems to have an interesting marriage, and has a more classic Real Housewife aesthetic to her.
While her lack of thirst means she’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it blip on the premiere’s radar, she could be a solid slow burn, a la RHOC breakout Jenn Pedranti. Hey, at least she showed up on time to Shamea’s big party, unlike Porsha.
It’s almost too on the nose that Porsha’s big return sees her pop in a few hours late and twerk on Shamea’s brand new Rolls Royce, already burning bridges with her longtime bestie. Hopefully, Porsha’s inability to be smart and strategize catches her the ire of her castmates. She’s much better on defense.
Perhaps the most promising thing about this premiere is the halo edit that accompanied Season 10 to 13 that Porsha does seem to have dissipated. The little Kelli vs. Porsha spat at Shamea’s party is pretty funny, as is the super random Dennis/Drew flirtation. It seems everyone’s finally working to make Porsha earn her peach, even if the network itself would gladly let her rely on tired gags like getting her butt stuck in the elevator.
The episode ends on a cliffhanger—a premiere no-no, in my books—that cements the uneven start. It’s not dead on arrival, but after a two-year hiatus and extensive cast overhaul, it’s middling, to say the least.
All that glitters isn’t gold. If Bravo spent more time addressing the true rot at the core of RHOA, rather than sprucing up the graphics, maybe it wouldn’t all seem so helpless. Sure, it’s a decent improvement from last season’s pitiful lows, but it’s not quite the home run the show needs. With Kenya’s imminent departure approaching, it’s all very worrisome. We just have to hold out hope.
