Photo: Bravo
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how to deliver a Real Housewife season finale. No more of this silly end on the last day of the international trip nonsense we’ve been getting in recent years, but a genuinely exciting final installment to preclude a decent reunion. The episode returns to the tried and true equation for a Housewives finale, which combines wrapping up storylines, one last group event, and an explosive revelation to finish the season with a bang. We have to thank our season 16 MVP, Miss Angela Oakley, for the big reveal. This time, her contributions were so juicy that even Brit’s continued gutter behavior couldn’t derail the entertainment.
The first chunk of the episode focuses on tying up the loose ends of the heavier storylines, including Porsha and her sister consulting Phaedra about services for their late cousin and Drew and Kelli coming to terms with their volatile divorces. Kelli remains in the thick of it with her ex, driven to pour liquor in her morning coffee (she says she “doesn’t want to be confused as a wine-o,” but she’s “definitely a wine mom”), though she keeps a brave face for her girls. Drew and Ralph come to a tenuous agreement to remain cordial amid their divorce proceeding. But anyone who’s seen Ralph’s tweets over the last few weeks can deduce where this agreement stands in real-time. Their conversation tonight and his delusional tweets only amplify what we already know is the real issue between the estranged exes: Ralph’s ego is as inflated and fragile as a latex balloon.
When you Google “Ralph Pittman,” the search engine identifier is literally “Drew Sidora’s husband.” For a man like Ralph, whose self-esteem hinges on the fact that his gender is superior, his dynamic with Drew probably leaves him in a constant state of borderline insanity. But, as a narcissist, the lure of the camera and a platform keeps him engaged in the nonsense, as we see by his appearance at the reunion (raise your hand if you’re fed up with the amount of screen time he gets). Regardless, Ralph should focus more on how his children perceive him — I highly doubt Drew would prevent him from taking the kids to school; conversely, she would probably be ecstatic for the help — and less on how the world perceives him.
Meanwhile, Shamea hosts a showcase to bolster her music career. Though it’s a bit unserious with the energy of an adult dance recital, I respect her dedication, and I definitely will not stand by Brit, who couldn’t even afford to feed her guests at the one event she hosted this season, talking down on the showcase (Drew’s commentary, on the other hand, was fabulously petty as the other singer in the group). Brit’s horrible attitude throughout the episode and her dirty fighting at Shamea’s performance summarizes why she’ll be remembered as a walking liability in the canon of one-and-done Housewives.
The claim that Shamea shared private text messages from Porsha to Brit comes back to Shamea thanks to Cynthia’s swift pot-stirring at the showcase — she’s hilarious for dropping that bone before running out to catch her flight; she’s such a great supporting character. When Shamea, who adamantly asserts that she never showed the texts, confronts her, Brit goes from defending herself to accusing Shamea of neglecting her sick child. It’s another instance of Brit crossing the line because she can’t handle the heat of an argument. While Shamea throwing shade about Brit stripping butt-naked after a tequila shot is low, it’s pretty tame in the realm of Atlanta Housewife jabs. Saying a mother lied about her daughter’s sickness is just tasteless, and like her abortion jab to Kelli, indicates how little respect Brit had for Shamea in the first place.
Outside of calling Brit a pill-popper and a street-walker (she could’ve said worse, but I really need someone to expand on the pill allegations), Shamea holds her head high and walks away, leaving Brit scrapping the bottom of the barrel for more vitriol, including rumors about Shamea cheating on her husband. Their fight continues during the drama-filled second half of the episode at Angela’s charity gala for The Charles Oakley Foundation, where Brit once again can’t take the heat and walks out before filming finishes, hypocritically calling her castmates “lowlifes.” But before that happens, Angela delivers the grand finale of her stellar rookie performance when she exposes who sent Marcus to Kelli’s cook-off.
The goal of the gala is to raise money to feed 100,000 children from underserved neighborhoods, but in the context of the show, the goal of the event is to cap off the season with Angela’s big reveal. Days before the gala, Angela and Drew met with Marcus to finish her investigation. Initially, Marcus, accompanied by a random “employee,” maintains that Charles came to his restaurant with another woman. Angela easily pokes holes in the lie, saying her husband was coaching at the time of the alleged crime, and she coaxes the truth from Marcus via a note he types stealthily on his phone before sliding it dramatically across the table.
Those of us who are chronically online already know that Phaedra is the culprit of the Marcus drama, as Angela broke the story on Carlos King’s podcast after last week’s episode (in the interview, she goes into detail about Marcus and Phaedra’s Athens connection and how she knows he’s telling the truth). Now, this is perhaps Angela’s first major rookie mistake — girl, you should have saved this for the finale! I know Carlos is thirsty for a scoop, but don’t overplay your hand with the network! This would have been a great surprise for the episode (especially since fans were already suspecting Phaedra), and taking it to the blogs first lessens the shock factor. Other than that, Angela handles the reveal like a pro, waiting until after the important part of the gala concludes to switch into Housewife mode.
Angela drops the news to the group flawlessly, dangling the identity of the offender like a carrot as she makes a hypothetical case for her suspects. She casts suspicion first on Brit because of their tumultuous relationship, then on Kelli since it happened at her event, before dropping the tea. Enlisting the only other castmate theatrical enough to pull off such a stunt, Angela asks Drew to bring Marcus out as if we’re in an episode of Jerry Springer. At the sight of Marcus on Drew’s arm, Charles transports us back to the 1980s Chicago Stadium, where he would guard Michael Jordan so fiercely that he earned his Enforcer nickname. This time, it’s his marriage he protects, with all six feet nine inches of him fending off the troublemaker before he can get a word in edgewise.
The women sit back with their popcorn as Angela eventually wrangles Charles to be amenable enough to hear Marcus out. Watching her strong-arm her notoriously non-nonsense husband into stubborn docility was the final evidence I needed to come around as an active supporter of their marriage (although Angela’s therapy session cryptically confirmed he had broken her trust in the past in a major way, she never specifies if there was infidelity). It must take a tough woman to mitigate the man known as the Oak Tree, and Angela is no punk. His coldness isn’t a trait I would accept in my own partner, but I can see why they’re a match.
We’ll witness more of an activated Charles at the reunion when Mr. and Mrs. Enforcer take on the rest of the cast, but for now, after Charles backs down, Marcus exposes Phaedra’s involvement. Phaedra, who wouldn’t know the truth if it hit her on the head during one of her Reiki sessions, scoffs at Marcus calling her “The Godfather of Atlanta.” In her confessional, Phaedra says that though she’s an “easy target,” she has no motivation to ruin Angela’s marriage. While this is true, let’s run back all the clips of her unnecessarily talking shit about Angela, a woman she claims she didn’t know existed, without motivation.
According to Marcus, Phaedra used a middleman to pay him off with an envelope of cash, which sounds dramatic but, contrary to what Brit said, an anonymous paper trail is probably harder to track these days than using anything electronic. What is far-fetched is Marcus’s claim that their middleman’s name is “June Bug,” to which Porsha gives us the best-timed RHOA call back in her confessional, saying: “You know what? This is all a scheme that Todd set up!” I haven’t laughed this hard at a RHOA finale in years.
Phaedra continues to deny being the perpetrator and rummages through her tired bag of tricks to get out of it, opting for deflection, which is the most obvious and incriminating choice. She tries to drag Angela’s foreclosures into the conversation — as if Angela hasn’t been talking about it all season — but Angela waves away this gotcha and keeps going in on Phaedra. Angela reads her for filth, referencing both Phaedra’s exit from Married to Medicine and her season 9 exile from RHOA, saying Phaedra bounces from “one failed friendship group to another,” and she’s still “doing the same shit.” She closes her tirade by saying she’s sad they ended on this note, but she wishes Phaedra the best in trying to ruin her marriage before the end-of-the-season chyrons flash on the screen.
The season 16 finale was silly, messy, and dramatic, but what I didn’t see coming was the heights of pettiness the final five minutes would reach. Following a full season of whining about not being able to film in the home she shared with Simon, cameras pick back up five months after the finale (and what I’m assuming were mere seconds after the ink dried on whatever legal decree allowed her to film) to show Porsha in her sprawling mansion.
As she smugly toasts with her mom, Porsha’s chyron reads: “Simon was detained while entering the country in February 2025 … leaving the divorce on I.C.E.” Say what you want about her, but Porsha successfully scammed a scammer into living the life she manifested since her marriage with Kordell. I almost expected Miss Diane to show up at the front door with a pepperoni pizza (IYKYK). For the first time in years, I’m leaving the final episode not only excited for the reunion but also content with most of the cast returning next season. It may not be the Atlanta of days past, but as Shamira Ibrahim wrote, the future looks promising.
