On last week’s episode of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, the ladies finally had their first full-cast event of the season at the Beat the Bomb escape room. Hosted by newbie Courtney Rhodes, it should have been an opportunity for the ladies to bond. But Kandi Burruss and Marlo Hampton’s beef took center stage before they took a single step into the escape room.
All season, Marlo has run with the narrative that Kandi didn’t show enough support after Marlo’s nephew, a former Old Lady Gang employee, was shot and killed. When Kandi confronted Marlo at the escape room, things got extremely heated. Kandi said she was ready to choke Marlo. It wasn’t pretty.
The chaotic night ended with the cast completely divided. Sanya Richards-Ross, Shereé Whitfield, and Courtney sided with Marlo and proceeded to do the escape room. In the parking lot outside the escape room, Kenya Moore, Drew Sidora, and Monyetta Shaw sided with Kandi.
This week, Shereé felt compelled to bridge the gap in the group. So, she planned a “Gucci Brunch” to try and restore the group to normalcy. Everyone knows that the way to resolve issues in your friend group is by planning a themed brunch.
We must applaud the ladies for at least trying to work out this drama and not letting the division drag on all season. The execution could use some work because the Gucci girls ended up right back on the bottom rung by the end of the episode.
Enter the mind of Marlo
The beginning of the episode followed the group as they splintered off to decompress from the big blowup in the escape room. Marlo met up with Courtney, who, if you recall, was supposed to be helping Marlo get her criminal records expunged. They didn’t talk about that; instead, they gossiped about Kandi.
Before Courtney arrived at her sit-down, Marlo ordered them a pair of spicy margaritas. But, she asked them to be served in “something sexy.” She suggested a wine glass.
As a self-proclaimed margarita expert, I’m here to say that what was brought to their table was nothing short of an atrocity. Margaritas don’t belong in wine glasses.
When Courtney arrived, she pretended to be impressed by the “sexy” and “unique” margarita. But, you know, she did not want to stick her nose down that wine glass to sip the salty, citrusy delight of a spicy margarita. Bethenny Frankel didn’t invent the margarita for Marlo to come around and demand them to be served in wine glasses.
With that said, the fact that Marlo took the time to make this margarita order just a little more complicated is exactly the effect she has had on this season of RHOA. There are good intentions, but her tendency to overthink and self-produce ultimately overshadows what comes to the table. Why go through the extra effort to ask for a margarita in a wine glass when you can just let it arrive in its natural state? Why force conflict for the sake of TV when you could make fantastic TV by just being yourself? If Marlo could step back and let things happen organically, perhaps she could return to her former glory.
Kandi shows her heart
While Marlo shared her mind with Courtney, Drew was busy working on a music video. But, Kandi met up with Sanya and put her heart on her sleeve. If you were on the fence about the Kandi and Marlo feud, the conversation with Sanya might have swayed you entirely to Team Kandi.
As Kandi and Sanya discussed the situation regarding Marlo and her nephew, Kandi’s voice began to tremble, and she opened up about why this was such a frustrating predicament for her.
“I’m not the most sentimental type of friend,” Kandi told Sanya while fighting back tears. “When I was 15, my brother died. I’m not a sentimental girl. I had to push past that,” she continued.
Kandi explained to Sanya that Marlo should know this about her, so she’s frustrated that Marlo continues perpetuating this narrative. She also used her time with Sanya to urge her to stop flip-flopping.
Kandi was so precise with why she’s feeling hurt by Marlo. It’s a shame that the two of them can’t just sit down and talk without it turning into a disaster. It’s also a shame that Sanya is firmly planted in the middle of this cast divide but doesn’t have the leverage to use her position on the fence for anything useful.
A second baby for Kenya?
Outside of the drama with Marlo and Kandi, this episode also explored another Kenya storyline. As if she doesn’t have enough on her plate, she also has frozen embryos with her ex Marc Daly. She needs to decide what to do with them.
Marc and Kenya were only briefly married, but at this point, he’s like a ghost that haunts her. He tried to prevent Brooklyn from being on RHOA. He wants their divorce trial to be private. It’s problem after problem with Marc, but Kenya shockingly admitted to her doctor that she would still consider using Marc’s embryos for baby number two.
In Kenya’s confessional, she explained that her reasoning behind moving forward with Marc’s embryo is that she wouldn’t want kids by multiple men. Was anyone else’s jaw on the ground when she said that?
Kenya made this statement as if there couldn’t be anything worse in life than having kids with two different fathers. It’s a surprisingly old-fashioned point of view from Kenya. One would think that it would be more toxic to bring another baby into the world with a man that doesn’t treat you well.
Either way, Kenya’s doctor visit unearthed some difficult truths about a future pregnancy. Brooklyn’s delivery was complicated and proved to be nearly fatal for Kenya. As Kenya gets older, those risks become greater. So, Kenya has to weigh the decision on if she’s willing to put her body through the physical risk to have another baby or consider other options if growing her family is important to her future.
A brunch to remember
The back half of this RHOA episode followed the ladies as they attended Shereé’s Gucci brunch. The point was to resolve the lingering issues amongst the group and show off your best Gucci moment. Kenya arrived slightly off-theme rocking a Chanel bag, but the bigger focus was on the group’s relationships and how to resolve them.
Shereé deserves some kudos because a few beefs did get squashed at this brunch. Courtney and Kandi resolved their lingering problems from the beginning of the season. So, for now, Courtney is out of the clear from receiving a headbutt. Sanya and Kenya also resolved their lingering tension from the Birmingham trip. But the biggest beef on the table was the one between Marlo and Kandi. That one still needs some time to simmer.
The whole story about Marlo’s nephew is just a little too dark for what we want out of this show. So, it would be wonderful if they could move past it. But the brunch couldn’t move forward because Kenya, Drew, and Kandi weren’t willing to listen to anything Marlo was trying to say.
Kenya kept calling Marlo a “bottom-rung bitch,” so Marlo stormed off to the parking lot, ready to call an end to the brunch. Shereé chased her down and convinced her to return, and it’s honestly just surprising that they didn’t get kicked out of the restaurant. Imagine trying to enjoy your mimosa and French toast, but all you hear is Kenya shouting from the other side of the room about someone being bottom-rung.
The episode ended with no real resolution on the Marlo and Kandi situation, but at least some ladies progressed towards forging a workable friend group. If we’re on the bottom rung in the seventh episode, it’s only up from here.
Real Housewives of Atlanta continues Sundays at 8/7c on Bravo.
TELL US – WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS ON RHOA SEASON 15, EPISODE 7? WERE YOU SURPRISED TO HEAR THAT KENYA WOULD HAVE ANOTHER BIOLOGICAL BABY WITH MARC? DO YOU THINK SANYA IS FLIP-FLOPPING TOO MUCH? WHO HAD THE BEST GUCCI LOOK AT THE BRUNCH?
