We are barreling toward the end of The Real Housewives of Atlanta Season 17, but there are so many loose ends it’s hard to imagine how they’re going to tie them all up in one finale.
When we last left off, the ladies were wrapping up their Scotland trip, where everyone felt repulsed by Shamea and Porsha’s below-the-belt accusations about each other’s mothers.
In The Real Housewives of Atlanta Season 17 Episode 16, “Halloween Hot Pocket,” the peaches returned to Atlanta, and Shamea was ready to put Scotland firmly behind her. The rest of the cast? Not so much.
What happened in The Real Housewives of Atlanta Season 17 Episode 16?
The ladies came home from their painfully toxic Scotland trip, and Shamea decided the best way to move forward was to throw a Halloween party. Of course, some people still had hard feelings about how gross things got during the trip, but still, Shamea made a point to invite everyone. That included the green-bearded lawyer that Angela accused her of sleeping with. Messy? Absolutely, and in the end, Angela felt like she was vindicated in this mess. But does anyone else feel that way?
Shamea wants to move forward from Scotland
Back in Atlanta, Shamea made a conscious decision to stop going tit for tat with Porsha and focus her energy elsewhere. She’s got the peach-flavored rum line that she’s working on, but we learned in this episode that venture isn’t going exactly as planned. At this point, just pray for Shamea. She is genuinely having a struggle of a season.
To celebrate the still-to-be-launched rum, Shamea decided to throw a Halloween party. And in the spirit of moving on and being a good coworker, she decided to invite Porsha. Yes, the same Porsha she’s been crying about all season.
Shamea sent Porsha a text, but Porsha wasn’t interested in attending. It was a hard no.
“Girl I’m not coming to your damn party. You are sick asf. Please move along enjoy,” Porsha texted Shamea.
Meanwhile, Angela was also not in a forgiving mood. He met up with K. Michelle and insisted that Shamea had brought every bit of this drama on herself and was now trying to reframe herself as the victim. K. Michelle wasn’t fully buying it. She could see Shamea’s hurt underneath all of the mess and didn’t want her to feel like the entire cast had turned against her. She decided to meet with Shamea one-on-one to get to the bottom of things.
K. Michelle tried to throw Shamea a lifeline
K. Michelle sat down with Shamea for a candid conversation about Scotland, and specifically, about why things got so ugly so fast. Why did the moms have to get involved?
Shamea was consistent with her reasoning. She told K. Michelle the same thing she’s told everyone else — she thinks Porsha started it in Season 16 when she brought up their moms and the daycare situation. In Shamea’s head, she’s just filling in the blanks that Porsha conveniently left out.
Either way, K wants the ladies to put down their weapons. She said she doesn’t want this failed friendship to define Shamea, but at this point, it already has.
Shamea compared her split from Porsha to a divorce, and she’s in therapy to try to work through the complicated dynamics that come with filming RHOA. It’s all weighing on her, and K seemed receptive to that. At least, that’s how it seems in this episode.
Somehow between then and now, things have dramatically changed. They’ve unfollowed each other on social media, so that’s one more person who isn’t rooting for Shamea.
Shamea planned an extra messy Halloween party
Remember when Angela accused Shamea of sleeping with George, the married green-bearded lawyer? And then George’s wife Ashley came forward and said Angela had been fishing for dirt on Shamea? It was a messy storyline from Scotland that almost got overshadowed by the Porsha of it all, but the storyline all came together in spectacular fashion this week.
It all went down at Shamea’s Halloween party, which also doubled as a soft launch of her potential rum line, Rum Bum. The whole cast was invited, and there is truly nothing better than a Housewives Halloween party. It doesn’t matter if it’s Atlanta, New York, or Dallas. There’s something especially unhinged about watching these wealthy-ish women fight in elaborate costumes.
This year’s lineup gave us Phaedra as the Godfather, Drew as Beyoncé, Shamea as a Na’vi from Avatar, and Pinky looking like a rejected extra from The Walking Dead. Fierce all around. But Shamea wasn’t just there to hand out rum shots and candy. Every treat needs a trick, so she also invited Ashley and George to the party.
With Angela en route in her Party City cop costume, the recipe for disaster was complete. This party was ready to go off the rails.
Angela’s cards got exposed
Angela had been online in the days leading up to this episode, swearing that it would fully vindicate her. Bless her heart, but that is not what happened here.
With everyone gathered in Shamea’s backyard, Ashley claimed that Angela called her up asking for tea on Shamea. Angela denied it, and her response was a masterclass in semantics.
“You are saying that I asked for tea on Shamea, but I asked, ‘Do you know Shamea?'” she claimed.
Sure, Angela. Things got even more convoluted when they started talking about the sexual claims. Angela previously insinuated that something happened between Shamea and George, which Ashley vehemently denied.
Still, Angela tried to tell Ashley that George’s reputation preceded her, and that she had some sort of insider knowledge about him hooking up with Shamea. Now, can you imagine if the shoe were on the other foot and someone was saying this to her about Charles?
Fortunately, George popped up to give his side of the story. He arrived in a full Riddler costume, which felt appropriate, because at this point in this conversation, Angela was speaking in riddles.
George acknowledged that he may have drunkenly said something about “paying Shamea” at an event, but clarified it was a joke and absolutely not a sexual suggestion. His wife proudly declared that George had never been anywhere near Shamea’s “hot pocket.” Case closed, allegedly.
If George is telling the truth, it’s a pretty significant leap from what Angela originally implied. Regardless, Drew swooped in to declare Angela vindicated, and judging by what we’ve seen on social media, Angela seems to still feel the same way. But vindicated how, exactly? We’re still not entirely sure.
The Real Housewives of Atlanta Season 17 finale airs next Sunday at 8/7c on Bravo and streams the following day on Peacock.
TELL US — WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS ON RHOA SEASON 17 EPISODE 16? WAS ANGELA ACTUALLY VINDICATED? DID SHAMEA DO THE RIGHT THING BY INVITING GEORGE AND ASHLEY TO THE PARTY?
