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The Real Housewives of Atlanta Recap: And Scene!

Season 15 Episode 11 Editor’s Rating4 stars ****

Photo: Bravo Drew Sidora is an actress of our generation — one who studies the Uta Hagen technique and has a lengthy IMDb that could go toe to toe with Heather Dubrow. Sure, most people who haven’t watched The Game or the TLC biopic have no idea who she is, and her latest IMDb credit doesn’t even have a rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But she’s stayed in the industry for almost three decades, which is truly a feat, so we have to give her something. And she’s hitting two birds with one stone in her latest role as an emotionally unstable Housewife. She gets a Bravo check while still being able to practice her acting by turning every scene into an improv exercise.

The first dinner in Portugal was the perfect scenario for Drew to practice her theatrics. After storming off from the table, Drew unravels outside with Sanya, Shereé, and Kenya, crying over the thousand-dollar lawsuit. She produces real tears as she delivers a monologue about the seriousness of being sued and how the whole process is “draining her” amidst trips to the courthouse and harassment from the plaintiff. Her claim is that Shereé’s repeatedly bringing up the case is making a mockery of a very real moment in her life, and she orders Shereé to leave her alone. From Shereé’s point of view, the lawsuit is fair game, as Drew has also brought up rumors about Shereé she saw online.

Meanwhile, inside, Kandi definitively says, “… And scene!” before excusing herself to the bathroom during the intermission. In her confessional, Kandi says that she’s seen Drew have worse arguments without getting that upset, so this outlandish reaction made her feel like they were in a movie. Honestly, she should be happy she’s seeing her leading lady show off her chops! I would’ve started recording and sent the video to Todd.

Back outside, Drew continues her monologue, emphatically explaining that it’s not about the thousand dollars; it’s about a woman trying to “defame” her by reaching out to the blogs. Eventually, Shereé actually apologizes (probably just to make Drew shut up) and thanks Drew for being vulnerable. Kenya brings everyone back to reality, pointing out that if they pide the thousand dollars between the ladies, the lawsuit could go away instantly. She delivers a great callback to the “broke bitches split checks” dinner two seasons ago, reminding us of how funny Drew and Kenya can be when sparring. I’d be down to donate $125 myself, but I’m kind of living for the frivolousness of this story line after all the shooting nonsense from the first half of the season.

Apparently, giving this woman some rent money wouldn’t be enough; Drew says they’ve already given her money, but the disgruntled “chef” still isn’t satisfied, and there’s more she “can’t talk about.” Kenya stands ten toes down on the fact that they could make it all go away with the right lawyer. Drew maintains her “give a mouse a cookie” logic and then has a heart-to-heart with Shereé, where they get back on the same page. She finds an ally in Sanya, who defends Drew to the table despite not knowing how upset Drew is about Ralph, saying she’s just crying out because she needs support.

All jokes aside, Drew’s tears did have some authenticity to them that she wasn’t admitting at the moment. But don’t all good actors pull from real-life experiences to emote during scenes? As she explains in her interviews, she’s actually upset about the fact that Ralph is out of town auditioning to be a stripper. We also get more context on Ralph’s inappropriate relationship with his female manager, as Drew says she was out of town when the manager offered to give massages. Speaking of massages, the music-video producer who invited Ralph to audition for Chocolate City was coincidentally the same woman who oiled him up for his scene in the video. Naturally, Drew has her suspicions about her lying husband packing his bags to go to Vegas to take his clothes off, and she flat-out says that she doesn’t trust him.

We now know that the couple is headed for porce and Ralph has a history of cheating, so Drew’s insecurities are there for good reason. However, in the RHOA universe, we haven’t gotten to the porce proceedings yet, and the smoking gun that the producers are dangling in front of us is Drew’s possible relationship with WNBA player Ty Young. The end of the episode teases the unfolding of an affair between Drew and Ty, with Corny Courtney giving us some tea straight from her cousin. The teaser is compelling, but so have most of the others this season, and they rarely deliver. For example, I sat down to watch this episode excited to see an activated Monyetta, but the entire argument was a ruse. The ladies were merely joking around about the lack of fighting at their pottery excursion, so Monyetta and Sanya sarcastically acted out a blowup. It was cute but not as fun as what I thought I was getting.

Compared to the rest of the season, I walked away from this episode neither bored nor annoyed, hence the four-star rating. Maybe it’s because I love vacation episodes so much or because it was a pleasant mix of drama and bonding without the heaviness of the earlier story lines, but I saw a glimmer of hope for this cast. There were many traditional Housewives antics; we journeyed with them as they experienced a new culture, someone got dramatically injured, and we got after-hours footage from a pixelated iPhone camera after production wrapped.

It’s Kenya who gets wheeled away in a stretcher, much like during the Birmingham trip, after slipping and falling on the concrete, injuring her back. Kandi accompanies her to the hospital, and they spend hours trying to get Kenya help (in my opinion, all she needed was ibuprofen and a heat pack, but better safe than sorry, and I love the dramatics). Marlo scoffs at the wait time, saying if Kandi were indeed worldwide, she would’ve gotten Kenya help faster, bursting the thought bubble inside my head that said, “Huh, Marlo is kind of tolerable this episode.”

Everyone else goes to the market to pick out food for a fresh, farm-to-table Portuguese meal. They’re correct in saying that without Kandi and Kenya, there’s significantly less drama, but let’s not get carried away and act like it was all that entertaining. We do get an apology from Marlo to Drew regarding the argument after Candiace’s performance, but it was very much in the vein of Married to Medicine’s Dr. Heavenly. Can the apology be sincere when we know it’s only a matter of time before Marlo shows her ass again?

The real entertainment starts when Kandi and Kenya return. Drew addresses Kandi’s “And scene” comment, and Kandi doubles down on her belief that it was an overdramatized moment. Drew says she has “enough” acting jobs as it is (her made-for-TV movie game is impressive), but Kandi dismisses her, claiming it was fun shade, though she does apologize for her joke. Soon, the ladies switch to party mode, dancing and drinking in their pajamas at the hotel. Production wraps, but the kiki keeps going until another argument erupts that is captured by Marlo’s iPhone as the RHOA cameras went down an hour before it began.

Somehow, the discussion moves to an argument about whether or not Drew kissed LaToya during the Bolo trip two seasons ago — I would’ve loved to see how this conversation began, considering Drew’s upcoming story line with Ty. LaToya mentioned the kiss at the reunion, saying Drew cheated on Ralph. Kandi insists that she saw the kiss with her own eyes, but Drew continues denying it. She goes as far as saying that LaToya told her that Kandi encouraged LaToya to lie and say it at the reunion. What Kandi’s motivation would be to do that is unclear to me, and as a longtime viewer of the show, I’ve never known Kandi to be a liar or messy in that type of capacity. Marlo even says she’s 80 percent sure she saw them kiss as well, with the other 20 percent of her being possibly spun by Drew’s convincing versions of the truth.

During her confessional, a producer asks her point-blank if she has ever kissed a woman, and Drew says she hasn’t. Then, we’re given a glimpse of footage from three weeks later, when Drew’s porce hits the press. We see a clip of Drew, in tears once again, beginning to speak about her relationship with Ty. Drew is definitely putting in work for that peach this season, unlike the majority of her cast.

Peach Tea To-Go

• I’m happy the ladies confronted Kandi about her hectic schedule. Don’t get me wrong, I love Kandi, but I’m starting to get confused about why she’s still on the show if she doesn’t want to actively participate instead of working on all these other projects. Also, what is the end goal? Like the women said, she deserves a moment to rest after creating a huge empire. At what point will she feel comfortable enough to slow down? She carries a lot of weight on her shoulders, and I want to see her enjoy life. Slowing down will not put that big of a dent in her net worth.

• Courtney’s reaction to Kenya falling was strange, to say the least. I’m not Kenya’s biggest fan, but to say it was karma is weird. If she’s still mad that Kenya told her to keep her hands to herself, she needs to get a grip.

• When Shereé was painting the She by Shereé logo during the pottery class, I lost it. She’s going to sell that little ceramic star for $400. Also, how funny is it that she literally used Google Images to pull up her logo? Also, I went to try and buy one of Shereé’s $80 T-shirts, and I wasn’t able to put it in my cart either.

The Real Housewives of Atlanta

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