To get a sense of what ails this season of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, watch the eighth episode, where the Housewives find themselves in Nashville to celebrate Porsha Williams’s birthday. The trip is intended to cement Porsha’s fêted return to the franchise that brought her success, as she holds court in front of a new cast with her patented mix of raunch and humor. But that doesn’t quite happen. In an attempt to punish new castmate Angela Oakley for bringing an uninvited guest, Porsha stonewalls Angela throughout her celebratory dinner, resorting to curt, one-word answers whenever prodded by the group to participate. The rest of the cast refuse to ignore Angela, however, leaving Porsha to publicly sulk. Porsha’s behavior is a classic Housewife tactic: To cut someone down to size, you can simply refuse to interact with them, in the hopes that it will ultimately eliminate their camera time. It is also, in a metaphorical sense, the perfect encapsulation of the series’ woes — the old guard of Housewives are preventing the newer crop from thriving.
For much of the Real Housewives franchises’ run, Atlanta has been the preeminent standout, making television magic out of foibles as minor as being excluded from a party’s RSVP list, as happened between NeNe Leakes and Shereé Whitfield in season one. NeNe’s penchant for extravagant reactions made any interaction immediately memorable, and the subsequent seasons introduced formidable adversaries for her magnetic persona: Kandi Burruss on season two, Phaedra Parks on season three (alongside Cynthia Bailey), and Kenya Moore and Porsha Williams on season five. All the women listed have — in some fashion or another — left their stamp on the franchise, with a bevy of meme-able reactions in the archives for longstanding Housewives acolytes that have become a digital vocabulary on their own — from NeNe gasping at Kenya Moore’s white refrigerator to Kandi dramatically exclaiming “the lies! the lies! the lies!” on the Housewives reunion couch in season nine.
We are now 16 seasons in, and while most of the women from the “golden” era of Atlanta have since departed, dialogue about their legacy and impact has yet to abate, despite the show’s attempt to transition RHOA into its next era of reality stars. NeNe has not been on an NBCUniversal screen since the infamous laptop closure of the season-12 reunion; Phaedra had an informal ban from the franchise since her notorious fallout with Kandi during the season-nine reunion when she revealed that she was the one who claimed Kandi and her husband were drugging women and taking advantage of them; Kandi decided that her time on the franchise was up and has moved on to producing Broadway shows. Kenya and Porsha are the only two “classic era” Atlanta Housewives who have appeared this season, and both have run into multiple unexpected hiccups. Kenya was unceremoniously suspended after an attempt at humiliating a co-worker on-camera led to her presenting explicit photos of new Housewife Brit Eady during her long-awaited salon opening, while Porsha’s ongoing legal fight with her estranged husband has limited her filming opportunities to her mother’s house and prevented her from talking at length about her divorce.
In their stead lay a new crop of potential Housewives: Brit, a retired video vixen turned businesswoman of all trades; Shamea Morton, a delightfully quirky friend of the show turned full-time Housewife, whose promotion is long overdue; the aforementioned Angela Oakley, wife of infamously gruff NBA legend Charles Oakley, who has showcased her own ability to cut to the quick when confronted with rumors that her husband has been unfaithful; and pint-size restaurateur Kelli Ferrell, whose flair for the dramatic has led to three explosive events to date. These women are dynamic and compelling in their own right, but unfortunately, their arrival hasn’t stopped fans from waxing nostalgic about Kenya, NeNe, and Phaedra.
The economy of fan attention is crucial in any Housewives’ future; her ability to develop and establish a fan base that is eager to see their coming and goings is pivotal to a Housewife’s success. Housewives as a franchise relies on audience enthusiasm and participation. When dramatic events take place, it is the reactions on podcasts, X, and Reddit that are screen-capped and integrated into the show to give it a sense of linear clarity, re-creating the fervor as if it happened in real time. Real Housewives producer Andy Cohen is long familiar with the fan base’s loyalty to titans of the franchise — there is a recurring bit on his show Watch What Happens Live known as “Bring Back That Wife” where guests can make the case for departed cast members to make a glorious return.
But nostalgia can be blinding; Atlanta’s golden era still had its flaws. Linnethia Leakes’s natural charm and charisma doesn’t outdo the simple fact that she was reportedly incorrigible to work with near the end of her reality tenure and made the experience miserable for castmates and viewers alike; Phaedra’s season-nine lie about Kandi and her husband led to one of the darkest moments in Atlanta franchise history (which she still denies culpability for). Kenya Moore continues to fan the flames of fan opposition as she promotes a #JusticeForKenya hashtag on Instagram, answering fan questions about her ousting on her YouTube page with a retaliatory confessionals video sitting at nearly 500K views. But Kenya and her fans’ furious claims that there’s a “double standard” over Kenya’s suspension overlook her affinity for haranguing reality-television novices, which Tanya Sam, Kim Fields, and Porsha can all attest to.
A viewership focused on reminiscing is also one that is unable to actively participate in the narrative progression of its favorite series. The ratings for Atlanta also seem to be continually declining with TV-viewership numbers for the April 27 episode reaching a series low. The current hiatus of the reboot of Real Housewives of New York is a harbinger of how such fan nostalgia can become a self-fulfilling prophecy: in November 2024, Cohen pleaded with fans to see through the vision of the rebooted Real Housewives of New York, claiming that “there are a lot of interesting personal stories with the women in the new ‘New York’” in response to criticism from fans and former housewives about the new cast and panic over wobbling ratings. A few months later, John Hamm doubled down on the fan reaction, demanding the return of the classic New York housewives in February despite the fact that half of that roster—including Bethenny Frankel, Jill Zarin, and Sonja Morgan—hves since semi-retired and moved to Florida full-time. As of May 9, the show is reportedly on indefinite hiatus, unable to go back to its older cast or configure a new one that will appease fan discontent.
In short, Atlanta, like Marvel, is at risk of becoming a victim of its own culture-defining IP, and absent some rapid course correction, we are rapidly approaching the moment where Robert Downey Jr. reveals himself as playing yet another character in the massive franchise. There’s a world where Kenya, Porsha, and Phaedra don’t even appear on cameras this season beyond brief guest roles to encourage the transition to the new era, allowing Angela, Shamea, and Drew Sidora’s compelling stories of marriage, rebuilding, and self-discovery to flourish as the focal point of Atlanta’s next era — women with a strong sense of comedic timing and natural penchant for dramatics and delusion, qualities that have long been the secret sauce for any iconic Housewife.
A clip from episode nine of the season highlights the newcomers’ potential: In an all-cast scene, Angela and Brit quickly devolve into a war of words that has been prompted by repeated miscommunications. “Do you not read the words coming out of my mouth?” Brit snarks, gesturing mockingly at her lips. Angela made no bones of cutting her to the quick. “That big ass mouth, I should be able to read it,” Angela retorts. “You got miles on your mouth. Brit, you are a whore!” Just like that, we have a new meme to add to the lexicon, riddled with the bawdiness and impeccable timing that makes Atlanta sing.
We are halfway through the season. Atlanta’s new Housewives are coming with their own fashions, plenty of drama, and story lines of their very own. Let’s make a collective agreement to stop speculating on alternate realities, and begin to see our way toward the Atlanta of tomorrow.
Devotees of Atlanta are too busy relitigating the battles of yesteryear to appreciate this season. And the show is suffering because of it.
