‘Real Housewives of Atlanta’ season 9, episode 5 review: Phaedra faces a bomb threat, Kenya and Matt on the rocks
Last time on the “Real Housewives of Atlanta” Kandi was having some serious issues with Riley’s father as he claims that he wants to be part of Riley’s life, but doesn’t seem to want to put in the effort required after not being around much for her life. As a mother, Kandi is hurting for her daughter and is protective of her at the same time. She has already asked Riley what she wants to do and she has said that she’s fine not having a relationship right now. This week we are going to be looking at another mother (Sheree) who is dealing with hard issues with her son, so let’s take a look at what’s going on.
Sheree may have some problems with Kenya right now, but she has some more serious issues at home with her son Kairo. She was caught off guard when she got a call from her son at 1 am saying that he had been arrested for a DUI. He explains that he was pulled over for an expired tag on his car, and that while he had been smoking pot earlier that evening, he wasn’t under the influence of it when he was actually driving. He said that he was pulled out of the car and that the police didn’t find anything in there, but that they brought him into the station anyway. This is a heavy theme in this week’s episode as we also saw Phaedra talking with Porsha and congresswoman Wilson about her foundation to help young black men get out from under unfair treatment because of their backgrounds and how to build better relationships with the police.
Sheree doesn’t think that the talk she had with Kario actually got through to him, so she calls Bob over to help. At first Sheree seems surprised by some of the things that Bob is revealing to their son – which is that after he retired from football he got his medicinal card and used that for pain so that he wouldn’t get hooked on prescription drugs. Because of this he feels that there is a time and place for the use of pot, but he doesn’t condone recreational use. Even though Kario says that he will make better decisions on smoking pot and his friends, we aren’t sure that he’s really understanding the gravity of the situation.
Let’s talk about Kenya and Matt for a second. There’s a lot that we like about these two together and we can see them both really trying to make this work, but when Kenya posts a “Throwback Thursday” picture of her and Jay-Z on Instagram and Matt starts punching walls over it, we have to wonder if this relationship is really going to last. There’s still a lot of immaturity there from Matt and Kenya isn’t sure she wants to wait for him to grow up since she’s ready for marriage, kids and that whole life right now. Things got even weirder when Kenya planned a surprise couples dune buggy party for Matt’s birthday and he took off last minute to California to spend it with his sister instead, leaving Kenya with a bunch of couples and no Matt. Things are not looking good for this couple.
Now for the most disturbing news of the episode… While Phaedra was out of the office, her assistant called to tell her that there was a bomb threat against her that morning at her work place. A man came to her office with a grenade and threatened to blow the building up, but luckily that didn’t happen. Why is this person after Phaedra? That is unclear (there are various reports out there all saying different things), but the bottom line is that there’s no good reason to ever come to anyone’s workplace with a grenade, so the reason behind it doesn’t matter. All that does matter is that Phaedra, and the people at her workplace are all okay. What makes this an even harder day for Phaedra is that she got the news right before she was about to go in to see Apollo in prison.
The first half of this episode was really inspiring and brought with it a message of hope for the future. We really enjoyed that and hope to see more of that going forward, especially in a time where many people are nervous moving into 2017. At the same time, the second half of this episode was hard to watch because we don’t want to see Kenya’s relationship fall apart and we were fearful for Phaedra’s safety. Episode grade: B-
What did you think of tonight’s episode of the “Real Housewives of Atlanta” and what do you want to see happen this season? Leave us a comment below with your thoughts. Also, if you want more news on the “Real Housewives of Atlanta” then head on over to the link here and let us be your guide to all things “Real Housewives”. (Photo: Bravo)