'RH of Atlanta' Showed the Apollo/Phaedra Fight

While the show tried to tease us and get us distracted with Claudia/Porsha drama and the like, let's just get right to the big story on The Real Housewives of Atlanta this week: Apollo & Phaedra's fight on the day he was supposed to surrender himself to prison. While teaser trailers suggested that this was some kind of psychotic break on Apollo's part, the whole thing was also motivated by an alleged affair between Phaedra and an African man going by the nickname "Chocolate." That affair still hasn't been confirmed by anyone involved (meaning anyone other than Kenya). Phaedra has denied the affair.

None of their affair confrontation made it into the episode besides the portion where Apollo freaked out later, so Apollo could have been making this up... but he did have the actual phone and quoted some things from texts that didn't seem like he'd made them up. Phaedra has seemed very conflicted and frustrated by her continuing marriage to Apollo, and has been seeking a divorce since the beginning of the season.

He did just admit earlier this year that he totally made up the rumors about Kenya offering him sex, which makes it hard to trust him. But still, Phaedra certainly doesn't seem interested in rekindling the marriage, but also hasn't been honest if she's seeing someone else, which is pretty cruel.

Earlier in the episode, Peter did his best to distract Apollo from getting into a huge fight with Phaedra, and it was greatly appreciated to have Peter skulking around for once, because without that friendly distraction, the blowout could have been much, much worse. (And it was already bad enough.) He was behaving erratically and irrationally. I can't even imagine what it's like to have to leave your family for eight years, especially if your ex doesn't want your kids to come visit you. But Apollo had threatened to kill the whole family, burn down the house, and according to Phaedra, was visiting the house at odd hours and punching walls, destroying things — how many times can it be said that this is a terrible situation?

That certainly casts the fight in a different light. Maybe it's better that RHOA showed the entire Apollo/Phaedra conflict, because it proves that there's no easy person to totally sympathize with. No one wants the cruelty of real life intruding on their guilty pleasure reality shows, but at least Ayden and Mr. President, two of the sweetest and best behaved babies I've ever seen, were safe and out of sight. They absolutely don't deserve to be exposed to their parents acting this irresponsibly.

Image: Wilford Harewood/Bravo