The Real Housewife of Potomac season 5 was one wild ride and it’s finally over. However, after what went down last season and with the exit of Monique Samuels, following part 3 of the reunion, where do we go from here? Monique had been at the centre of many plot lines since she joined the show back in season 2 and season 6 was obviously going to pick up from the reunion. Since she won’t be part of the next season, who will be the source of conflict?

Karen won’t give into the childish games played by any of the women, especially that of Gizelle or Candiace. She pays Robyn zero attention and Wendy was not on her radar at all. So that leaves Ashley and Candiace to bring some level of drama or friction to the group. But what will they argue about? Last season, after both Ashley and Candiace decided to move on, the only other issue they had was Ashley writing a statement about Candiace’s attack on her. This only came about because of the incident between Candiace and Monique. So, with Monique out of the picture, will they try to use the altercation between their husbands in the finale to move that story forward? I don’t know about you, but I’m bored of the Michael drama on the show. He’s not a housewife but delivers more content than majority of the women left on the cast. Yes, Michael has had his share of scandals on the show but if we are honest with ourselves, he and Ashley have contributed a lot.

With Michael, there have been many assumptions, allegations and accusations since season 1. I have been very hesitant to speak on the issues surrounding Michael because I did not want my comments and questions being misinterpreted. However, misunderstandings will always happen. So here it goes.

The issue resurfaced about Michael grabbing a producer’s butt, only this was from season 1. If you recall, this was mentioned on the season 4 reunion by Robyn and Gizelle. Ashley defended Michael by stating that he has a good relationship with the producer. In fact and according to Ashley, the producer calls Michael “daddy”. Now, I have said on twitter that if they have that close of a relationship for the producer to call Michael “daddy”, then was he being truthful by saying he felt violated? Or was that Andy, Gizelle and Robyn being messy and putting words in the producer’s mouth? On the reunion, Candiace mentioned that the producer wouldn’t have said anything because he has a job he wants to keep. Here’s my question though, aren’t the producers the bosses in this case and Michael the employee? So wouldn’t they have the power in this instance?

Let me be very clear here, I am, nor will I ever defend sexual harassment. However, given the nature of these claims, shouldn’t we look at the context and examine every detail before we label someone as a predator? Is Michael messy? You bet! But I find it hard to believe that BravoTv, Andy Cohen and the producers of this show would still film someone who was sexually harassing the staff since the show’s inception. That would make them no better than the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, etc. I find it hard to believe that Juan Dixon would have that good of a friendship with Michael. It doesn’t make sense to me. The fans of the show don’t make it any better because they stand behind their profiles, throwing horrible labels on people, while in the same breath, exhibit the very predatory behaviour they accuse Michael of, with their tweets about male BravoTv stars.

With that being said, I hope if Ashley does decide to film for season 6, Michael stays away from the cameras or he only films limited scenes with her because his image on this show has been painted with the same brush since season 1. Again, I am not defending this man’s actions but the one thing that he was accused of and was brought to the court, got thrown out because the accuser didn’t follow through. Why didn’t he? Was it because he lied? Were the rumours true back then that producers put him up to it due to what Candiace and Robyn had claimed they heard at Uncle Lump’s party? These are questions I would love to be answered.

The last thing I want to touch on about this season and especially the reunion is all the drama surrounding Andy Cohen‘s treatment of the Samuels on parts 2 and 3 of the reunion. On part 2, Andy kept throwing multiple questions at Monique and seemed annoyed that he wasn’t getting the response he wanted. Monique had dealt with her feelings about the incident but because she wasn’t in tears (one year later), for some reason, Andy didn’t think she was remorseful for what she did. Let’s not forget his comment about Chris Samuels not bringing in money as he used to. Now, I am not calling Andy any names but he’d have never questioned the likes of Erika Jayne or Kyle Richards about their husbands finances. He’d have taken their words at face value. It’s almost as if he forgot that Monique and Chris came into this show with wealth. Fans weren’t pleased by his approach on part 2 and things didn’t get better.

On part 3 of the reunion Chris Samuels was edited to seem irrational, angry and unhinged because he dared to speak up and try to hold the women, especially Gizelle, accountable for what they attempted to do to his family. They wouldn’t allow him to speak. Andy kept saying that the plot wasn’t aired on the show and I just knew there was more to it. They showed an IG live of Monique and Chris to make it seem like he was threatening to beat up the women and he allowed Gizelle to keep that narrative by bringing in security. It was completely one-sided and cruel, knowing that Gizelle did talk about the plot on the show with Robyn and she had a complete meltdown on the reunion set. How do I know this? Gizelle herself said it on Bravo’s Chatroom. So why edit it out? Why protect her? Chris Samuels said it best when he told Gizelle to go get some help because hurt people, hurt people. All of this, however, made Andy look really bad and his defense when he finally “addressed” the matter, was that a lot of footage was edited out. Funny, seeing as though he always tells the women that they can’t blame editing. Like Carole said on her final season of The Real Housewives of New York City…

Whatever casting decisions that will be made, I hope they can deliver a good season 6. For more on The Real Housewives of Potomac click around on http://bravotv.com

– CHATTERBOX KEIRN