‘RHONY’ Recap: Season 15, Episode 14: Ubah All Along

I have defended this season of RHONY, says that Bravo is trying to do something a little more exclusive and a little more aspirational, and that not every franchise needs to vibrate at such a high frequency as RHOSLC. I stand by that, but as the season progressed it seemed like everything was a little boring. Everyone was holding things back and they weren’t willing to be housewives and really go there.

I wasn’t sure who to blame. At first I thought it was Erin Mew Mew Lichy’s fault because I didn’t like her and I will always blame her first. Here she is not talking about her husband selling his crypto or letting him make jokes about how they take mushrooms. Oh, and how can we forget about the countless ridiculous pranks that no one asked for? Then I thought it was Jenna’s fault because she set such firm boundaries after the first season and still became a fan favorite. I assumed that all the other women were thinking, “Well, if Jenna isn’t talking about things, then neither am I.” Then I thought it was Brynn’s fault because she kept stirring up drama based on manipulated versions of the truth so we could see how what really happened and what Brynn said didn’t add up. I never really blamed Sai, Jessel or Racquel because I think they have been as present and willing as they could be. And I try not to think about Becky Minkoff unless I really have to.

However, I have come to a new conclusion. It was Ubah all along. Just as Agatha Harkness shows up at the eleventh hour to take credit for the chaos she’s created, the true demon behind this slumber of a season is Ubah Hassan, and just like with Agatha, now that she’s revealed herself, makes it perfect meaning, and we should have seen it all along.

The reason everyone is holding back is that if they bring something up to Ubah, she just yells at them until the conversation ends. The reason there is no drama in the group is because when there is, Ubah jumps in and overrides it with whatever she is upset about that day. The reason no one is having fun is because every time they try, Ubah shuts it down. If it’s not something she agrees with, if it’s not her cup of tea, or if she’s just not in the mood, she sulks and frowns and drags the mojo around. Ubah is really ruining the show.

Because it’s not like the ladies are out of beef. That’s what this trip has taught us, they’ve all just sat on their complaints all season long for it to finally come flying out in one go at the very end. This is what happens when you suppress things and put them under pressure. They don’t disappear, they just explode with a million times the force it took to hold them down for so long. Look at all the fights that break out at once – Erin, Brynn and Sai think Jessel is corny; Sai thinks Jessel’s husband owes her an apology; Ubah thinks Brynn got her job by having sex; Brynn thinks Erin will never have her back; Erin thinks Ubah should take care of her marriage – they’ve all been here since the beginning of the season, but it’s just now, at the very end, that they’re all coming out. I think the reason they haven’t done it before is not because the other women were trying to protect themselves from the public; they tried to protect themselves from Ubah.

A perfect illustration of the problem is when Racquel goes to talk to Ubah about her inappropriate behavior on the beach and tells her she didn’t like it when she said out loud that it was “disgusting”. Ubah says, “But it was disgusting. It was disgusting and it smelled.” Unable to see Racquel’s point, Ubah not only confirms his disdain but adds to it, Ubah tries to say that if Racquel behaved the same way in Somalia, Ubah wouldn’t care because it was the truth .If they all went to Somalia, the first person to even bat their eyelashes wrong would get Ubah with both barrels.

Then Ubah tries to tell Racquel, who hasn’t been to Puerto Rico in six years, that she’s been four times and cares more about Puerto Rico than she does, which is just completely ridiculous. It’s absolutely insane. Sai has entered the room at this point and they both try to tell her that with all that the island has been through after Hurricane Maria (hey, remember RHONY season 10?) struck her comments differently. But Ubah still doesn’t understand. She tells Racquel not to listen to the other people on the cast if they say Ubah is rude, that she wasn’t rude, she was being herself.

Yes, but in this case it was rude to be yourself! And it wasn’t other voices that told Racquel that, but her own feelings. I think the point that Racquel missed was saying it was rude instead of saying it hurt her feelings. Racquel took them to a real Puerto Rican beach, one that had been her favorite since childhood. She tried to give them a real experience of what life is like on the island and open up to them by showing them an important place for her. As soon as Ubah arrives, she starts throwing it in the trash and throws a tantrum. Sorry, but it’s rude, it’s unwarranted, and it’s not nice to Ubah’s supposed friend. Maybe if she had seen that both Sai and Racquel were hurt on a deeper level, she would have reacted differently, but I don’t think so. Ubah cannot be told otherwise; she believes that what she feels is absolute and all her opinions are legitimate facts.

When Erin and Brynn try to play a (oh, Catholic Jesus, no) prank on Erin’s husband Abe, just watch what happens next. Erin calls him and he’s talking to Brynn and Erin and the whole group around them and Brynn pretends she and Erin are in the shower together trying to fix Abe. As far as pranks go, it’s apparently harmless, and Abe clearly knows he’s on speakerphone, and because it’s a work trip, he knows he’s on camera too. That’s why he was so careful with what he said, but also joined the game.

When Ubah sees what’s going on, she shouts, “Abe, you’re on speakerphone and everyone’s listening to you.” She storms off and talks about how wrong it is for Erin to do this to her husband. Yes, but it is Erin’s man. She can treat him however she wants and he clearly doesn’t have a problem with this or he would have hung up. Everyone is fine with it. Even if Ubah thinks it’s stupid, just let everyone have a little laugh. Brynn is right: Ubah is where fun goes to die. But to make it worse, she shouts: “Have some respect; some of us ask for a man every single day.” Okay, Erin playing tricks on her husband is disrespectful, but how Ubah acted on the beach earlier in the day isn’t? Where GIF of the lady doing impossible math when you need it. And why is Erin’s behavior disrespectful to people who don’t have husbands? Copy and paste the math GIF again, please.

Jenna might want to keep much of her life off camera and won’t even tell us how much money she made from her sales (maybe for tax reasons?), but she’s a good sport. When she gets outside and all the ladies have silky merkins to make fun of her, she starts laughing hysterically. She’s in on the joke. She even goes as far as trying to style them to make them look better. Jenna then tries to get all the ladies to swim with her, which she has loved since she was a child. (She says if there was a gay team, she’d join it, and I’m happy to report that there is one in New York Cityand I bet they’d love to film for next season.) It’s the only time in the season I can think of where the women are all together and having fun. We need more of what Jenna brings—minus elbowing Racquel in the forehead—and a lot less of what Ubah brings.

When the artistic swimming routine is done, Ubah asks Erin what’s wrong, and Erin tells her that she didn’t like her yelling about Abe. “Every minute you find something to be mad about,” shouts Ubah. “She ruins everything.” Okay, that’s a projection. You know how I feel about Mx. Mew Mew Lichy, but she’s not the one who’s always mad about something or who ruins everything, it’s Ubah. And also, Ubah, maybe if you weren’t so rude and bombastic all the time, people wouldn’t be mad at you all the time.

Then it’s time for Brynn and Ubah to get into it, with Brynn telling Ubah that she’s a commercial airliner and Brynn only flies private, which is the kind of annoying and stupid reading that Brynn always likes to do, but Ubah tells her, “With who? Someone else’s husband?” Okay, that’s right below the belt. Ubah takes the nastiest things people say about Brynn on the show and throws it in her face. And don’t let me do that, but Ubah thinks she’s the same caliber like Naomi Campbell and Gisele Bündchen? Where are all her runway walks? Naomi and Gisele don’t even know Ubah’s name, she’s not in the same league.. But she made me!

This is when Erin and Brynn start their little fight about whether or not Erin had Brynn’s back (she didn’t) and then Erin’s third fight of the night breaks out when Ubah tells Sai that earlier when they talked to Erin about , what Erin, Brynn and Sai said about Jessel last episode, Erin said it was just them talking and she was listening. Okay, that’s classic Mew Mew, to blame others, but Ubah’s behavior also had a hand in this argument. As Erin said, if she told Jessel and Ubah what was said, then Ubah would call Erin out for being a pigeon. Now she is being shouted at by Ubah and Sai for not wanting to say anything. That’s what I mean by Ubah’s fault; all the women feel trapped by her behavior. No matter what they do, they will fall victim to irrational and vicious yelling, and as I said, they don’t want to poke the bear. Many smaller throws would poke the bear at every opportunity and have the same fight over and over until we are exhausted from it. Luckily, this cast only clocked in to have the fight once, at the very end of the season, and for the first time since episode one of this season, I can’t wait to see how this fight ends.