When Mia Thornton joined Real Housewives of Potomac during Season 6, I enjoyed her quirks. I liked that she owned things that other people would hide or side-eye, from her plastic surgery to some outside-of-the-box happenings in her marriage. She seemed fun.
As she drew criticism from cast member Wendy Osefo then, I remember being impressed that she seemed relatively unbothered, smiling through tense moments and genuinely appearing just happy to have a…peach? Wait, that’s Atlanta. I think it’s a glass of wine in Potomac? But you know what I’m referring to. Whatever symbol signifies that you’re a main cast member and that you’ve arrived.
Watching her in Season 9, though, has been difficult. As her marriage to Gordon Thornton has, at least on the show, seemingly gone kaput, and she’s publicly moved on with a man from her not-so-far past named Inc (aka, Incognito), moving him in with her kids while living in the same apartment complex with her estranged husband, it’s been a trainwreck. And while she’s spoken about how hard everything has been, not knowing where her kids were in last night’s episode and feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of her situation, she’s behaved as someone feeling quite the opposite.
Every week, she gives some odd update on her situation to her cast members, sometimes without being asked, running down her situation as if she’s informing everyone of the latest from a Netflix series. “Guess what you missed!” These updates would often run counter to what she shares on social media, as her eager boyfriend and soon-to-be ex-husband, who has been open about his bipolar I diagnosis, would toast and seemed to be on good terms in pictures and videos, only for Gordon to decide he wasn’t with the bull as soon as the flash went off, or so she claims.
And while Mia has the right not to stay in a toxic relationship, marriage with two kids or not, could she go about things any worse? Listen, if my husband left me for a woman he had an affair with (and allegedly impregnated, and she had an abortion) and then moved that same heifer woman into a home with my children almost full-time, I’d cut up, too. They were all filming together until Gordon expressed that he couldn’t do it any longer. And the new boo even wanted a DNA test for their oldest son. That things remained as peaceful as they’ve been is a miracle under the circumstances.
Gordon also continued to be a constant in her life, which she claimed she wasn’t happy about because she wanted to continue to care for him. With her “I love yous,” and conversations outside of “The kids will be at your place at X time” boundaries, even her BFF Jacqueline Blake said it felt like she was giving him false hope.
But would you look at that? While the season is still playing out, Mia, in real-time, has announced her split from Inc and, amid that, shared a photo with a much happier Gordon, both smiling and posing close. Please take us out of the group chat.
And that is the rollercoaster of trying to follow a storyline about Mia Thornton. She’s spent the majority of the time painting Gordon as a controlling, scorned ex, one she’s only keeping around for the kids (and not just to have the same control he seeks), and now she’s cheering on a new year and new beginnings with him by her side. Perhaps she only wanted to move on from her marriage if she could be with Inc and realized the grass wasn’t greener over there. Maybe she just needed some time away from Gordon to miss a somewhat good thing. Or perhaps it’s just a picture and they’re celebrating healthy co-parenting. As usual, one can never tell.
One reality that I think about from episode to episode is how complicated all of this has to be for the kids. And not just her own.
It’s one thing to put on for the cameras and confuse your cast members (and hell, viewers) about who you’re with and what’s going on, but watching her parade Inc around her youngest kids, Jeremiah and Ju Ju (she has a teenager in Atlanta, fyi), including a son that the man believed was his, was icky. When her daughter said, in front of her father, that Mia couldn’t marry Inc, not only was it awkward, it was sad. While she was trying to move on fast, everyone around her was still trying to cope and get clarity.
And let us not forget that to sidestep the fact that she says one thing to the ladies and displays something completely different to the world, Mia insulted co-star Gizelle Bryant’s daughters, claiming the TV personality tries to paint them in a positive light while they were allegedly sneaking boys into a hotel room when they were teenagers. What did that have to do with anything? And it doesn’t change the fact that Gizelle was right. She would say Inc would step back so she could focus on her family and then post pictures with him the next minute, nowhere near “back.”
When tasked with apologizing publicly for what she implied about the girls, also publicly, Mia feigned that she had too much going on to do so, only to share later she said sorry in private. When co-star and friend (at least during the season) Ashley Darby told her she should take full accountability for the comments because kids should be off-limits, Mia took it as an attack. Because she’s the only one suffering, remember?
But therein lies the problem with Mia. She may very well go through hell with Gordon and sometimes with the ladies, too (I’m not in agreement with Gizelle and Karen Huger calling her out about a very real issue in front of everyone in the very first episode — if you care about her kids, call her); still, she struggles to take responsibility for the role she plays in her mess. If you’re going to preach about being authentic, being able to say, “I probably could have done this differently,” publicly and privately is a part of that, as well as modifying how you do things based on those missteps. But she keeps us in the group chat, and my teeth remain clenched in the shame of it all.
I know Mia is inspiring some women who believe there’s something “women in the male field” about her behavior (treating men the way they often treat women romantically). Still, nothing is entertaining about the impact all of this will have on her children. When they grow up and realize Inc wasn’t just a friend who was often around, recall the chaos of their father’s situation, hear the conversations about DNA tests, and realize they saw things they shouldn’t have (like when Ju Ju, Gordon claims at the end of Season 8, told him she found Mia and Inc in bed together at one point), there are a lot of questions that are going to need answers. If there’s anyone to be concerned about from a compassion standpoint, it’s them.
Mia was first entertaining because she was open. Nowadays, she’s a little too forthcoming about the wrong things and not necessarily honest in her retelling. Perhaps the woman who first introduced herself as an open book with nothing to hide is still being just that. But this particular story is one I’m no longer interested in reading.
