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Familiar cast, no shift.
A competent season that proves the S9 cast has chemistry — but not that it has anything new to say.
Steady, but unchanging.
Season ten has the benefit of a genuinely good cast from the season before — Margaret, Jennifer, Dolores, Teresa, Melissa are all fluent in the format and in each other. The limitation is that the season has no new entry point. The conflicts extend from established dynamics, the social geometry doesn't shift, and the show asks the S9 cast to carry another full season without any external pressure to reconfigure. Watchable throughout. Not a reason to reconsider the placement.
The #12 slot.
Slot #12 of 14 in the Real Housewives of New Jersey Editor's Canon. Season ten inherits the best cast the franchise had assembled since the founding era and asks it to carry another full season without a new addition or a reconfigured dynamic. The cast is genuinely good — Margaret, Jennifer, Dolores, Teresa, and Melissa are all fluent in the format and in each other — and the season is watchable throughout as a result. But watchable is the ceiling when the social geometry hasn't shifted. Season ten is a demonstration of what a good cast can sustain without being given a new argument. Honest work from a capable cast; an honest placement in the lower half of the canon.