Last night on Real Housewives of New Jersey there was a knockdown, drag-out war of words. It would appear that this is the beginning of the bitter end for former besties Teresa Giudice and Jacqueline Laurita. I hate a reality TV friendship divorce – I feel like I need to have a funeral for Jacqueresa. Next week I’m so wearing black while tuning in.
Some other stuff happened like Lauren Manzo continued to complain about being fat and drinking egg whites while her parents made snippy comments about how she is fat.
So I guess Teresa and Joe Giudice are so broke they’re selling fake stories – or photos – to the tabloids (or volunteering to let the tabloids run stories about them depending on whom you ask and what week), yet they’re building a brand new carport and a garage with an inlaw apartment. Teresa wants her parents to live there. Apparently Teresa has also installed a new closet. I’m sure she cleaned out all of Italy’s marble reserve and all of JoAnn Fabrics fake gold leaf for the accents.
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Teresa explains that when you “do bankruptcy” you don’t crawl in a hole and die. There’s like totally life after being $11M in debt and she’s not going to stop buying tacky accessories just cause, you know, she’s in debt up to her spray tanned earlobes. Cause you don’t die from bankruptcy. Lessons from T-Giu…
Apparently Joe G-to-the-Iudice and Joe G-to-the-Orga use the same contractor. Why am I not surprised? And who do we think owes this poor sap more money? Well the poor contractor finally got his day in the sun, because the very next scene is him talking to Joey about how the Giudices are building a carport exactly like the Gorga’s and Teresa wants to stash her parents in the garage apartment.
Non-Juicy Joe is all miffed because he’s currently buying them a new home – a ranch or something one-level – and they are so not going to live in Teresa‘s garage apartment. Even though they are Teresa’s nannies and stuff. Joe also mentions that he owned their previous home which he sold – and he’s now paying their rent somewhere else. What a mess this family is. And have they ever heard of not discussing their problems on television?
So we move on to the tried and true ‘Lauren is fat’ storyline. Is Caroline Manzo really super desperate to keep her kids on this show or something?
We all know now that Lauren has gotten a lapband, but there she was complaining about not losing weight because she likes to eat pasta and that’s why she can’t get thinner the old-fashioned way.
Ok, here’s the deal – now I don’t want to take anything away form Lauren‘s struggle – but who doesn’t like to pig out on cookies, pasta, and junk food? Anybody? Anybody just really, really prefer quinoa and lettuce with no dressing to chips and cheese? Yeah probably not too many of us out there. And instead of doing this silly egg white diet, do Weight Watchers – then she can eat freaking cheese in moderation!
So anyway, Lauren‘s parents are up there prattling on and on about how she’s overweight and Albert Sr. oh so supportively snipes that Lauren is going to fail at this diet because she’s a food addict and even if she does achieve some success she’ll gain it back. Then he says: “If all else fails, Daddy will buy you a lapband.” Famous last words right there…
I’m really over this storyline. And Lauren‘s parents discussing her on TV. I feel really embarrassed for Lauren – and she should sue her parents for defamation of character.
There’s another scene where her brothers and Greggy scarf down pizza and subs in front of her while Lauren is forced to eat a salad without cheese. That totally didn’t reek of producer intervention or anything.
Poor sad Lauren ogles the food and covets the sub while she forlornly shoves lettuce into her mouth looking like she wants to have a sobbing meltdown. I loved all the closeup shots of the food and then panning to her big, sad, panda eyes silently willing the sub to miraculously end up in her mouth.
So moving on from that depressing storyline …
Jacqueline is having a skype session with Ashlee‘s dad and no surprise he’s ready to kick her out. In order to hear the bad news Jacqueline has to add some Bailey’s to her coffee (exactly what time was this?) and sit down on the floor to prepare for full panic attack mode. Chris hovers on the sidelines to watch over her. Ashlee still wants to move to California and her dad thinks she should just go for it if she can pay her own way. Jacqueline is still against it.
Luckily she has other things to obsess about – like Teresa‘s nonstop appearance in tabloids. In the newest story Teresa could go to jail for bankruptcy fraud. Jacqueline is concerned that one of her good friends isn’t sharing what’s going on in her life. She wonders if Teresa is doing these stories for the money and trying to gain some pity love from the public OR if she’s hurting inside.
Chris and Jac discuss how they have always stood by Teresa and Joe – which I believe they have – and Chris tells us when all their stuff was due to be auctioned to repay creditors he offered to buy it all and give it back to them. Dang, are they accepting applications for new BFFs? Cause I could totally use the money.
Meanwhile, Teresa meets with her bankruptcy attorney to discuss getting her bankruptcy withdrawn. Teresa informs us she will never be poor because both she and Joe are hard-workers. That I believe – say whatever you want about Teresa, but she works her butt off and never misses a beat.
Meanwhile at Melissa Gorga‘s she is hulahooping in a croptop, some skintight jeans, and heels. Just another day as a stay-at-home mom! Her sisters are all there dressed to the nines and then Kathy Wakile shows up. Apparently Richie and Joe are at a Yankees game which Melissa didn’t even know about.
Kathy has come over from the supermarket where she too has discovered Teresa‘s latest tabloid feature – and she’s shocked and worried. Melissa is like so over this because she wants to talk about her now. She basically tells Kathy to stop worrying and go ask Teresa. Melissa feels that if Teresa is selling theses stories for money – who cares! You know what – I agree. Kathy should go ask Teresa, they should all stop obsessing about her every move, and really if she needs a check, why not?
Although Teresa should TELL her friends and family the truth about why she’s doing the articles instead of pretending America just loves her so much every tabloid in the history of the world is fighting over her getting their cover feature.
Apparently agreeing with me is Jacqueline who has decided to invite Teresa over for a little chat about her extracurricular activities with In Touch Weekly. Teresa arrives and tells Jacqueline she looks very South African – no Aztecky.
Things start out normally – Jacqueline is on the brink of a sobbing breakdown and Teresa is smiling and making her eyes all wide, like, ‘What are you tawkin about?’ Jacqueline expresses her concern about the article stating Teresa may go to jail and Teresa is like, ‘haha, Oh that’s so silly. They don’t have rhinestones in jail, so like I could never go there! I’d just leave the country. Where’s the glitter capital of the world? I mean who goes, like, away when they can go on vacation?’
Jacqueline just wants Teresa to include her in her life and Teresa tells Jacs she can have their attorney’s phone number. Ok, this was AFTER TEresa told all of us that Jacqueline has stood by her throughout everything and that Jacqueline was probably her best friend. So, odd, right?
I get that Teresa doesn’t want to discuss her issues on TV – and Jacqueline should have called her off camera – but why not just send Jacs a text like, ‘Hey, can’t talk about this on TV, come over tomorrow when they’re not filming. Now let’s talk shit about somebody and have some wine.’ But no, no – in reality TV world a huge arm waving screaming fight with botox faces trying to scrunch into emotional responses is always better.
Jacqueline pulls out the latest tabloid like, ‘What is THIS?!’ and Teresa got caught with contraband at school. Teresa is confused about where this is coming from and compares Jacqueline to Hekyll and Jyde.
They start arguing over whether or not Teresa told her she was getting paid for tabloids – which she totally is so why not admit it already? Jacqueline wants to know if Teresa is broke and why she built a closet if she is. And then it descends into friendship war over who did what when.
A couple of things:
1) I don’t think Teresa should have contacted crazy Danielle Staub on twitter of all places – no matter what information Danielle claimed to have on Melissa. Particularly once Teresa made a promise to Jacqueline. Teresa totally did that on purpose to draw attention to Melissa’s scheming. Also, I totally believe Melissa did contact Danielle.
2) I do not think Teresa should just ‘get over’ Melissa “maliciously” trying to bring her down – even it was two years ago. I agree that Teresa’s parents still aren’t over it and frankly that’s some serious betrayal. I do think they should try to work together to make themselves look better on TV, but perhaps it’s kinda nice that on so-called reality TV they are actually exhibiting, you know, reality.
I DO understand Jacqueline advising Teresa to move past Melissa‘s actions for her own sanity – and because it is seriously making Teresa crazy to be obsessing over it all the time.
3) Did we get a word count on how many times “malicious” was used? Or MEL-icious if you will. Is that a surprisingly big word for our RHONJ friends? I kept waiting for Teresa to mispronounce it as ‘manishious’ or something. Is Melissa Melisicious?
4) The Caroline “showing up” was completely staged. And instead of coffee she should have brought handcuffs and a taser.
5) Cookbook gate needs to die. Since they aren’t allowed to address the real issue at hand (Punta Cana) they need to stop bringing it up. I do believe Teresa thought the cookbook thing was a joke and had they been on better terms Caroline would have probably found it funny too. I am interested to hear Christopher‘s perspective on the matter.
6) Caroline has to stop blaming Teresa for everything. Even though Teresa is definitely hard to handle, Caroline’s constant negativity and anger is over-the-top. Teresa is rapidly becoming Caroline’s “Melissa“.
Jacqueline and Teresa are really going at it – arms are waving, bracelets clanking, fingers pointing. I kept silently willing Jacqueline to back away from the table before something went drastically wrong. Teresa is furious that Jacqueline thinks she should just accept the situation with Melissa and move on when Melissa has been lying about her. “To hold the effing baby or not to hold the effing baby?!” That is the question…
The Caroline just pops over to return some ummm… baby clothes that she like found at her house and it was totally a coincidence that she arrived in the middle of an epic screaming match. Yeah, just a total coincidence. She starts going in on Teresa over the tabloid thing and wonders why Teresa didn’t sit down with her to explain that she was mis-quoted by In Touch.
Teresa points out that it was Jamie‘s wedding weekend and she didn’t think it was appropriate – which I totally agree with. Caroline and Jacqueline feel there was ample time away from the wedding in which Teresa could bring it up. Teresa remains firm that the weekend was supposed to be happy. This interesting because last week Caroline anounced she wasn’t going to confront Teresa because she didn’t want to ruin the wedding weekend.
Caroline and Jacqueline proceed to act out how Teresa could have discussed the situation with Caroline. There they are flipping through the mag having a pseudo conversation. A shocked Teresa announces: “Are these bitches really role playing?” I can so see Milania saying that in about 20 years. Teresa is so that child’s mother.
Eventually they just start screaming about the cookbook again and if Teresa‘s apology was legit and sincere. Caroline refuses to accept it and Teresa refuses to back down. They both call each other crazy. I call this a prequel to last year’s reunion. Jacqueline accuses Teresa of telling people not to film with Melissa.
The Caroline announces that she will be cordial to Teresa but their friendship – if they ever had one – is dead. Jacqueline echos that she needs to take a break from Teresa’s family for a while.
Teresa stands up, wonders why she wasn’t fully lubricated with wine to make it through this argument, and then asks if they’re still kissing good-bye. That was awkward. Caroline refuses to stand, but instead utters “nice bag.” Passive-agressive much? Jacqueline stands, they sort of bob and weave around before doing a tepid hug and Teresa bails.
“There are evil people out there – and sometimes they come in the shape of your friends,” Teresa tells us. That was a total nightmare. And really depressing to basically watch a friendship fall apart. That was too much real for reality TV.
[Photo Credit: BravoTV]
THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE? ARE YOU TEAM TERESA, JACQUELINE, OR CAROLINE?
A close-up of the so-called “quote” Teresa gave insinuating Caroline was a bad friend to her during the bankruptcy. Right… Caroline. [Photo Credit: BravoTV]
