Real Housewives of New Jersey Recap: A Mystery of Violence

I have to be perfectly honest here: I HATE these women. They represent everything that is wrong with the 'aspiration without perspiration' reality culture we live in today. I could take it for 8 episodes, which is how long the first season lasted. What I can't do is take 16 episodes of dark, evil shit and spin it into any form of mirth whatsoever. These people behave like animals, and they show zero desire to stop the cycle. They are passing the violence, the cluelessness and their own unhappiness right on down to their kids. Hell, they're shoving it in their faces, all while thanking Jesus!

Vile, people. VILE.



They all have new bullshit intros. And when I say bullshit, I mean BULLSHIT.

Life is about change, and forgetting that you have a daughter.

No one ever knocks me down because I have an ape-like low center of gravity.

Proof that apes may not be the smartest, but there are still lower species.

Ah yes, Jackie. Taking ski sloped nose jobs and shitty parenting to new lows.

Kathy. The first housewife married to a man with bigger lips than hers.

Joe has a new job. He's slinging pies from the humble Jersey pizza shop we saw last season. I'm not even sure that he owns it, which is undoubtedly a good thing.

Since it's harder to rack up millions of debt in pepperoni.

Teresa arrives, drops something off and then goes next door to do a book signing. I watched the people she posed with, and it's true.

Jersey Shore is ruining everything!

Friends don't let friends have Snooki hairdos. They just don't. Also, if you live in Southern California or New Jersey, you should carry around the tanning version of a terror alert scale. If you get too orange, automatic quarantine and scrub down. It should be the law.

I feel the quiet desperation in Teresa this year. She really is struggling to keep it together. She even kissed a fan that brought her a gift, just because she was nice to her. UGH. Did I just feel sorry for her? Say it isn't so! See, I really shouldn't be recapping this shit.

I done lost my mind!

Hoboken is our next stop, which I believe is a short drive from Paterson or Franklin Lakes or wherever the Manzo's are claiming to live these days. Albie and Cwistofur got an apartment there for a reality show that never materialised. Bummer. Albie should've gotten a tutor, since clearly Mommy couldn't keep up with the homework either. She cries, though, at her baby birdies leaving the nest. I cry, too. Out of joy! 

No more ham game!

Oh, and you still have a daughter at home, a fact that escapes Caroline. Another thing I can't stand about these people. The way they devalue the females of their species. You should be nicer to her, Manzo Matriarch, and prouder of her.

She actually made a career out of HER schooling.

Since I latch onto anything positive I can find in this series, I will say that I think she makes a perfectly respectable make-up artist. She looks pretty and she stays inside the lines, unlike Teresa.

In Manhattan, Jackie the Brat is visiting her daughter at her internship for Lizzie Grubman. You are familiar with Lizzie, right? She mowed over half a dozen people in the Hamptons a couple years ago, so she and Trashley must have a lot of fun assault stories to share.

It goes badly from the start. Lizzie tells Jackie that she has an amazing daughter, only she needs to concentrate a little harder on that whole 'actually coming to work' thing.

I'm sorry, you are....?

It turns out that internships pay fuck-all and Trashley is wasting valuable nose job money on train rides and such, just commuting in and out of the city. She wants an apartment which would be fine if she had friends who would let her crash on their couch, or applied to wait tables at any of the many restaurants. You can make a fortune in tips there, COME ON. She's so lazy!

Nope, she wants Step-daddy to pay for it. Instead of discussing it, Jackie makes a joke about her needing to make money first. Way to go, Underminer! Don't get me wrong. Trashley is a loser, but she isn't going anywhere in life with a mother who is incapable of being rationally supportive.

Trashley cries, of course, and runs into another room where Lizzie says that she's a different person when her mother's around.

This is what happens when you try to be friends with your kids, people!

They kick Jackie out of the room which she later reports to Chris at lunch. Boo hoo, Jackie was disrespected again. Poor thing doesn't realize how badly she deserves it. All she does is bark out accusations and protestations with no real soultions. Thank goodness Chris is there. He offers to pay for the commute while Jackie barks, 'how do you expect it to work?' at Ashley. Chris shuts her up AGAIN.

Haven't you messed her up enough already?

I don't know how much of Chris's talk about setting goals and gradually making your way sunk in, but Jackie making the discussion about her and storming out sure didn't help. It's like she competes against her own daughter. Disgusting, and tossing money at the girl isn't the answer either. I said it last year and I'll say it again. Ultimatums, then cut her off. She will never amount to anything if you don't. The only time she shows any kind of work ethic is when she's insulting people on Facebook. I'm pretty sure that doesn't constitute a job, unless you work for Jill Zarin.

Time to discuss Teresa and her brother, Joe. I am calling him Moe because there are too many Joe's on this show and he's a violent blowhard who complains about his estranged family like a little bitch. Teresa's meeting with Jackie to give her side of things, and all I can say is

babies!

and puppies!

I told you I was going to latch onto whatever scraps of positivity they leave lying around, and Audrianalamdingdong is quite the cutie. Too bad her Mom is such a liar. She claims that she never knew about the bankruptcy until the day she set foot in the lawyer's office. Good news is that she says she isn't going to throw anymore debt inducing parties. She needs to cut back and she says she sees the light at the end of the tunnel.

..I can ...just ..see it..through....the...prison bars.....

She also says that her problems with Moe didn't start until he got married to that smug cunt, Melissa. She wants to be the royalty in the family. She wants Tree to bow and scrape and send her formal invitations to book signings on The Party Center's finest Tiffany blue stationery. She will henceforth be known as Her Smuntness!

Speaking of her, she's living the American Dream, all! She has a big white car, a diamond the size of a ring pop, and thanks Jesus for it every time cameras or relatives are around.

The rest of the time, she thanks the ability to buy shit on credit.

I'm pretty sure a simple carpenter's son like Jesus doesn't want to be held responsible for someone's gaudy squalor. Nice try, though. I'm sure that's a Vatican approved bustier she's wearing and all, but part of Catholicism is humble piety. A BIG part, and you ain't got it. And wanting your sister-in-law to eat humble pie doesn't count either.

She and Moe live in a 13,000 square foot mansion, where Moe can feel free to give his wife foot massages and butt rubs in the classy surroundings they require.

Asses and feet. Who said NJ had no class?

Her Smuntness speaks of days of yore when Moe had a different tale to tell. One of closeness and love for his sister, back when they shared the same hopes and dreams

and bra size.

Sadly, these days Tree and Moe are competitive with each other, and not just in seeing who can marry the biggest asshole. No, they are also competitive in ridiculous pronunciations of common phrases and words, mistaking work ethic for 'worth ethic' and 'work ethnic.' MORONS.

They also have three lovely children, a girl and two boys under the age of six.

all of whom shave.

I'm also toying with the idea of calling Melissa 'Pahluh Hoo-wah' after she said she was a lady in one but a whore in the bedroom. Not a parlor, mind you. A paaahluh. God, she's revolting. She's like a piece of shiny, shiny, smooth wood that someone taught to speak, BARELY. She's a mahogany Pinnochio married to a retarded Giuseppe who only last week figured out which shirt hole his head goes through.

I didn't need no help from Tree neither!

Plus, they dress their kids in track suits and Ed Hardy. Call CPS! That is definitely child abuse.

Pahluh Hoo-wah tells us all that she can't wait until the christening when she can welcome her son into God's Kingdom, all while wearing an angelic white sweater with feathers on the shoulders. The doorbell rings. Uh oh! We all know what that could mean.

Every time a doorbell rings, a housewife gets her first foreclosure.

Good luck with that balloon payment. If you're having trouble, you can always write a book on dressing inappropriately at christenings.

It's actually Kathy at the door. She's Tree and Moe's cousin. She's taken the Gorgon's side because she feels more comfortable around others that turn people to stone with their looks. Did you see her family? Good heavens! What a mess of lazy eyes and spittle lips. They all look like something pulled out of a lake at Chernobyl.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. She called Tree after the shit hit the fan over the bankruptcy last year and Tree said she was fine. She wonders aloud how tree is able to leave her home and keep up the facade, but something tells me that she knows plenty about facades.

She lives in an Ethan Allen showroom.

Okay, what was that? Her backdrop is lit like she's about to do Skinemax porn in suburban Greece. Look at those tchotchkies! They're freaking me out they're so mundane, like she lives in a stock living room photo from photobucket.

I'll give her props for one thing, though. She rides her bike to the market.

She resembles a more down to earth Christina Onassis which is funny since she seems to have the least money of the group which she makes up for in the sheer quantity of fug in her family. I mean, she married the greezeball version of Myron Cope-

And gave birth to Rachel Ray's lazy eyed sister.

Rich, the husband is Lebanese. Kathy's dad wasn't too fond of that fact, but that's okay.

Fug knows no borders or creeds.

They goof off in the kitchen which is always a source of pride and community in Italian households. Kathy says they're typical, they fight, but then they hug and pass the cannelloni. It's more like this- they're idiots with no impulse control, but they have short memories. Evolution isn't quite there yet with these people.

The crosses. The freaking CROSSES. For a second there I thought I stumbled into a townhouse in Georgetown. It was a premonition, trust me.

From one cliche to another, it's time for Sunday dinner at the Manzo's. Senior has the sense to keep his mouth shut as his wife runs hers about how superior Italians are to Southerners. Then Twistopher decides to do a Cajun accent straight out of The Water Boy. He sounds just like Bobby Bou-shay.

Only dumber.

At least the monkey still abides. I'll hang my hat on that while Caroline sticks her foot in her mouth. She says that Italian food smells better than southern. All she can smell is chili powder. Um, yeah. You made CHILI, and I have three letters for you.

BBQ

Peace, Love, Institutionalized racism. You see, Crispyfur thinks that Southerners make better athletes, while Caroline says no one can beat Northeasterners for BS. No argument here, except you got caught! You're so dumb you got caught trying to cheat on your address for free health insurance. ASSHOLES.

And one more thing. After Caroline says that southern Italians can't cook like northern ones, what does she do? Burn the biscuits. I guess certain northerners can't cook certain southern dishes either.

Kinda blows the whole superiority thing out of the water, huh?

Jackie and Chris arrive and Caroline tells them that she made maple glazed butter for the biscuits. Jackie hears it differently.

She says this right in front of CJ. How I fear for the kids on this show. Is she trying to be funny? She's not. She's just an attention starved wannabe with bad parenting skills. The only bright side is that she hasn't tried to sell us anything yet.

They sit down to eat and pester Lauren and Vito about getting married. Vito lost weight. He looks good. Caroline et al are still marginalizing Lauren like it's the 1800s or something. Oh, but they don't want to pay for the wedding, nosiree! That's one tradition they have no problem dropping. Assholes.

How do none of these people know better than to say such things? It's the third season, after all. Normal people would have learned something. Not them, and not Pahluh Hoo-wah. She's busy drinking and getting her hair done by Tree's hairstylist. All this is overseen by the ugly step-smunts and their shared love of the eccliastic purple.

I'm the smuntest of them all.

No, I am.

Praise Jesus!

Meanwhile, Tree is running all over her house like a nutcase, trying to get everyone ready. I have never seen her look so haggard. Not even while giving birth!

Stop before I feel bad for you again!

She's behind because Juicy is being difficult and Her Smunt-ness is making the hairdresser lollygag. You think it's an accident that she's running late?

Think again.

Gia has a gymnastics tournament and Tree's friend is taking her, but not before Juicy embarrasses her by standing on the landing bare chested.

Sorry, kiddo. It's about to get worse.

She's like Esmeralda living amongst the gypsies. My heart bleeds for her. It looks like Nona and Papa moved out of the basement and Gia is fending for herself for the first time, just in time for puberty! Poor thing. Life isn't all bows and leopard leotards, no matter what the pictures in People look like. She has got to be feeling the heat that her parents have created. I hope she has some decent friends.

By the way, Joe doesn't want to go. It's so bad he got a case of the runs. There's a rift of hate between he and Moe because Juicy and Tree spend more time with Papa, and Moe has built up a raging bull's worth of anger over it. So Juicy skips the church part and so what? I don't get the whole score-keeping thing that families put on certain events. It's as if their entire existence and self worth is based on who shows up when Junior poops in church the first time. It's like they're looking for a reason to draw more battle lines. That is just sick.

And if Pahluh Hoo-wah doesn't shut up about Jesus I am going to come out to Jersey personally and pelt her with bibles. Blah, blah, 'praise Jesus,' blah blah, 'sacred sacrement.' Yeah, I can tell how sacred you think it is.

You wore your sacred miniskirt.

You let your daughter chew sacred chewing gum in church and brought the sacred football baby photographs of Giuseppe Numero Tre.

Kick the baby

Boy, could I use an episode of Southpark right now. Some rabid turkeys need to be set lose on these people, they're so useless. Hmm. Maybe a human CentiPad wasn't such a bad idea after all. I nominate to bring up the rear.....EVERYBODY.

They have festooned The Manor with most, if not all the crosses in New Jersey. They're made of ice, cake, plastic and bamboo. If you told me that one was made of baby bones, I would not bat an eyelash. Teresa arrives with the kids and Juicy in tow and they all say hello. When Moe asks Juicy to do shots, he says no, breaking one of the cardinal rules of meatheaded-ness. You must accept profferred shots! Otherwise, you're an asshole. I didn't know it was so strict up in there. Where are the rules on, um, everything else??

Her Smuntness's sister is off in the corner with her witch-y nose, doling out phony greetings while seething with misplaced snobbery. Life dealt her the so-so hand of mediocre looks and charm and she is dying to take it out on Tree. I think she's really jealous of her prettier airbrushed sister. I think she wants to wear her like last century's pantygirdle, inching her up her torso until all her hideousness collapses in on itself.

Why is she so awful? She plays both sides, that's why. She offers an ear to Tree while reporting back to Pahluh Hoo-wah, only leaving out the part where she calls her a 'cold bitch.' I sure hope she stays in the background. One Kim D was enough.

Now, Rich is getting in on the Tree bashing, saying that no one liked the way the Joo-Dice's were spending money. He also says that the rift started two years ago, right about the time that this show premiered. 

Gee, was it worth it?

That baby cracks me up. I want her to be the star of the show. She pulls her Mom's hair, gives Melissa the stink-eye, and sits back oblivious in all her baby buddha Audrianalamadingdong awesomeness. They should pair her with Elsa and Gia and follow them on road trips. Get rid of these adults. They SUCK.

I don't know what is really going on between these two siblings. Moe felt excluded by Tree, but for what? She got a show and he didn't? Grow up! He really, really, REALLY hates Juicy. He says he doesn't work, drinks all day and then fills Papa Gorgon's ear with nonsense about Moe not making time for him because he works all the time. Okay. What part of that does he own? NONE of it. I bet Juicy is being an asshole, but I also bet that Moe is not exactly going out of his way to see his parents. He's too tightly wrapped around his wife's finger.

Gia arrives to smothering from Moe. He hugs he flatters, he utters 'Who loves you, who, who?' over and over like he's in competition for her affection. I get a bad feeling about this, like everyone is putting the poor girl in the middle.

I'm a pawn? I wanted to be a bookie!

Moe is drunk. Really drunk. Funny how he accuses Juicy of being a poisonous alkie, yet he's the one tanked at his own kid's christening. He is dancing with everyone but avoiding eye contact with his sister. That's okay, because Juicy and Tree decide to dance with the baby. Someone tells the Gorgons and they get all pissy and send some crass bitch over to grab the wee tyke.

The one your creditors haven't cut off yet.

Back at the Gorgon table, there's bitching and moaning about how Tree ripped Audriana out of Pahluh Hoo-wah's arms, so I guess that was payback? Lame.

The entire drunken conversation revolves around trashing Tree and Juicy. Some OTHER guy named Joe says that Juicy owes him money, and that's why he doesn't want to be there. Wow. Can't you people take care of this crap behind closed doors? I must be the only person that is not getting any joy out of this Giudice come-uppence. I would maybe get some glee if the people piling it on weren't so disgusting. 

So, everyone was friends with Juicy, he screwed them all over and now they want revenge, crazed mob style. All they need to get it started is one little spark. This spark is ignited by Tree who has the audacity to came over and say congratulations again. 

She kisses, she acts like this is just another day at the zoo where all the monkeys are happy to see each other, forgetting all the months of grudges held and hatred built over slights that could have been fixed with one friendly meal. Or so Kathy says. Not so fast.

When you are drunk, really really drunk like Moe is, all your emotions are under a microscope. All those little voices in your head that would say, 'DON'T DO THAT,' are gone. Instead, you tell your sister to go away, and you call her garbage within earshot of her husband and kids.

That niece that you love? She has to hold her mother back from causing a scene. That brother-in-law you hate? He now wants to kill you with the fire of a thousand suns. Those people that came out to pay respect to your baby son? They want to grab the money envelope that they slipped into the cross festooned box and invest it in a body guard. And your Dad? He's wondering why he even bothers showing up for a son that shows zero respect and actually makes his shit-head of a son-in-law look good.

Really. Papa didn't seem like it took much to turn him against Moe. There is more to this story, I know it. The question is, do I care? Do you?

XOXO,

Your Twunt