The Real Housewives of New Jersey
“Stick It”
June 13, 2011
Salve, paisans. Therese is off partying with the cast of the Real Housewives of Paris, so while she’s keeping women from beating each other with baguettes and pulling out each other’s chignons, I’m here to bring good tidings from Franklin Lakes, New Jersey (and also Franklin Lakes-adjacent). Beginning with, of course, our dear Melissa. She’s got a song! Like a female Andrea Bocelli, she is!
All’s quiet and peaceful in the Gorga household as Folletto flips his children around in his bed. With cameras in place and absolutely no prior planning whatsoever, I’m sure, Melissa just begins to break into song. You know, nothing too serious, just whatever silly pop song/earworm that creeps in from the radio.
Amazing Grace/How sweet the sound/that saved/a wench like me.
I’m sorry, huh? Is this Real Housewives or Don’t Forget the Lyrics, amirite?
Anyway, Folletto tells her, “Half of these singers can’t even sing.” And, as an executive for Bravo’s parent company NBC Universal laughs maniacally, Folletto adds, “You’ve got The Voice.”
Then they show a series of home videos of Melissa singing, except there’s no sound (presumably because they couldn’t clear Bill Joel’s “Uptown Girl”). I still can’t help but see Stairway To Stardom all over it. Anyway, Folletto is very supportive and wants Melissa to follow her dreams and also be her father figure? A little creepy there for a second.
Melissa is excited that her man is behind her and tells her sisters at Not!Posche about what a supportive man he is. They’re excited to see her follow her dreams, but also maybe a little excited about starting a sister act.
Later Melissa meets with a local songwriter named Antony. He put together a hot jam for her based on the random text messages she’s been sending him. It’s all very “it’s non-descriptly difficult to be me!” but I have to say she sings better than most of the other Housewives-cum-pop-stars.
Meanwhile, Kathy and Not!Jeff Goldblum want their kids to write contracts in which they pledge to not drink or do drugs or run with the Lucchesse family. The daughter makes up some such about never succumbing to peer pressure, which, seriously honey, way to shoot for the stars, but the son is more realistic. He tells his parents in no uncertain terms that he plans on drinking a little bit when he’s a senior, or maybe a junior, who knows! Not!Jeff Goldblum tries to be the cool parent and tells the bambinos that he drank as a kid. Unclear how this tense contract negotiation ended, but it was very riveting television, let me just tell you.
Caroline has Empty Nest Syndrome. This is news to absolutely no one but her. Albert Sr. recommends she takes her advice blog and turns into a call-in radio show. It’s the latest thing! All the kids are turning their blogs into call-in radio shows and their Twitter feeds in magazine columns and their Facebooks into Morse code messages. Caroline interviews for the gig, but we’ll have to wait for next week’s thrilling conclusion to see how that pans out.
At this point, I’m sure you’re most curious about what is happening with Jacqueline’s potato-faced, floppy-hatted spawn Ashley. Of course you are! You love Ashley!
Surprise! She’s still awful! This time Chris is offering to buy her a car for some reason. She’ll have to take over the payments, and, oh yeah, Jacqueline, you’ll need to co-sign for reasons I’m sure have nothing to do with any sort of mob-related or otherwise unsavory activities that result in all of these women living in giant, beautiful houses while their husbands all work “in construction.” Chris teases Ashley about borrowing the car they are buying for her and she literally freaks out and threatens to walk out of the dealership from which they are buying her a car. They buy her the car anyway. I’m sure this won’t end in disaster at all.
Playing René Angélil to Melissa’s Celine is the not our only concern with Folletto this week. Apparently he had been reading the children’s intramural gymnastics blogs and noticed Gabagool — his niece, his nipote — is apparently a pretty big deal on the #pommelhorse or what have you. Despite problems with Teresa, he wants to come to her meet.
Gabagool is very excited to see her zio at the meet, but Folletto is running a little late. OK, he’s running really late. So late in fact that he’s missed all of her events. Folletto’s absence weighed heavy on little Gabagool’s heart and caused her to choke a bit on the vault and balance beam. Just wait until the gymnastosphere and balance-beam-stream media gets their paws on that scoop.
Afterward, the kids all played while the adults stood around awkwardly. Melissa said it best:
“It was so sad for me because the children were having such a great time and I felt so empty.”
(Emphasis mine)
Madonn’, lady, you can’t let these adorable little kids who obviously love their cuginos very much play together because of your petty nonsense? Sad. Tristissimo.
They all leave the meet and briefly Folletto/Teresa’s mother gives Folletto an envelope with some jewelry in it and it’s very strange.
This is where I get a little fuzzy about our timeline. Folletto and Teresa were supposed to go talk about the letter immediately following Gabagool’s meet. However, the next thing we see is Folletto and Melissa talking at their house at night about how Melissa doesn’t feel like she’s part of the familia. Did we just skip Teresa and Folletto’s meeting?
We’ll see what we missed next week when Teresa confronts both Folletto and Melissa. Therese will be back, presumably, unless she decides to become the latest cast member of Real Housewives of Paris and drinks all the throwing wine.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey airs Wednesdays on Bravo at 8/9 CST.
This post first appeared on the Hearst site Chron.com.