The Real Housewives of New Jersey
Reunion, Part 1
November 6, 2016
I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why it took me until this new season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey debuted for me to recap the reunion special that aired almost a year ago. I don’t really have an excuse but laziness and distraction.
I will point out that part one of the reunion special aired three days before the Presidential Election, and I was busy fantasizing about having our first female President, trying to imagine what excuse Mitch McConnell was going to come up with to explain why she wouldn’t be allowed to fill the Supreme Court vacancy and bracing myself for Trump TV and its broadcasts full of rants about how Hillary Clinton stole the election. You’ll notice that the date of the second reunion was five days after the Presidential Election. I’m not sure I was out of bed yet.
But all of that is (mostly) behind us now, and the new season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey debuted last night, so what better time to revisit last season’s reunion and remind ourselves where we left off with these stugats?
We begin the reunion with Andy Cohen greeting the ladies, and making strange declarative statements about each: Teresa is home from camp prison; Dolores had a butt implant; Siggy brought along a fan; Jacqueline returned this season after taking a season off; and Melissa is wearing hair extensions. Good to know, all around.
Andy then asks about Meatball, and Teresa announces that Meatball is working on his G.E.D. in meatball prison, and intends to go to meatball college when he is released. Hope they have some good meatball undergraduate programs in Italy! Andy also notes that he didn’t think Teresa would be back and is surprised to see that since she has returned, she and Melissa are amici. Everyone’s surprised, Andy.
We then answer the first dumb question from viewers:
Q. “Why does Jacqueline get along with Siggy and Dolores so well?”
A. WHO CARES?
I mean, really though, who fucking cares?
First cast montage: Dolores, and how she transformed from a “kept woman” to a “slightly less kept woman.” A viewer wants to know if she and that ‘roided up ex-husband of hers will ever get back together, and Dolores makes a lot of noises about how he has a girlfriend, but her eyes are saying, “HELL YES, IN FACT, WE’RE CAZZOING RIGHT NOW.”
I see you, Dolores.
Then some gross viewers want to talk about her son Frankie and how hot he is, and Siggy jumps in to say that Frankie doesn’t have game, but her son, Whatshisface, he’s not as handsome as Frankie, but he has A LOT more game, BELIEVE HER. And Dolores is like, “Yeah, I mean, I guess, that?”
There are some questions about Dina, because there are always questions about Dina because plenty of people don’t think Dina is as smug, insufferable and boring as I do, apparently. Anyway, yes, Dina is still alive and occasionally interacts with some of the cast.
A viewer asks Jacqueline about an off-handed comment Laurita made about being happy his famiglia isn’t as pazzo as the Gorgas, and Jacqueline is like, “Duh, it’s a joke, he hasn’t talked to Dina in like 5 years, so.”
We have an obligatory montage of Teresa and Jacqueline’s complicated relationship, and Jacqueline is forced to admit that she did see a change in Teresa when she returned from camp prison. But then that tiny smidge of goodwill is thrown directly into the trash when a viewer asks Teresa if she can see that Laurita’s bankruptcy might be a teeny tiny bit different than il Meatballs’ long list of federal crimes. Teresa tries to explain that her point was that a good amica wouldn’t bring up either of those things — but she is so dumb, her brain is so tiny, she literally can not comprehend that by comparing the two, she’s equating the two, and equating the two is patently absurd.
A viewer asks about the strange new Teresa-Melissa alliance, and whether or not that made Jacqueline jealous (yes) and then Teresa begins screaming at Jacqueline for bringing up the Lexus when JACQUELINE SPENDS $5,000 ON SHOES IN LAS VEGAS. And anyway, Andy Cohen, a Lexus lease is really not that much money, and Teresa wouldn’t be caught dead driving a Ford, are you fucking stupido?
Danielle Staub is, for some reason, dragged into it, with Teresa insisting she’d love to see Danielle return to the show so as to attack Jacqueline. Andy Cohen points out that Danielle recently tweeted that it’s ironic Teresa worries so much about her children, considering how she treated Danielle in front of her daughters with the whole table-flipping prostitution whore thing (at least that’s the idea, I don’t have time to go through a year of Danielle Staub’s tweets to find the barely literate exact quote). “My children were there, too,” Teresa replies, which Andy Cohen points out is not exactly an apology.
We move on to the Siggy montage, which, you know.
After, we do learn two important details in the whole Siggy-Didn’t-Move-to-Israel-With-Her-Family story:
- She got caught shoplifting and says she would have preferred going to jail over Israel.
- The real reason she didn’t want to move to Israel is the military conscription, and she convinced herself that she would not be able to go to college after serving even though presumably millions of Israelis go to college every year, but OK.
Also, we learn about Siggy’s fibroids, so there’s that.
Jacqueline’s montage happens, after which she burbles about her new grandbaby. Meanwhile, off to the side, Teresa and Melissa whisper to each other about what an asshole Potatoee Face is. When Andy Cohen calls them out on it, they ‘re like, “OH, SO POTATOEE FACE IS UNA MADRE NOW AND YET SHE’S UP HERE TWEETING AT US THAT WE LOOK LIKE AN APE AND LATOYA JACKSON?” And, no lie, I just spent 15 minutes searching for said tweets only to discover that Potatoee Face deleted those tweets, obviously, which is why I didn’t waste my time looking for Danielle Staub’s. But to the Gorgas’ point, they’re mothers, and last I checked that didn’t stop them from shitposting, too, so.
Jacqueline accuses Gabagool of tweeting nasty messages at her, too, although from what we’re shown said nasty tweet was, “Some women have some nerve.”
Folletto is brought out to join the women so that Andy Cohen can tell him he saw his dick this season.
We then endure a mother montage, before Andy Cohen tries to elicit sympathy from Teresa by invoking Nicholas and Teresa is like, “Yeah, yeah, autism, whatever.”
After a few pointless questions about the kids (“Is Mortadella an asshole?” “Is Little Joe the best?”) we move on to a women working montage, and Andy Cohen asks Folletto if he feels bad at all for being a sexist asshole. Folletto has no idea that he is a sexist asshole.
A viewer tries to embarrass Melissa by asking her about her shoplifting conviction in 1997, but Melissa is like, “So?”
Melissa is also asked about Kim D. and how some tabloid said that Melissa asked Jacqueline to not go to Posche, and Melissa is like, “So?”
Someone asks why Jacqueline asking Teresa about a tabloid story ended their friendship, but when Siggy asked Teresa about tabloid stories about her husband, Teresa had no problem with it, and the only answer that anyone can come up with is basically, “Italians, whaddya gonna do?”
Then there’s a boring montage of Teresa and il Follettos making nice time, and Andy Cohen takes particular note of the fact that Folletto seemed to have a mustache at a very young age. This, somehow, leads us to discover that Folletto lost his virginity at 9, and Teresa walked in on him and proceeded to use this information to control him, which NO TO THIS ENTIRE STORY OH MY GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PAZZOS?
Sprinkle cookies get dragged back into this.
Never forget.
But Teresa and Melissa agree to pretend that Teresa wasn’t a complete pazzo bitch about the sprinkle cookies. Instead, Teresa would like to discuss Jacqueline’s stripper past, what was her stage name again? Amber? Alana? Froot Loops?
Oh my God, Froot Loops. Please let her stripper name have been Froot Loops.
So then there’s a lot of screaming about who was a stripper and Kim D. gets dragged back into it and we are relitigating the Posche fashion show from several years ago and when all is said and done, we know for a fact that Folletto used to be a stripper, and he, for one, would like to know what’s wrong with being a stripper?
But as this argument chugs along, you can see the tiny hamster wheel in Teresa’s threehead slowly begin to turn, and she announces that it was Jacqueline! who was behind all the tabloid stories! about her legal problems! after all, she and Laurita did need the money! IN FACT, TERESA IS PRETTY SURE IT WAS JACQUELINE AND CAROLINE WHO CALLED THE FEDS ON HER IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Call Alex Jones, because Teresa just uncovered a steaming pile of “truth.”
Click here for the second reunion special.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey aired Sundays but is moving to Wednesday on Bravo at 8/9 CST.