I’d like a show of hands from everybody who thinks they should have just skipped tonight’s episode of BravoTV’s “Real Housewives of New Jersey” and cut right to the Miami trip in the teasers? The denouement of the episode was nothing but the same footage we saw in real time when Juicy and Tre made their plea agreements in March. We can watch that anywhere online. Nothing new. Bah! What a waste.
Seriously, when Tre is the voice of reason again twice in the same season, you know the show is just spinning in circles. When Amber brought up the whole “Rino slept with his wife’s mother” thing at the Project Ladybug charity meeting, Tre’s face held nothing but contempt and disgust.
I totally don’t blame her. The episode opened with a flash-forward of Amber calling Tre sobbing after she sees the news about the plea agreement.
“I’m not a prier… I don’t pry,” Amber tells Teresa she’s calling because she loves her and her family, yada yada yada. Teresa’s just wishing she hadn’t picked up the phone.
“I’ll be saying prayers that you guys are exonerated from every last count,” Amber finishes the call. #awkward
Even Gia was laughing at how completely fake Amber was. But it opened the door on a sad conversation between mother and daughter. Teresa keeps telling Gia that she’ll handle all the stress and she and her sisters shouldn’t worry about it.
“Like I obviously know what’s going on. Like I’m old enough to understand and comprehend what’s going on,” Gia replies. Ouch. Wow. Talk about the tough way to realize your baby has grown up.
“… I just don’t want you and your sisters to be affected by it,” Tre and Gia have a deep moment that’s very real. I was glad the cameras were behind them. They deserved a moment of semi-privacy.
End of day, Tre has enough of her own problems, and when Amber drags her aside at Dina’s gathering to talk trash about the story Victoria Gotti told them about how Rino supposedly slept with his mother in law to cause their first divorce, Tre’s had enough. She flat out says she has her own problems and no desire to get in the middle.
Amber’s not going to be satisfied with that though. And she almost wins because when they return to the group, they get grilled on their private conversation. The other girls watched them chat, speculating. Nicole fills them in on Amber and Bobby’s text messages that she said it wasn’t appropriate to discuss at that event.
“It was a very interesting conversation, but we’re not going to go there right now,” Tre dismisses them several times. Funny thing is, it’s Nicole demanding to know what they were talking about. She definitely wouldn’t be doing that if she knew they were talking about her creepy family secrets.
Dina’s trying to run a brainstorming meeting (with this crowd?) for her Project Ladybug charity fundraiser. And she’s getting frustrated. I think she was losing her Zen.
“These girls… they will not shut the f**k up,” Dina vents.
“My girlfriend just got diagnosed with breast cancer,” Tre reveals. “April 1st she’s getting a vasectomy,” and we all wait for a beat to see if it was a bad joke. But of course, it’s not. Tre’s got her words and terminology mixed up again and it’s funny as s**t. It was a much-needed laugh at the right minute.
Dina invites everybody to Florida with her and Melissa and Tre. She and Melissa decided to take Teresa away for a few days to unwind. Why, in God’s name, they’d think it was a good idea to invite the rest of them, I cannot say. Oh wait… probably because production made them.
“I have to process the whole idea of going on vacation right now,” Amber sounds reluctant. Yeah, right.
“There’s a little part of me that kinda wishes Amber would stay home,” Teresa the twin admits. Foreshadowing, anyone?
“I have this rumor that Victoria Gotti told me in my back pocket,” Amber says in interview. She’s so smug. You know she’s wouldn’t miss the trip if her life depended on it. There’s some discussion of the husbands being invited but I thought it was determined they were going to keep it a “girls only” adventure.
I was wrong. Next week’s teasers show the boys (including Jim Marchese) arriving to some mansion in Miami and the s**t going down. But I’ll come back to that.
The whole episode was pinned around the big announcement of the plea deal at the very end. Which, as I already said, was a snore because it was the same thing we’ve already read and seen everywhere. What was not very interesting but the meat of the show was each friend’s reaction to the news that Juicy and Tre are pleading guilty.
Dina’s simply ignoring the news and trying to be a good friend. Melissa keeps reinforcing that she and Joe are there for them if needed. Amber flips out and finds a way to compare Teresa’s situation to her experience with cancer, again.
The funny reaction was twin Teresa – “What was she wearing?” Teresa asks Rino when she finds out they showed the Guidices walking into court on the news. Really? REALLY??? That was hilarious.
Rino tells his wife to back off the whole situation. And when she starts asking him about Joe’s possible deportation, we find out how truly dumb she is. He does give her good advice though, telling her not to ask Tre about any of it, especially Joe getting deported. Let’s hope she takes it.
“I don’t think she’s going to jail,” Rino tries to make his wife feel better. “This all comes down to a guy in a robe with a mullet… gavel, mullet, same thing.” OMG right up until that moment, I thought Rino was the brains in that family. Clearly, I was wrong.
What become obvious tonight is that Amber is the common thread for all of the problems going on this season. She’s basically creating half the storylines herself, which is bad for us viewers because it will virtually guarantee she’s back next season if she’s the only one causing trouble. Tre’s become a sympathetic character and Amber’s the new villain. Maybe she’ll launch a line of organic pudding pops or something to prove what an amazing mom she is.
Let’s review the trouble she’s in the midst of as the episode ends.
She’s been stalking Bobby via phone and text and isn’t responding well to being ignored. Nicole is not pleased but hasn’t dealt with it yet, other than to share the info with all the other girls.
“Get out your popcorn because we got some more drama,” Bobby tells the twins, and then lets them read his text messages from her. “Amber called me three times… and then came the text.”
“Amber, you have a va-jay-jay, not a penis. You should not be dealing with Bobby…” Nicole is so classy.
“Bobby, you are a selfish narcissistic boy. Jim wants no answer from you because he hates you for what he did. Me, on the other hand, looked at you like a brother,” Amber’s text reads. Bobby doesn’t think things can ever be the same again. But why would he want them to be? He’s dumped a load by getting this couple out of his life.
“Drama is her addiction,” Bobby says of Amber. He’s right.
But he’s not the only one Amber’s going to war with just now. She’s got that nugget about Rino and the twins’ mom from Victoria Gotti and she’s just waiting for the right moment to use it. And she told Jim about it (probably before she even got home that night), so he’s got fresh ammo too.
Sounds like the perfect timing for the entire group to go on vacation together, doesn’t it? Seriously? SERIOUSLY???
I guess Bravo helped Tre get permission to leave the state. I didn’t see Juicy in the teaser shots so I don’t know if he misses all the chaos or not. His absence may explain Jim’s presence if we can assume he’s still pretending (at the time of filming) that anything he does has anything to do with their criminal case.
He and Amber discussed her attending Dina’s Project Ladybug event and he was firm about his opinion. I wonder what changed. The possibility of more camera time?
“If you choose to hang around with these people, mend your own fences,” Jim tells Amber. “It’s very high-school-like, that’s what it is.” He has no interest in making up with Bobby – it’s Amber that won’t leave his poor former bff alone.
“I feel betrayed. I feel like he’s not the person I thought he was,” Jim says, and then starts talking about Bobby’s secrets he’s shared with Jim.
“Have a nice cup of shut the f**k up,” Jim says after revealing Bobby has girlfriends everywhere including, specifically, Florida. Nice.
How can one person make everyone hate them?” Joe Gorga asks Bobby next week. The funny thing is that I don’t know whether he’s talking about Jim or his lovely wife, but the question applies to both of them. The sad thing is they’re the only ones creating mayhem and keeping the show interesting right now.
I’m not missing next week – watching Jim stick his foot in his mouth in a manner that will likely result in twin Teresa’s stiletto up his ass – is too tempting to miss. Besides, I’m not the only one who busted out laughing when Tre threatened Lady Milania with boarding school. Isn’t that kid like seven? Bahaha! Keep praying Teresa, keep praying.