'Real Housewives of New Jersey': Frenemies, Shrenemies

Okay, NJ Housewives fans: There obviously is a whole lot to talk about. Let’s just say no matter how bad your week was, chances are the Giudices can top it. I mean, 39 counts of “conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, bank fraud, making false statements on loan applications, and bankruptcy fraud”? Yikes. Double yikes. Yikes times 39. Housewives have always had their fair share of on and off-screen scandals but Teresa and Joe’s indictment is just … bad. Like 50 plus years in federal prison bad. Like Joe can get deported bad. (Side note: did anyone know that Joe wasn’t an American citizen?) Well, now Andy Cohen doesn’t have to worry about firing anyone to make room for some new Housewives blood. They’re innocent until proven guilty but Andy might have the Feds clean house for him.

You have to admit, it’s next to impossible to not have watched last night’s episode and not have thought about it. But, I’ll try my best to be as neutral as possible, or as neutral as someone who already disliked Teresa could be. Did anyone else cringe when Teresa said the words “Trust me”? As Caroline (aka the woman who hates drama but can always give her opinion) mentioned on Watch What Happens: Live, this is an incredibly messy situation and there are kids involved. This isn’t another housewife vs. housewife trivial tiff so let’s not try to kick a horse when they’re down. Let’s get to it:

Caroline

Hello Manzo boys! Missed you a bit. Seems like Little Town is coming along quite nicely. Apparently, paying rent when you’re not open isn’t easy. No kidding. Welcome to the world! Income usually provides one with the money for rent! But semantics, right?

What did you say? Albie works too hard and Chris and Lauren get away with more? Shocker! It’s called being the oldest of the family. Such an interesting storyline, I hope that they continue with this (sarcasm). Caroline later sat down with Albie who voiced some concerns about his parents’ marriage. “Do you even know each other?” Valid point, Albert Junior. Caroline retorted that their marriage was not his problem because like, who cares about their parents’ marriage anyway? It’s not like they’re his PARENTS or anything.

And storyline over! Wow, Caroline is just stealing all the screentime this season.

Kathy

Who? Where oh where did my favorite housewife go? Just a brief appearance at an all-sexes-genders-orientations-welcome mixer and a nice talk with your sister. Hey, I guess it’s better to live your life without all that drama. Probably not better for the audiences who are falling asleep at home, but at least it’s better for your sanity.

Side note: As adorable as Rosie can be when she flirts, the many moments of awkwardness overrides that. Let’s find her a chick stat so that we don’t have to watch her chug drinks and make girls like Ellen feel uncomfortable.

Melissa

Melissa doesn’t want to do the Sizzle Tan ad with her husband because Teresa will yell at her for it. Valid point, but come on, I thought that we were past that! Remember when you hugged and made up? Melissa, girl, you’ve got to start relaxing. And by relaxing, I mean not telling your sister-in-law that she should be a good little girl because it’s condescending. But Melissa is a saint and can’t be bothered with Sizzle Tan billboards or petty Teresa drama when she needs more fan! More fan! MORE FAN! Girl, any more fan and you’ll be blown to Oz. P.S. Should you really be operating construction equipment like that? Isn’t that dangerous?

Everything else seems to be going well otherwise. How precious was it to see those kids run to each other during family dinner? Melissa started drinking from the get-go and everyone seemed … happy. Wow, first time for everything. As long as Melissa doesn’t start rapping again — which was, an abomination by the way — then I’ll stop rolling my eyes when she plays the victim card, once again.

Teresa

Indictment aside, tonight was a night where I didn’t completely hate Teresa, I was actually … rooting for her. I don’t know what’s in the Jersey water, but she seemed to have a clear head (for now). She was rational, concise with her thoughts, and she even told Joe to stop it when he did his whole calling-people-bad-words thing.

The Giudice girls were adorable with their side ponies. Man, has Gia grown up. Milania was on her best behavior, and by best behavior, I mean she was only slightly demonic. She did have a great girl power moment when she said that she wants her future husband to cook for her. You go girl, but I’m still #teamgabriella. Teresa looked calm and genuinely thrilled to have the family together so maybe all of this is behind them?

But … there’s still that Jacqueline issue. Caroline told Jacqueline about the whole trust-fall thing from last week (drama!) so Teresa realized that she needs to at least try to patch things up with her old BFFL, which brings us to …

Jacqueline

In Caroline’s words, Jacqueline is a “ticking time bomb.” Yeah, one that went off last season, homegirl.

Jacqueline took C.J. toy shopping while Nick was in therapy. Wow, totally forgot that they had another son! How you doin’ C.J. (who looks EXACTLY like Chris)? Teresa called Jacqueline and they decided to meet in a neutral location. Like Switzerland? Just kidding! You’d have to known where Switzerland is for that to work. A private room at a restaurant is the perfect back-up, you know, so that no one can hear you scream …

Chris and Joe Giudice went for a cigar and drink and made up after basically saying “whatevs.” Jacqueline and Teresa, on the other hand, didn’t have it so easy. Teresa blinks like she’s a spy sharing codes during World War II and tells Jacqueline that she’s “evil” while Jacqueline tries her best to look hurt through all that Botox. “I am not an evil person,” no you’re not Jacqueline, but you can be kind of crazy. Jacqueline mentions that Teresa never really takes accountability and it’s always everyone else’s fault, which is true. Sure, other people are culpable at times, but Teresa acts like she has never, ever done something wrong in her entire life.

Teresa brought up how Jacqueline threw some pretty bad jabs last reunion about Joe cheating — yeah, that was pretty shady on Jacqueline’s part. But remarkably, Jacqueline kept her mouth shut this night. You see how that works ladies? Instead of saying something that’s extremely hurtful (even if it IS true), you can save yourself a whole lot of problems. Does Joe Giudice cheat? Probably Who knows? All I know is that if I was one of the Giudice children and I saw that my mommy’s ex-BFF accused my daddy of cheating on my mommy with a babysitter or a secretary or a whatever, that would suck.

Now I don’t hate Jacqueline by any means, in fact, she used to be my favorite before Kathy came along. But Teresa did bring up a great point about how obsessive Jacqueline can get over situations. Ordering and sifting through court documents to find out what Danielle Staub has done? Tweet wars? Ugh, Jac, you have way too much time on your hands, please just go and pick up a hobby.

So what’ll happen in the future? Who knows! But next week, Gia and her uncle Joe hang out and have a way too mature conversation for a middle schooler, Jacqueline goes to Beverly Hills for a tummy tuck because she has an opening in her already way too open schedule and Ashlee (Ashley? Ashleigh? Stop changing your name!) makes an appearance.

Now what did you guys think? Is Rosie adorably awkward or awkwardly adorable? Are you headed to Sizzle Tan after Joe’s epic billboard? Will Albie ever ask me out? Or are you too busy pulling a Jacqueline and reading through the Giudice’s indictment?