Real Housewives Of New Jersey Reunion: The Kids Aren't Alright
DEAD EYES

Real Housewives Of New Jersey Reunion: The Kids Aren't Alright
I'VE ONLY GLANCED AT THE JERSEY HOUSEWIVES this season. I even blew off the Danielle-Caroline showdown last week. I thought it'd pretty much go like this:
Caroline: Stay away from my family! You're garbage... the kind of garbage that needs to be put into a garbage can and then hauled away in a dump truck and shipped to Manila.
Danielle: How DARE you judge me!
Then I saw the commercials for the reunion show with Teresa shoving Andy back into his chair and yelling into Danielle's face and well, who could resist? So, here goes:
OOOOOO, they convene at the Borgata in Atlantic City! I've been there. It’s a beautiful casino and one time they had these living statues that were so good. I spent a good hour watching folks get startled when they would suddenly move. Good times.
Caroline's lost weight; Andy congratulates Danielle on her new record. Teresa hates Jersey Shore because of the loose morals although she constantly talks about porking Joe. She gets right into digging into Danielle, accusing her of sleeping with Steve after only knowing him a week. And they did it at Teresa’s shore house with her kids hearing her have sex. Teresa calls her a pig and desperate. They both deny they were ever friends.
Andy lightens the mood by showing clips of Jersey dialects. Especially Danielle’s weird pronunciation of women as well, women. She says it's been pointed out to her. Andy can't get her to understand that the plural is whe-men.
“Then it's babies and mommas with Jacqueline and Teresa. We get a glimpse of the departed Dina, godmother to Teresa's new baby girl. Oh yummy: Barbara from Syracuse asks why Danielle didn’t call Jacqueline and congratulate her on her new baby, and she says she read in a tabloid that Jacqueline didn’t want her too. What? You read?Andy, shit-starter that he is, brings up Danielle's remark about her kids wearing lace and crinoline while Teresa's kids wear leopard
”
Jacqueline says that’s false and they go back and forth over it. Then Danielle...congratulates her. A little late, sister.
Where are the fireworks? I’m getting bored, Andy. Gimme a spark or something. Andy wonders why Dina left and Teresa says it was Danielle.
OK, here we go. Something about an accusation at the last reunion that Danielle did something to Dina. Danielle says people said she tried to get Dina's daughter away from her. She vehemently denies it. After some attorney talk Caroline says OK, Dina talk is OVA. Done. Now. Then the crosstalk begins with Caroline yelling, “Do not talk about my sister!”
We find out Danielle had her attorney serve Dina with a gag order to stop her from talking about her. Jacqueline gets pissed and says they know a lot more than Danielle is telling, that Dina is not her and Danielle needs to shut her mouth.
Teresa gets in it, talking about Danielle not congratulating Jacqueline, when Danielle innocently says, “Did you acknowledge your nephew?” Teresa’s eyes get real big and she says, of course she did. “Uh huh,” Danielle replies and then Teresa fucking loses it. She gets up, goes over, bends down and yells directly in Danielle’s face, "DO NOT BRING UP MY FAMILY." Twice. Danielle gets up and saunters offstage while Teresa continues yelling, calling Danielle all kinds of names, bitch, piece of garbage, bitch, pig. She stares straight ahead, mumbling “she is, she is... she is...” Caroline and Andy grab her and try to calm her down. She's already pushed Andy back down in his seat. OK, this is what I’m talking about. Ladies gettin' crazy.
We come back from the commercial with Teresa still yelling that Danielle's a piece of garbage and how dare she!. Danielle plays victim: “They can lie and say anything they want about me..." and says Teresa didn’t acknowledge her nephew. Danielle threatens to leave if Teresa gets up again, while Teresa calls her chickenshit and tells Andy to get her ass back on that stage. Andy makes her promise to stay in her seat.
Backstage Danielle, crying, is getting her hair and makeup fixed. The producers comfort Danielle and one recites a mantra: "Amazing things, amazing things." WTF.
Andy tells Teresa she doesn't know her own strength. She must be really strong since she threw him back into his seat when he rose to restrain her. Danielle prepares to return. To bring the level down, Andy turns the talk to fertility doctors but somehow Danielle turned Jacqueline's experience with that to shit as well. Caroline says Next. I agree.
There was a poll: everyone loves Caroline, hates Danielle. Danielle doesn't care. We see Manzo family antics: Caroline and Albert at a romantic dinner, her grown kids throwing ham at each other, the empty nest, Albie’s dyslexia, blah, blah, blah. Caroline’s in tears... they’re her babies and she loves them.
A viewer asks Danielle if she's living through her kids. Andy asks if she's a stage mom and, of course, she absolutely denies both facts. OK, now clips and catty remarks about everyone’s kids. Danielle's daughter can’t sing but she’s just a little kid. And Danielle forced her on-stage. Then Andy, shit-starter that he is, brings up Danielle's remark about her kids wearing lace and crinoline while Teresa's kids wear leopard. Then she said her dogs wear leopard. That was harsh. Some back and forth with Teresa ensues but Danielle remains strangely calm. Even when Caroline said Danielle was equating kids to animals.
Caroline notes Danielle's kids have no light in their eyes, that their childhood innocence is not there and she’s 100% correct. Both are dead-eyed most of the time; that is when they’re not getting up to leave a room in embarrassment. Jacqueline asks Danielle if she knows her kids cry every day at school, and are always in the nurse's office, all because of rumors and teasing from other kids. Danielle is taken aback by that but pretty much dismisses it as, 'Oh, those things happen to kids, they're teens and tweens. She still doesn't get it.
Andy brings up my pet peeve about Danielle sharing too much of her personal, grown up life with her kids. To her credit, she admits that may be true to a certain extent.
A viewer praises Teresa's cookbook. Another brings up the yellow sapphire (we all thought it was a diamond, see how much we know about the big hardware? Nothing, LOL) Joe bought for her birthday and that led to their money woes. Clips of big spending by the Guidice family. A mention of Joe's DUI. Now the big question from Kathy in Chicago: Is the big, new house in foreclosure? She flatly denies it, then says her family is all that matters. Andy doesn't quit, citing the Post story that they’re $11 mil in debt. She asks him if he believes everything her reads. But the bankruptcy is real. She says Joe didn’t let her know their financial situation and if he had it would’ve made a difference in her spending. But it’s brought them closer together. Awwww.
How 'bout that furniture auction that’s online? I’ve seen it but she hasn’t. See, it’s negative and she’s keeping that stuff out. She does the old “we’ve been poor and we’ll climb up again” speech. Oh, and Joe’s DUI wasn't because he was drunk, he was tired. But it’s still classified as a DUI.
Danielle rolls her eyes at that story and says she finds it weird that he got wasted after the accident. Teresa says he was “shooken up” and just had a few shots. Ha. Mercifully, the trip to Italy was short.
Andy asks Danielle if she's a troublemaker and she says she has moments. There's clips of Danielle so we can judge if she’s a victim or a villain. The sex tape, the stripping lesson, chatting with Danny the jailbird, hanging with Kim G, the praying for those who’ve done her wrong. Now it’s Caroline’s turn to do the eye-rolling.
Andy wonders why the hell she's hanging with Danny. The girls say she had an affair with him and Danielle says she just tapes with him and that's it, nothing more, nothing less. She just knows he’s got her back. Or he does her from the back or something.
Florida wants to know why Danielle's always crying about her house falling down around her but she threw a huge Sweet 16 party and hires bodyguards. Well, she says the party was covered by donations and was a fund-raiser for Cystic Fibrosis. She didn't pay for anything. And instead of saying she’s "cel-e-bate," she calls herself a born-again virgin.
Then Lori Michaels name comes up and the innuendo that they’re doing it. Lori is backstage tonight but they wouldn’t let her comfort Danielle when she walked off in a huff earlier. Danielle says she’s with Lori every day, but is cryptic when Andy asks if she's swimming in the lady pond. She’s spouts off about how she’s edited and Caroline calls that a bullshit copout.
Andy throws out there that Danielle called Caroline a bully, said that Caroline seems jealous and that she wouldn't have gotten too many dollars on the pole. Caroline comes back at her with her long marriage and loving husband and family. Danielle says bless you. In other words, fuck you.
Onto to legal woes. Steve's suing her for defamation and she says she's not making money on the second sex tape online now. Says someone came to her and asked for money to not release the tape. That's all bullshit because you have to sign consent documents for all porn movies. It was so consensual.
Jacqueline saw it and, laughing, says it looks to her like it was done on purpose and it's bad porn. Then there's debate on when the tape was done, blah, blah.
Teresa questions the example she's setting for her kids and they start, once again, screaming at each other.
Danielle tries to explain away the sex tape and says she doesn't show her kids every show episode. Andy says but what about the Internet and school? Well, she tells them she isn’t proud of everything she’s done but she must be a good mother 'cause her kids are amazing. I’m sorry, Danielle, no thanks to you. They all accuse her of not being able to shield her kids from all her nonsense. Danielle says she’s loved by her kids' friends and their parents and Caroline sarcastically...claps and accuses her of avoiding her question of how her daughters know so much about what Caroline says about them.
Jeff from Maine comments that Danielle always accuses Caroline of being in the mob but points out she has mob friends and a clothing line that’s called Danielle's Mafia. She says mafia just means her friends and supporters. Caroline just shakes her head and asks for her autograph cause she's the best fricking mother, the best friend a person could have. Says Danielle's fucking amazing, just perfect. She looks like she needs a drink.
Clips of the Brownstone confrontation when Danielle, Kim and the Hells Angels goons bum-rushed the elite venue. Kim G swanning around, Danny the con walking around swearing like a sailor. No table for them. So embarrassing -- and the father of the sick kid said Danielle didn't give a penny yet. Of course, she denies that. Caroline tells her to buckle up and that if she wants to go, they're gonna go, damn deadbeat. She stands up for her family and the Brownstone and tells Danielle she's a fool.
Next week, Jacqueline gets up and looks ready to physically kick Danielle's ass. And, oh goody, my fan favorite, Kim G., worms her way into the second half of the screamfest, looking fab as usual. I'm gonna have to watch.
SexyChattyCatty is a regular contributor at CrabbyGolightly.com where she frequently writes on TV, America's favorite snack food.
Tags: Television







