Raise your hands if you are so over the whole thing already and it’s only the second episode.
Raise your hands if you feel like a lean, mean meatball punching machine.
Raise your hands if you got beat up by an Italian string bean wearing glasses.
Raise your hands if you still think you’re the prettiest. Duh.
Raise your hands if you know what nuts are, but still think boys give you wicked cooties.
Seriously? This is only the second episode?
Ever since The Real Housewives of New Jersey chose to piggy back the filming of this new season right on top of last year’s drama, the whole thing has been messing with my head. It’s already starting to blur together and we’re only in week number two. Or week number 21 if you count last year. Or week number 23 if you count the Reunion Shows.
Or week number 97 if you have absolutely no hobbies and watched all the marathons.
Whatever you choose to call it, the whole thing is certainly a great opportunity to talk some serious smack and sell cookbooks.
And nobody has mastered the delicate balance between trash talk and shameless self promotion better than Teresa Giudice.
After turning every relationship in her life upside down by the middle of page one, Teresa had immediately assembled a team of back-up dancers and set off on the first leg of her It Was Only A Joke So Please Buy My Cookbook World Tour.
The goal apparently being to park the Giudice Apology Bus in as many locations as possible between home and the next Barnes & Noble book signing, in order to salvage what remained of her family and friends and maybe save some gas money at the same time.
Hey…Jabba Joe’s court fees ain’t cheap.
But poor Teresa wasn’t the only one with drama.
The episode started out with the Hot Mess Ashlee Show. Or Ashley. Or however she spells it on Twitter this week.
Ashlee was OMG freaking out. Jacqueline and Chris had finally grown a couple pairs and kicked Ash’s sorry bleached a** out of the house.
She was being deported to Las Vegas to live with her Aunt and Uncle, and the moving process was not going smoothly. Not by a long shot. As Jacqueline and little chapeau-wearing baby boy Nicholas watched the clock, Ashlee tried to pack 20 years of bad living into one rolling suitcase.
But she couldn’t find anything, and OMG she hated her life. OMG. Hated. It.
Honey…a little advise: I would spend less time looking for your missing whatevers and more time looking for your root touch-up brush. And maybe a mirror. What looks hot in da klubz ain’t cutting’ it in bright daylight. Just saying.
By the time one of the interchangeable Manzo boys showed up to chauffeur the Wild Child to the airport, Ashlee had found enough of something to fill the suitcase and dramatically dragged it down the staircase like there was a body inside.
Turned out it was Albie who had drawn the short straw on this project, as he rolled his eyes and heaved both Ash and her luggage into the waiting getaway car.
Given the fact that Ashlee’s two most favorite things in the whole world are drama and Twitter, she has subconsciously or otherwise, somehow managed to merge them into one overly dramatic personality that appears to only speak in 140 characters or less.
I hate my life. I put a straw in Nyquil. I hate planes. OMG. I wish I was 21.
You get the idea.
If Albie didn’t have twenty cases of blk water stored in the back of the car he probably would have just swerved into ongoing traffic and called it a day.
As Albie looked for an ejector seat button, Mom Caroline was taking daughter Lauren to see someone about her baby fat.
Lauren, who has always lived in the immense shadows cast by both her two brothers and her own fluctuating weight, has been feeling pretty down lately. Trying to break into the cosmetic industry requires a ton of work, but not necessarily a ton of body mass.
Caroline brought her to see Dr. Nicholas Perricone because according to Sephora and QVC, the dude knows his shizzle. If they sell it at JCPenney then it must be good enough for Lauren, and maybe they could pick up some socks for the boys while they’re there.
When asked some background questions by Dr. P, Lauren was immediately cut off by Caroline who went on and on in that Italian Yoda way that she does, about sausages and pepperoni binging.
Poor Lauren. No wonder she eats…nothing else to do. She can’t get a word in edgewise. Girlfriend needs something to keep her occupied while Mom rambles. Shoveling down garlic bread sure beats sitting in silence, I guess.
Dr. P sets Lauren up with a nasty looking egg and berry diet, a JCP gift card and the promise of a size 4 Chanel dress if she can keep her face out of the lasagna tray for a few months. I think Jennifer Hudson was even singing in the parking lot when they drove away.
I Believe in You and Me, baby. Now spit that out.
It’s a good thing that Lauren can’t have pepperoni and cheese for awhile, because Jabba Joe just shut down his pizza joint.
Sporting his trademark shiny sweat face and muscle tee, Joe explained to Teresa why the pizza place went under as they stood at the empty counter.
The long version is that he didn’t have a license, so he couldn’t always get to the pizza place, so he got a new license and then got sent “away” for 10 days and the place fell apart, because no one but Joe knows how to make pizza dough, and it is what it is and he’ll figure it out.
The short version is that he scammed an illegal license, can’t manage a business and was too cheap to take a cab to work.
So Joe’s moving on to his next project: Putting a small gas station owner out of business, leveling the place and building senior citizens condos on top of the fuel pump holes.
In the What A Surprise Department…Ashlee missed her flight and didn’t make it onto the only other standby flight. WTF? Who knew not looking up from your cell phone for a solid hour could do that?
OMG. I’m such an idiot. Sad face with a sideways tongue. For someone who spends so much time online complaining about how Bravo edits the show to make her look bad, you’d think Ms. Holmes would have listened for the final boarding call instead of putzing around with her Instagram app.
Before the entire gang could even gather at Jacqueline’s for the celebratory She’s Finally Gone meatball dinner, Ashlee strolled back into the house, phone in hand. It was quickly decided that Chris would take her to the airport tomorrow and physically get her on to that plane even if he had to do it Bird Strike Style, because that chick was NOT coming back a second time.
With everyone gathered around the kitchen island, Teresa recited another one of her flash card apologies, but it didn’t sound any more sincere than the last four.
All the menfolk bailed to play poker, leaving all the womenfolk to clean the kitchen and circle Teresa like hyenas. Right when it looked like one of the Wives might shake off their pasta hangover long enough to throw down with Teresa, there was a loud commotion in the boys’ room. We didn’t get to actually see what went down, but everyone had the 411 the following morning.
Oh that crazy Jabba Joe. That crazy, sweaty, blubbery, half drunk Jabba Joe. Always the life of the party.
After running through his usual tired DBag shtick poking fun at Joe Gorga’s receding hairline and short stature, string bean Richie Wakile played WingMan and came to Joe G’s rescue. Somehow, by needling Jabba about his own short-comings the whole thing escalated into Jabba making a grab for Richie’s junk, which sent the two of them tumbling over a sofa like Krystal and Alexis.
Jabba face planted into an iron candle holder while Richie did a Pee Wee Herman victory dance.
Tequila!
Sporting a black eye, Jabba described to Teresa and their horrified little girls how Richie’s pants were filled with tiny marbles and then popped open some wine. Why? Because he had to babysit the girls while Teresa went to her book signing, and nothing helps focus on babysitting young children like a wine buzz.
Some of that alcohol would have come in handy to sterilize one of the girl’s knees when she cut herself, but Jabba was too relaxed to really care. There was some screaming, some crying and some other kids coming to the rescue before Jabba finally scuffed over to make sure his little girl was hemorrhaging. I don’t even know how many Giudice kids there really are anymore.
They keep saying four, but you only see three most of the time. And they all wear the same clothes and have the same cartoon eyebrows…so I don’t know.
Kids today. You tell one nut story and they go all spaz on you.
The Gorga kids, on the other hand, did not seem as horrified by the tale of junk grabbing when Joe filled everyone in during a drive around town. Melissa seemed more taken aback by the whole flashback than the kids did as they swung around iPhones and high-fived imaginary friends.
I’m thinking that could be at least partially due to the fact that Joe G. is constantly walking around the house grabbing his own niblets in that never ending prowl for booty.
Really can’t believe Andy Cohen hasn’t made that a ClubHouse drinking game yet. The guy is a horndog.
Any bets that the Gorga kids think the Poison Control Center is an 1-800 phone sex line?
And speaking of…
Melissa wrote a song for Joe, to prove how much she loves him and to let the world know she ain’t no Gold Digger.
After stumbling through a few practice sessions, Melissa finished the track and set up a romantic date night dinner for the official release. Knowing that Joe would pounce on her in a heart beat, she had him stationed half a mile away at the other end of the dining room table like a medieval Italian feast. You’d think by now that she would know nothing but an electric fence is going to keep that dog out of the neighborhood bushes.
As soon as she cranked up the Macbook and hit play, he was on her like Pepe Le Pew and we never saw them again. I sing to you of Jungle Love, mon cheri.
Finally it was Ashlee On A Plane, Take 2.
For the second trip to the airport, Ash had chomped down half a Xanax and somehow in the process forgotten her iPod somewhere. OMG. She hates her life. She also hates elevators, heights, unicorns and American Idol. The list went on and on, and now the big question is whether the Xanax made her even more of a snot or if it was all just for attention.
Jacqueline didn’t know, and pretty much didn’t care, even though she did break down looking at baby pictures while Chris was shoving Ashlee into an overhead compartment.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he helped seal the cockpit door and even pulled the loading gate staircase away from the plane with his bare hands.
They just needed her to be gone.
And now she was.
TTFN.
Sad kitty face.
@ashleeholmes
