Smoke, Mirrors, and Foggy Diamonds

 

Like all real housewife premier episodes, we spend the first half of the show catching up with the women. The Gorgas are living in rental property while their new dream home is being built, and Dolores has dumped Dr. David, and now living in a rented townhouse while her ex, Frank, takes his sweet time renovating her home. When it’s done, her newly graduated kids, hot Frankie Jr., and not so hot, daughter, Gabrielle, will all be under one roof. Jackie is going crazy as her (government mandated) Zoom schooled kids act up for the cameras. The Giudice dorters (Zoom schooled for the entire year as well), are not happy about moving into a new home with their mother’s fiance and his dorky-looking son (we will get to Louie later). Teresa’s girls are miffed with Uncle Joe for shit talking their dad all last season.

 

Jennifer is still wearing bandages from a chin and nose job. Jen tells us that her plastic surgeon husband, Bill, refuses to work on ever again (because she was the worst patient he ever had), so while attending her new nephew’s Christening in Turkey, she had some random Instagram doctor give her a new nose and chin. I’m not ready to call it a botched job, but I will say that the iconic scene of Lucy Ricardo disguising herself from William Holden (after dumping a bowl of spaghetti on his head at the Brown Derby) does keep playing in my head.

 

From what we’ve seen so far, Margaret’s kitchen renovation is finally done, and from the looks of the flat 90 degree angles of the profile edges on her countertops, she went with good old fashioned Formica! Hey I’m not judging, because as much as I love natural stone, I was never down with cold hard granite counter tops. We weren’t shown the rest of Marge’s renovation, but I’m looking forward to seeing it this season. This concludes the catch up, now on to story lines that will undoubtedly monopolize the season.

 

husbands have formed a modern day “Rat Pack” act, and have taken their show on the road for “An Evening of Music, Storytelling, and Comedy”. During one of their Q&A’s with the audience, the subject of Teresa’s fiance, Luis Ruelas’ controversial video came up, which Joe called disturbing, adding that it actually makes him miss Joe Giudice. In the video, Luis is on some kind of weird men’s retreat (where apparently clothing is optional), and in a video, tries to convince an ex girlfriend that he has changed his (presumable abusive) ways. The video becomes a topic of conversation for the rest of the season. Bravo doesn’t show the video, but it’s now all over the internet. As skeptical as I am about the dude, the video is not as bad as everyone is making out.

 

 

Via an awkward double date, we meet Melissa’s (TV) “friend”, Traci Johnson. She is wife of former NY Giants running back, Tiki S Barber. Per Bravo new mandated diversity policy, he’s black, she’s white. I’ve seen this Tiki person somewhere before, and finally IMDB’d him. Since retiring from football, and trying his hand at sports announcing, he has been getting into the reality TV game; most recently as a guest judge on Chopped, which was perfect casting considering the size of his huge set of choppers.

 

Teresa is throwing a “Summer Kickoff” party at her pool, and has invited all the girls, with plenty of pineapple juice for all. It wll the first time, her dorters have seen Joe, and the first time that Luis and the ladies are together. He is well aware that everyone has been talking about him, and tells Teresa that he will only make a brief appearance. This is Luie’s big TV break, so you know he ain’t about to let Teresa’s cast members blow it for him. Margaret thinks he should address it, thus putting it rest, but who’s she kidding, we still have the big scene of Teresa telling Margaret that she ain’t poppin’ her love bubble.

 

At the party, everyone is walking on eggshells around Teresa as usual, but she got an early start of Pineapple/Jalapeno shots, so she’s already feeling no pain. Dolores thinks it’s a good idea to to tell Tre about what Joe said at the gig (about Luis), but dipshit Teresa interprets it as a compliment. Margaret then tells Teresa that Luis should address the video, but Teresa tells her that “if she doesn’t respect her house, it ain’t gonna be good.”. It’s really just as well, because Margaret has other fish to fry anyway.

 

Enter Jennifer, whom is on the outs with just about everyone, including Dr. Bill. Everyone is basically ignoring her, except Teresa and Dolores, but they’re both busy checking on the foil containers of lasagna and making sure there is enough pineapple juice for all the ladies. Because this was filmed right after last season’s reunion, wounds are still fresh, but Jennifer has to choose someone, so Teresa intervenes and summons Jackie to work things out with Jennifer. They quickly make up, and Jackie then hands Jennifer off to Margaret. But things don't go as smoothly with Margaret; she justifiably irked that Jennifer called not only her, but Marge Sr. a slut.  As we all know, those are some fighting words in Jersey; the only thing worse would be calling someone a “rat”.  But regardless, Jennifer is lucky she didn't end up in Teresa's pool, if not on the bottom of the Hudson River.  Things go from bad to worse, and Margaret ends up telling Jennifer (and us) that the entire world knows that Dr. Bill was blanking the office manager, and that’s why he left his old practice. Jennifer then responds, “She wasn’t the office manager; she was the pharmceutical rep, so get your facts straight ya fucking idiot” …. *mic drop.  Oh yes folks, Jersey is back!  To be continued