Punch-drunk. Really, at this point in the season, is there any other way to feel about Real Housewives of New Jersey? We’ve all been in the ring for 14 rounds… our cerebellums are lime Jello (possibly with small bits of fruit embedded inside)… we’re sickened by the knowledge of how we’ve become both passive and active participants in this theater of the absurd… and yet we KEEP COMING BACK FOR MORE PUNISHMENT.
It’s downright masochistic, is what it is. And yet, there’s a sense of investment we have in these women — in their strange and often horrible lives, in their petty jealousies and grand dramas, in their slender moment of legitimate vulnerability and in the thick walls of armor, saline, bling and ostentation they use to buffer themselves from the crueler world at large – and at this stage in the game, it’s far too late to bail out. We’re all going down in flames, together.
• Italia! Naples! Mt. Vesuvius! History! Culture! And now, a horde of locusts from New Jersey descending upon southern Italy, where presumably they will destroy everything they touch. USA! USA! USA! USA!
• We open with the giant massive luxury liner docking in Naples and the New Jersey hordes preparing to disembark and invade. Mom and Chris? No problem getting ready to disembark. Sharon Osbourne and husband? No problem. PuffyChucky, Kong and family? A complete friggin’ nightmare from minute one. The challenges of traveling with 100 spoiled, whiny, horrifying children are further compounded by the fact that PuffyChucky has apparently decided to pack virtually every possession in their north Jersey massive monster mansion of massive monsterousness for the trip (with, presumably, the single exception of that gigantic, ugly vase that someone’s grandmother smashed right before they left for the airport last week). All of this only adds to the deep, dark, big brooding bad mood of…
• Kong, who is visibly and vocally pissed off about being here. PuffyChucky feigns understanding – “This has been a stressful time for us. Joe is stressed about being away from his business for a week” – but it’s clear she’s a bit put off by his raging bullishness. (Note: this is similar but not identical to the observation that she often puts out in response to his raging bullishness.)
• Mom on PuffyChucky and her horde of children: “God forbid one of them didn’t have a bow on her head. She’d make one out of toilet paper.”
• PuffyChucky acknowledges that her family’s behavior may be affecting those around her. “I don’t feel responsible at all if people are in a crappy mood. That’s on them.”
• Her sensitivity rivals the size of her forehead.
• PuffyChucky on the time-space continuum: “Naples had this volcano, and it did erupt, but it was hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Hundreds of years ago? Sixty years ago? Was it sixty years ago?”
• Then they check into a hotel, whereupon PuffyChucky and her children discover a bidet. Or, as PuffyChucky refers to it, an “Oh-beh-deh.” As she describes it: “It’s a little sink. An oh-beh-deh. I don’t know how to say it in English. Joe, what do they call it?” Kong: “What is it? Like one of those… what the hell do they… they’re like douches.” This may be the single stupidest conversation of the season. Outstanding.
• MEANWHILE back in north Jersey… PROSTITUTIONWHORE! has a heart-to-heart with her daughters about her search for her birth mom. Apparently she didn’t want them to know about the search unless it turned out to be successful, and feels betrayed and hurt by the fact that Kim G and PuffyChucky and… well… everyone, apparently, was so driven to spread gossip about her that the news got back to her kids before she had a chance to tell them herself. Which on the one hand is reasonable; and on the other hand is pot/kettle/black hypocritical.
• PW’s awesome older daughter Christine expresses understanding for her mother’s feelings, and summarizes the situation in typically level-headed terms: “Everyone deserves respect. Even if you don’t like them.” This kid is a superstar. PW recognizes that fact, and decides to take credit for it by congratulating herself on being such an awesome mother.
• I hate to say this – dear god, do I hate to say this – but watching the scenes between PROSTITUTIONWHORE! and her daughters, and comparing them to how the other housewives deal with their older children? She’s actually got a pretty good relationship with them. Granted, she’s a complete fucking nut job and quite possibly a borderline personality disorder type… but her daughters are bright, articulate and capable of thinking for themselves, which is far more than you can say for Mom’s Horrible Nightmare Daughter Ashley… and God only knows how terrible the PuffyChucky horde will be when they get older. Only Sharon Osbourne’s kids – who may not be scholastically bright, but who all seem to have inherited a strong work ethic and a lot of common sense from their parents – really come close.
• (realizing that I just said something extremely complimentary about someone I’ve been calling PROSTITUTIONWHORE! for months)
• (feeling deeply, deeply uncomfortable)
• (but still: taking deep breath, and pushing forward. for you, the MamaPop reader.)
• (it’s all for you, Damien! all for you! (jumps off ledge))
• Back in Italy, Sharon and Chris take their parents (admission: I ALWAYS forget that they are brother and sister) on a walk around Naples, allowing them to re-experience Italy for the first time in decades. Kind of a nice, touching moment, and demonstrative of a legitimate generosity of spirit that occasionally lurks beneath the surface in this family.
• Then the horde goes out to dinner, whereupon they’re reminded that part of the reason for this trip is because of the PuffyChucky family reunion in SantaChuckalina (name per Sharon). Kong reveals that his family’s homes are up a steep hill, and “we’re gonna have to hike it up there.” Mom points out that they have strollers and elderly — which translates serious logistical problems. Kong and PuffyChucky try to laugh it off, which leads to some surprisingly pointed dialogue between the families.
• I’m sure I’m not the only one noticing this, but Mom/Sharon/et al do seem to be getting fed up with the selfishness/self-absorption of the PuffyChucky clan. What seems endearing and offbeat when you’re dealing with it for a couple of hours back home in New Jersey becomes an entirely different experience when you’re dealing with it 24/7 in a foreign country. Guess we’ll see if there’s any kind of fallout from this.
• Back in Jersey, Richie Shankbora comes over to visit PROSTITUTIONWHORE! and takes her out to lunch. On the way over, they discuss the other housewives (who she is immensely relieved to discover are out of the country) and how they’ve ruined her ability to enjoy life in Franklin Lakes, NJ. Rickie also reveals that some of HND Ashley’s friends are coming to him – TO HIM! – and asking what they can do for him. In other words… HND Ashley’s friends (at least some of them) (allegedly) are aligning themselves against her and with TEAM PROSTITUTIONWHORE! Which is unexpected.
• PW on HND Ashley: “She’s a special kind of crazy.” Ah, the shock of recognition.
• Back in Italy, the horde piles back into the bus for the trip to the PuffyChucky/Kong family reunion. Unsurprisingly, Kong arrives on the bus pissed off again — this time, about the costs associated with the hotel. Keep in mind that this is a guy who allowed his wife to use marble and onyx for the floors of their 14 million sq. ft mansion in New Jersey… and now he’s bitching and moaning over a night at a hotel.
• Needless to say, the other families aren’t really delighted to hear all of this bitching and moaning. As Mom points out: “You eat. You drink. You pay.”
• Sharon: “Joe on the bus… he was cranky, he was tired, and he was just lashing out at everything. He was done with it.”
The Manzo Family enjoy an afternoon with the New York Giants.
Not shown: Eli Manning whining about unfair officiating.
• Kong yells at the busload of children and grandparents: “I’m frigging hungry. We’re gonna go eat… we gotta be civilized. No more bullshitting around.” The irony implicit in this pronouncement quite literally reduces Sharon Osbourne to tears.
• Commercial break. Yellow Twizzlers = crime against humanity. Just sayin’.
• And we’re back in Santa Chuckalina, where everyone gets off the bus and starts hiking up the hill. Kong: “It’s like mountain climbing.” PuffyChucky: “Great ass workout.” (insert your own joke here)
• Back in Jersey: PROSTITUTIONWHORE! meets with a Private Investigator to help her find her mother. PW: “I’m adopted, and I don’t have a whole lot to go on, other than date of birth, place of birth, and my enthnenticity.”
• Wait. What was that? “Ethnenticity.” Which is like ethnicity, only stupider.
• Anyhow. She and the PI proceed to outline the parameters of the investigation: the mother – if she’s found – has to want to see PW; for her part, PW doesn’t want to meet her if the mother is a drunk, a drug addict or homeless. “I can’t take that into my life. I’m not finding her to make her better… I’m finding her to make me better.”
• I hate it when PROSTITUTIONWHORE! makes sense.
• Back in Italy, the New Jerseyites are meeting the Italians. No one speaks Italian other than Kong and PC – as PC explains, “I didn’t speak English until I was in Kindergarten, which is why sometimes when I say things they come out wrong” which must obviously be the truth because what other possible reason could there be for oh-beh-deh? – but nevertheless everyone soldiers on and tries to overcome the cultural gap. There’s probably a valuable lesson to be learned here somewhere, but I’m just getting impatient for someone to do something embarrassing.
• Kong takes his Jersey comrades to visit the slaughterhouse and… um… Kong: “Every five minutes, you hear a pig screaming. Because it’s getting killed.” Sharon: “Give the pig a Percoset. Let it go down naturally.”
• Despite the pig slaughtering, I have to say that this whole scene is kind of charming.
Photo swiped from PuffyChucky’s Facebook account. Seriously.
• Finally, the reunion is over and they begin the long walk back downhill to the bus. Of course, Kong and PuffyChucky fight the whole way. Sharon Osbourne: “Of course you fight. You fight because you love each other. Fighting is a part of marriage.”
• Back to Jersey: PROSTITUTIONWHORE! gets a call from her PI, who updates her on the search. It turns out that because her birth mother was a minor when she was born, the court documents are sealed and it may take some time – days, weeks, possibly years – for her to get access. So: not a dead end, but a roadblocs that will slow things down.
• PW: “I do have hope that I will find my mom one day. I’m not giving up. So what’s next is: the sky’s the limit. I’m gonna take the bull by the proverbial horns and I’m gonna live my life, and I’m not gonna ask anyone for permission to do so.”
• If we hadn’t just gone through soething like two season’s worth of complete PROSTITUTIONWHORE! lunacy, that would be a lot more believable.
• Back to Italy, for a big fancy PuffyChucky family reunion dinner at a restaurant. Her daughters come out in what can only be described as the most horrifyingly grotesque explosion of bows, frills, and ruffles every seen by human eyes. They’re matched by enormous frilly bow headpieces. PC: “The girls dresses I got custom-made. All four, matching… they are absolutely gorgeous.” Sure, if by gorgeous you mean it looks like a flock of flamingos collided with Snuffaluffagus, exploded, and landed in a pile of frills on your daughters. 
•Aaaaaaaaaand finally… they return to New Jersey. It appears that on the flight back, PuffyChucky caught and killed a Yeti, then chopped off its lower legs and turned them into boots. Is this a standard benefit on Alitalia? Maybe it’s just a first-class thing.
• Leopard skin sheets. PuffyChucky and Kong have a king-sized bed covered in leopard-skin sheets. Why do I allow myself to be surprised by these things?
• NEXT MONDAY! SEASON FINALE! SHOWCASE SHOWDOWN BETWEEN SHARON OSBOURNE AND PROSTITUTIONWHORE!!!
• And fuck me… I’m going to be in northern Maine next week. Not sure if I’ll even have cable. How is it possible that I failed to take these recaps into account when I booked this trip back in January? Dear TwoBusy of January: you suck.
. . . . .
Okay. So: your questions for the week…
1) Multiple sources have announced this week that Danielle – aka PROSTITUTIONWHORE! – has been sacked, and subsequently will not appear on Season 3 of Real Housewives. WTF? Please float your most specious theories as to the story behind this.
2) Am I the only one looking forward to seeing what happens if and when Kong ends up in jail, either as a function of his bankruptcy and what I can only imagine might be future investigations for fraud and/or financial malfeasance, or for the moment when he’ll inevitably snap, wander into Manhattan and tear apart a couple of city blocks a la the Cloverfield monster?
3) With only the season finale (which I may miss) and the TWO! PART! REUNION! SPECIAL! to follow… how much money would it take for me to recap this freakin’ show again next year? Is there actually enough money in the world? Discuss.
. . . . .
TwoBusy oh-beh-deh, oh-beh-deh, oh-beh-deh.
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