Last week was the first time in… I don’t know, actually, but it felt like the first time in years that I went an entire week without seeing Real Housewives of New Jersey. Granted, that was more a function of subpar cable TV access while I was on vacation up in the wilds of Maine than a conscious decision to slip free the surly bonds of earth Bravo and explore the possibilities of a life sans PROSTITUTIONWHORE! Still, it was a taste of freedom, and a joy unlike anything I’ve experienced in forever.
And yet… and yet. All it took was a quick read of K Best Oliver’s badasstastic recap of last week’s season finale to set the hook in once again — and to set it deep. To awaken within me that primal hunger for conflict, betrayal and trash. They say the first taste is always free, and so – despite having struggled and fought my way through cold turkey withdrawal from the ladies of Franklin Lakes – it was with startling ease and a familiar sense of giving up hope and self-respect that I slipped seamlessly back into the arms of my forbidden lover, my most terrible enemy, my greatest passion. My Real Housewives Reunion Show.
Damn you, KBO. I was almost out. I was almost out.
• Welcome to Atlantic City. The grossest fake resort city in America hosting the grossest collection of fake famewhores in America.
• Joining us are BravoAndy and our four surviving housewives. And holy crow — Sharon Osbourne has lost 25 lbs since the end of the season. Wow. It’s a pretty remarkable change.
• BravoAndy: “The governor of Jersey recently came out and said that Jersey Shore was a horrible representation of the state. What do you think of that?” PuffyChucky responds by saying she saw it once and hated it because one of the girls slept with some guy she just met, which is a stance that the morally upstanding mother of 10,000 awful children does not respect. Which immediately segues into a slam against PROSTITUTIONWHORE! “Like you did with Steve! Right? Remember? You slept with him in our vacation house? In front of my kids? That was okay, right?”
• For all those of you who had 2 Minutes in the “How long until someone calls Danielle a whore or pig on the reunion show” pool… congratulations!
• Although, really, we’re all winners in this scenario.
• PuffyChucky proceeds to launch into a completely unprompted slam against PROSTITUTIONWHORE! “You’re a pig. Look at yourself. You’re disgusting. And you’re desperate.” PW: “You really are insane, aren’t you?” Please note: PW may not be wrong.
• BravoAndy tries to regain control by introducing a clip montage featuring a slew of our favorite malaprops from Season Two. Ah, Cleavelage and ethnenticity. And therapeutical. And… crimony. It’s like English as a second language, wherein the primary language is Stupid.
• I suspect PuffyChucky has a Master’s Degree in Stupid.
• BravoAndy asks about their kids, which prompts PROSTITUTIONWHORE! to beam with pride about her two daughters – justifiably – which then leads into a brief montage on Mom and PuffyChucky’s new kids this season.
• Flashback Captain Zentastic appearance! I miss the Zentastic a bit. Gotta admit.
• Flashback of PuffyChucky wearing a leopardskin robe in the hospital post-delivery, while her newborn daughter is wearing an enormous pink bow on her little infant hat. Insert your own joke here.
• This serves as our opportunity for Mom to finally ask PROSTITUTIONWHORE! why she never – not once – congratulated her on the birth of her new son, even back when they were still friends. PW offers some half-assed excuse, and then gives a passionless, dead-eyed “congratulations on your son, and I wish the best of luck to you all” disclaimer. No one’s impressed, but as they all realize that there’s no point in exploring this further – because, really, there’s nothing to be gained – they let it drop. Which is really too bad, as the fracturing of the friendship between PW and Mom was (to my eyes) one of the more interesting plotlines of the season, and it was Mom’s realization that PW never offered that congratulations on her new child that pushed her to finally sever the relationship. Kinda disappointed that didn’t get explored more fully here.
• And then… BravoAndy brings up a BIG lingering question from last year’s reunion special: What, exactly, was the awful thing that PROSTITUTIONWHORE! did that reduced Sharon Osbourne to tears and unspecified accusations? The answer — “Trying to have her daughter taken away from her.” I presume this means the daughter who’s in the process of becoming a beautician, but apparently Sharon Osbourne is unable to respond, as PW’s attorneys have rendered Sharon unable to comment (a gag order) on the situation following some interview in which she “lied.”
• Wait… was it someone else’s daughter? Zentastic’s daughter? I’m so confused.
• BravoAndy sees this spiraling out of control – but with no clear resolution, as gag orders prevent the parties involved from offering specifics – so he tries to return to the “let’s talk more about your babies” thing… only PuffyChucky uses that as an opportunity to call PROSTITUTIONWHORE! disgusting for failing to congratulate her… and then PW tries to turn the tables… and I’m getting confused again, but before I have the chance to get confused PuffyChucky gets confused and – as is the case with rhinos, another big, dumb mammal that reacts to perceived threats by attacking – she jumps up and runs over at PW and attempts to gore her with her unnaturally large fake breasts begins screaming at her in a crazy, cracked, “Hey, everyone, look at me: I’m a lunatic” screech.
• Unfortunately, as I’m rewatching this on DVR and pausing the scene so I can type, it’s freeze-framed on PuffyChucky’s flower-print-covered-ass sticking out at the camera while she screams at PW (who is completely hidden behind/beneath the attacking Chucky), BravoAndy is grabbing her wrist to try to keep her under control, and Sharon Osbourne is looking on with an expression caught somewhere between amusement and concern. If it was a zebra skin print instead of gigantic goofy flowers on the dress, this image could serve as a pretty nifty summary of the season as a whole.
• I’d like to take this opportunity to say that I’ll be disappointed if Mom’s Horrible Nightmare Daughter (HND) Ashley doesn’t come flying on-screen from the wings of the studio to try to yank out PROSTITUTIONWHORE’s weave. Again.
• No, wait: what happens is even better worse better worse better. PuffyChucky is losing her mind, screaming obscenities and demanding that PW stop talking about her family (and let’s be clear: PW mentioned something vague and unspecified – she didn’t even make a clear accusation – and that was enough to trigger this PuffyChucky meltdown) and when BravoAndy tries to pull her off of PROSTITUTIONWHORE – who she’s basically straddling at this point – PuffyChucky shoves BravoAndy down into his chair (practically knocking him over) and then more or less re-enacts the insane showdown at the Country Club by chasing PROSTITUTIONWHORE! off the studio set while screeching “She’s a fucking bitch!” over and over and over again.
• Please, Bravo — have the wherewithall to insert a quick montage of PuffyChucky insisting “I’m a really nice person” right now. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.
• Bravo does not answer my prayers.
• I should point out that as of this point in the show, BravoAndy is physically restraining PuffyChucky while Sharon Osbourne is cupping her face in her hands and trying to talk her down — it’s like watching a horse trainer trying to settle a spooked mare.
• Time for a break!
• Holy shit. We’re 12 minutes into a 75-minute show. And this is only Part 1 of the Reunion. This show is gonna fucking kill me before it’s all said and done.
• We return to PuffyChucky still losing her mind – and at this point, there’s something like a dozen people standing around her, trying to calm her down – while PW is standing in a back room and pointing out that while others are allowed to make all kinds of unsubstantiated (albeit probably true) claims about her, the minute she says anything she’s physically attacked… and they kind of let it happen. “If she moves her ass off that couch again, I’m leaving.”
• PROSTITUTIONWHORE’s hairstylist tries to talk her through the emotions of the moment. Together, they chant “Amazing things. Amazing things. Amazing things happen.”
• It suddenly got so cold in the room I can see my breath. Apparently that happens in the presence of stupid people.
• Meanwhile, the other housewives point out that PW’s “songwriting partner” Lori Michaels (pardon me: lesbian superstar Lori Michaels) had to be physically restrained from going after PuffyChucky. Because… songwriting is a deep and emotional process, and you don’t mess with someone’s creative partner. Or something.
• BravoAndy also points out to PuffyChucky that she basically threw him across the set, which he does kind of laughing but also kind of… not.
• Odds that we’ll see PuffyChucky tasered before this is all over: 2:1.
• Anyhow. PW returns, and we immediately enter a long and pointless argument in which Mom asks PROSTITUTIONWHORE! the intriguing question, “Did you get me pregnant?” While the answer, presumably, is no, it still adds a touch of the surreal to the proceedings. Real Housewives of New Jersey: Genetic Pioneers.
• BravoAndy brings up a poll in which viewers said that the Real Housewife they’d least like as their own mother was PROSTITUTIONWHORE! PW responds: “I’ll just let my kids speak for me.” Which, while a good and fair response, is instantly undermined by Mom: “Or their father.” Zing!
• Commercial break, featuring a Reebok ad spotlighting a lot of… um… asses. Good-looking ones, too. Thanks, Reebok!
• And we return to a montage of Sharon Osbourne family scenes. I’m retroactively bored.
• ::pours one out for the ham game::
• They move on to a question for PW about her kids and their successes as models and singers, and that of whether or not she’s living through her kids. “No…” and is she a stage mom? “No. Absolutely not.” (as lesbian superstar/songwriting partner Lori Michaels looks on unironically from the wings) (and as we flash back to PW basically launching herself in front of the camera during her daughter Christine’s first photo shoot) (and… well, okay. At this point, I’m wondering how these women (pardon me, PW: “woman”) would mangle the word hypocritical.)
• I’m thinking PuffyChucky would give us “hypnotitical,” which is almost certainly a better word.
• Finally… we finally get around to discussing the matter of Kong and PuffyChucky’s financial distress. Which is intro’d by a montage of the insane ways they’ve spent money just in the past year. Morons.
• PuffyChucky denies that her home is in foreclosure. Although she admits that they did file for bankruptcy last year. “Did Joe fill you in on how deeply in debt you were?” PC: “No.” And she feels like he was trying to protect her and the kids.
• BravoAndy: “Are you keeping out the negative… or are you a little bit in denial?” PuffyChucky responds with more denial. At least she’s consistent.
• BravoAndy addresses Kong’s accident: “So… he leaves dinner, drives home sober, crashes the car… and THEN goes into a friend’s house and gets drunk. Is it classified as a DUI?” The answer is yes. And PROSTITUTIONWHORE! says what we’re all thinking: “I find it hard to believe you’d go get wasted after you have a car accident.” Yeah. Call me skeptical, but… hell: I’m skeptical.
• Commercial break, and then a montage of scenes surrounding PROSTITUTIONWHORE! drama. As BravoAndy says, “Is she a victim… or a villain?” I’d say both. Everyone? All agreed? Both? Okay.
• Which leads us into a discussion of Danny, aka Richie Shankbora. BravoAndy: “He’s married?” Mom: “He was.” Uh oh. Although she denies there’s anything going on between them. The other housewives express skepticism, to which she says, “We don’t even hang out. I taped with him, and that’s it.”
• ::pours one out for Richie Shankbora, who apparently never got laid even though he really really really wanted to::
• BravoAndy asks PROSTITUTIONWHORE! about her self-description (which happened at some point in the season, and which I must’ve somehow blocked out as part of an unspecified self-defense mechanism) as a born-again virgin. Mom reacts by rolling her eyes so far back in her head I half-expect her to fall on the floor unconscious, like she’s been knocked unconscious by bullshit. Does that happen? Is it possible?
• Who cares? Because now BravoAndy is asking PW for clarification on her relationship with lesbian superstar Lori Michaels. What’s the story? Inquiring minds want to know… and the response: “I am with the lesbian superstar every single day, and we work together, and…” BravoAndy: “Are you swimming in the lady pond?” PW: (dances around, refuses to straightforwardly acknowledge anything about anything, annoys audience)
• PROSTITUTIONWHORE! goes on to claim that she doesn’t flaunt her sexuality (coughcoughSEXTAPEcoughcough) but rather that’s a character that’s been created around her via careful editing. Damn you, Bravo. It’s all your fault! (shakes bony PROSTITUTIONWHORE! fist)
• Sharon Osbourne offers an assessment of herself as someone entirely straightforward – always owning what she thinks and says – whereas PW is “like Mystic (sic) Toad’s frigging Wild Ride,” where her reactions to events are a matter of convenience and circumstance. To PW: “Your opinion of me means less than nothing.”
• Really, that’s probably the most damning thing you can say to PROSTITUTIONWHORE: you don’t matter. Irrelevance is what she fears most… which makes the fact that she’s been fired from the show all the more fascinating. Honestly, I can’t imagine this is the last we’re gonna see or hear of PW… where’s she gonna go? I want theories, people. What PW news stories are we going to see pop up over the next year or two?
• BravoAndy uses this subtle damning as an opportunity to seamlessly (or, uh… not) segue to a discussion of the PW sex tapes. What we learn: 1) her legal bills are huge; 2) she’s involved in a lawsuit against her ex-boyfriend Steve over allegations of who taped who (whom taped whom?); 3) she’s making no money off any of these videos; 4) she was basically blackmailed over the second video, and it was released because she couldn’t afford to pay someone off; 5) her income is drawn from the Bravo show (which she just got fired from) and her book.
• BravoAndy: “How did you explain it to your kids, when the sex tapes came out?” PW: “I’ve tried to explain that mommy should have been more careful and more private.” Well. Good job, then.
• Commercial break. Vagisil wash. I just died a little inside.
• Redemption: ad for the movie Easy A, featuring the awesome son from Cougar Town and that cool actress who played Jonah Hill’s kinda girlfriend in Superbad who kinda sorta reminds me of Lindsay Lohan except I really really really hope she doesn’t turn into Lindsay Lohan.
• And we’re back to a montage scene of the fiasco at the cancer fundraiser from way back earlier in the season, where PROSTITUTIONWHORE! and her posse basically walked around, dropping f-bombs on everyone, and completely undermined the importance of the fundraiser itself. BravoAndy: “The father of the event was really upset, and claimed you haven’t donated anything.” PW: denial. Sharon Osbourne: “You. Didn’t. Give. A. Dime.”
• Sharon Osbourne drops one of the great lines of the season: “You brought danger to my son, in the shape of that Sweathog reject.” Somewhere in New Jersey, Richie Shankbora squirms uncomfortably.
• Next week on the Reunion Part 2: Married men! Armed guards! Kim G! A human head! Claims of love! Gay advocacy! Death threats! Towel throwing! Puppeteers! Drugs! Threats of bodily harm! Insanity! Lies! Stomping offstage! Drama! Drama! Drama!
. . . . .
One. More. Week. We can do this, people. We can make it.
. . . . .
TwoBusy is realllllllly ready to end this exploration into the nature of self-loathing.
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