engaged19times

[engaged19times]

RHONJ season 10, episode 2 recrap - Espadrille Fashion Show

Welcome back, scumbags! Pardon my late recap as I got sick this week (not Covid) but I’m back and ready to rumble!  In week 2 of our beloved RHONJ (most of) the girls escape for a vacay, Frank Sr. shoots his shot, and Teresa and Jackie’s war rages on!

  We pick where we left off mid-World War III in Margaret’s multi-patterned pink and orange Dunkin’ Donuts acid trip of a living room (all it’s missing is her husband Joe B. in a visor making coffee and buzzing people into the restroom) where the frazzled Jackie has just committed the grave offense of checkmating Teresa the Don with an ill-advised analogy about her dorter.  Teresa storms out of Marge’s dizzying rainbow zig-zag foyer (you could say that she runs on Dunkin’™) screaming the C-word (no Joe B., not coffee cake) repeatedly, high-tails it back to her own ornate brick estate which looks like a Carrabba’s built for Time Square (does everyone on this show furnish their homes from a franchise catalog?), and immediately calls her sister-in-law of whom she’s decided to cease fire on long enough to demand blind loyalty.  Weary Melissa is rightfully hesitant of siding with her on-again-off-again nemesis-in-law but luckily the Don will have all weekend to convince her (make her an offer she can’t refuse) because in a few days Margaret’s hosting a girls trip to Lake George to relax (read: shriek in big hats by a lake). Teresa is still reeling from the stress of Jackie defending herself by using Teresa’s own tactics and is now in full wild-eyed Heath Ledger/Joker mode and is giddy at the thought of tormenting her chosen nemesis all weekend on this supposed vacation turned hostage situation.

Teresa runs on Dunkin’

  Next, Jen and her seven-year-old daughter Olivia who is chomping at the bit for screen time (wearing espadrille wedges like the North Jersey Suri Cruise she is) visit her beleaguered mother who is exiled on Grandma Island after the family ruled her guilty on the count of constant shittiness in the case of Grandma v. Grandpa.  The defendant pleads her innocence through questionable sobs that materialize out of thin air (and fail to produce any tears), we see a montage of her being generally toxic, and it appears that she might have also graduated from the Teresa Guidice School of I’m-Not-Guilty-Of-The-Things-I-Clearly-Did-On-Camera.  

Espadrille girl in an espadrille world.

  Dolores continues to complain about her workaholic, commitment-phobe boyfriend David to both her adorable mother (please be my grandma!) and her greasy meatball sub of an ex-husband Frank. I love Dolores to the shore and back but this hot girl clearly craves a big bossy man-about-town meathead with a questionable record and a gold chain not a buttoned-up doctor who hates social events and hopefully this nagging storyline wraps up quickly or I’m going to start siding with Dr. David.

  Our jet-setters finish packing their most impractical bedazzled footwear (so many espadrilles!  Is someone on production in cahoots with big espadrille?) for a hard-partying jaunt to Lake George which to most is a relaxing sleepy vacation town surrounded by nature but to this crew of quar-fatigued cool moms is the Ibiza of the Northeast.  Troop Beverly Hills (oh how I wish Danielle was still here so I could call them Troop Beverly Merrill) meet up at Chateau Marge’s DD Lounge (The Cheers of Paterson, if you will) to await their chariot (luxury passenger van). Margaret’s  cute employee Lexi will be joining but Jackie has intelligently but unfortunately for us decided to stay home and avoid being the Itchy to Teresa’s Scratchy all weekend which will allow Tre to clear her head... right? Absolutely not! The Don has been swirling brandy in her dimly-lit mafia office plotting sweet revenge all week so instead of torturing her prey as planned she’ll spend it dragging Jackie to their mutual friends every chance she gets. How relaxing!

Espadrille fashion show.

  In lighter feud news, Jen and Melissa are still touch-and-go after last year’s reunion where Jen heroically broke the fourth wall and roasted Melissa’s annual fake storyline (last year’s totally exhausting journey: should we try to have a baby?... the year after I had my tubes tied?) and while she was embarrassed by this brazen call out I think we can breathe a sigh of relief because it appears that she might have taken the note to which we all owe Jen a hearty round of applause.

  While the troop busses to New York and Tre exhaustingly redirects every conversation back to Jackie, brother husbands Frank and David go on a romantic one-on-one to the equally relaxing ReloaderzNJ gun range where we learn that Frank had a horrific work accident six months ago that detached his quads (I gasped!) and a kneecap (fucking yikes!) so he recovered at David’s house where I’m sure both of them flirted over a sudsy sponge bath or two. The point of this decidedly macho shooting range meet up is for Frank (a disbarred attorney with a history of cheating) to give David (a life-saving perinatologist who treats women with high-risk pregnancies seven days a week but can’t commit to his girlfriend of which he is patently incompatible with) some life and relationship advice that David awkwardly smiles and nods through.  

  Troop Beverly Merrill (OK, I gave in) finally arrives at the lake and wastes no time getting shit-housed.  Dolores and Melissa change into unfortunate coordinating jean ensembles like some sort of Destiny’s Child castoffs, Marge wrestles her alert new honkers into another whisper of a silk getup that they refuse to be tamed by, and the Don continues her exhausting anti-Jackie one-woman show.

Jean queens.

  We wrap up at dinner where Jen smooths things over with Melissa (for now), we learn that Dr. David is apparently an unrivaled sexual stallion in bed (OK Dolores, we all get it now), and Tre shares that her daughter Gia, forever bridled with the burden of corralling the emotionally immature adults in her life, told her mother to apologize because they’re both in the wrong and it ironically appears she might be the only human capable of hand-holding Tre through a reconciliation. 

  Will Teresa step up to the plate? Will David ever emotionally fulfill Dolores?  Joe, may I please have a bacon Wake-up Wrap™ and a large black iced coffee? The answers to none of those questions and more NEXT WEEK! Share if you enjoyed and once again - sorry for the delay!

[engaged19times]

RHONJ Recrap - season 11, ep 1 - C U Next Tuesday!

Greetings fellow prostitution whores and welcome to my new weekly recrap of American institution The Real Housewives of New Jersey! Before I jump in I’ll introduce myself by saying that I’m a housewives super fan (I even watched DC, an experience I wouldn’t wish on my worst sister-in-law), an underemployed comedy writer (I can’t define “napalm” either, Lauren Manzo), and nothing makes me happier than to watch 6 bedazzled hypocrites in Cheesecake Factory mansions argue etiquette and loyalty between physical altercations in the world renowned cultural hub of Paterson, New Jersey. I know essay recaps are a bit of a relic but I am fond of ye olde written word so please enjoy this blast from the past, you scumbags!

We open without fanfare mid-scene to red-eyed Jackie and dead-eyed Teresa sitting in Margaret’s partially finished, wallpaper smothered home. We get the Bad Girls Club black-and-white flashes but unlike in Beverly Hills we’re not flashing to “three months earlier” but instead to “three days earlier.” It might take women of less gumption precious time to build to a production-halting confrontation but it only takes these agents of chaos half a week to get the meatball rolling.

Let’s back up a little to the ominous “three days prior” and catch up with our hot girls. It’s Jackie’s giant hot husband’s 46th birthday so she’s throwing him a party under a tent in the parking lot of a Greek restaurant. We learn that Teresa and Joe’s father has sadly passed in the offseason and Dolores Thee Stallion and Margaret have both had full cosmetic overhauls - Dolores with a second butt enhancement that left her with a giant hip scar rivaled only by Sally from Nightmare before Christmas and Margaret with a boob lift and apparent nipple sharpening (is that a procedure?) that she advertises in a blush silk top with no bra. Never one to be outdone at a parking lot birthday party, Joe Gorga arrives with his storyline - I mean wife, Melissa - also smuggling raisins under a skin tight children’s white T-shirt. Nipples are trending, ladies!

The Nightmare Before Christmas.

A beautiful boob lift.

Tarzan’s headlights.

Margaret’s hot employee Lexi and Teresa’s hot realtor Michelle (both of whom are official friends-of this year), as well as iconic social wrecking ball and Aydin Center for Plastic Surgery mascot Jennifer all saunter in for car park cocktails at this 3D nipple fashion show and as the night devolves we see the cast getting truly shit-housed on shots when out of nowhere storyline sniper Teresa drops the bomb that she heard sexy birthday Bigfoot Evan is cheating on Jackie... more specifically, that he “does stuff” at the gym but mysteriously can’t remember any details or where she heard this head-scratching accusation that draws as many gasps as it does “huhs?” Honest straight people question: do y’all hook up at gyms? And if so, where? Are there co-ed saunas now? Also can one of you explain the allure of Mike and Molly to me? Moving on. Most shocking was that the Perez Hilton of North Jersey doesn’t just drop this wild accusation once, she gleefully skips through this asphalt soiree like a goddamn town crier, addressing everyone she passes like Belle through the town square.

The next day the hard partying crew of Jersey Shore: All Grown Up recovers from their throbbing hangovers and we see cool mom Melissa traipsing through her particle board mausoleum in see-through sweatpants with a visible thong in front of her kids’ friends (you girls keep me young!), Marge Sr. driving a blue Mini Cooper with eyelashes on the headlights (which I assume are like the spinning rims of the Jersey Grandma community), and a flashback of Margaret’s Joe puking next to a tree (relatable, my dude).

Marge Sr.: Fully Loaded.

You girls keep me young!

Over at Jennifer’s palatial child farm we learn that her parents fight so much these days that she moved her father (Carl from Up!) to her multi-generational compound which has only angered her mother more.

Jennifer’s sweet dad.

We then find out Dolores’s dry boyfriend David with whom she shares the burning passion of a melting ice sculpture now lives with her bulging slab of a son Frankie Jr. in the house he and Delores built together but Dolores curiously still lives with her also bulging but slightly slimey ex Frank Sr. in her original house, a near Braunwyn-level web of over-explained but still vague relationship fuckery of which none of them seem on the same page. Dolores hid her surgery from David until the day before, David still works constantly so she hangs out with her ex all the time, and I can’t help but think that we aren’t getting the full story on whatever the fuck is happening under these two roofs. Are they brother-husbands? Is Frank Sr. piping both of them? Can Frankie Jr. DM me his nudes please? The only one being straight-forward in these duel households of confusion is Dolores’s dog who is simply named Dog and I honestly appreciate his refreshing transparency.

Dog Catania, king of transparency.

Finally, Jackie calls Teresa to organize an infamous Jersey sit-down because she somehow got wind of the out-of-thin-air accusations that Teresa all but presented with a bull horn and a PowerPoint at Evan’s parking lot social. They decide to meet at Margaret’s partially constructed house/ wallpaper showroom because it’s neutral territory to hash things out in a relaxing landscape of ladders and contrasting patterns and the tension is so thick you could cut it with one of Margaret’s newly renovated nipples.

Jackie pleads with Tre to clear her husband’s good name and Tre enters a baffling Kelly-Anne Conway bullshit loop which includes such hits as “woman to woman, if I heard this you wouldn’t want me to tell you?” (a reasonable point which is actually working against Teresa because it’s the opposite of what she did), then explaining to Margaret the immediately contradictory “I didn’t tell her and it’s not like I told Evan, I told my friends” (which is an explanation of what she obviously did wrong but said in the tone of a defense), the wacky last ditch nonsense deflection “Alright let me tell you the reason why I did it. This year, now, you know I’m single now. I’ve been approached by a lot of married men that think that it’s OK to have affairs,” and finally just saying fuck it and rewriting history “I did not spread a rumor, I heard a rumor.”

The truth is that Teresa was retaliating for a cheating rumor Jackie entertained about her last year but neither can be held to such unreasonable expectations like addressing reality or admitting fault which is actually ideal because if I cared to see emotionally mature community leaders converse thoughtfully I’d watch Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday not this unhinged turnpike circus.

Jackie’s rival won’t budge so she chooses the nuclear option, looks the reigning matriarch of Paterson in her vacant eyes, and declares confidently “I heard Gia snorts coke in the bathroom at parties” which stopped time on Earth as far as I’m concerned. Is this wild accusation true? Probably not. Was this retaliatory tit equal to the offending tat? Debatable. Do I blame Teresa for immediately whipping into a tailspin and storming out screaming the C-word (no Kathy Wakile, not “canoli kit”) at Jackie no less than 80 times? Girl, no I do not. Jackie has since clarified (backtracked?) that this was an analogy not a rumor she heard which... OK, and whether or not either of the atomic bombs dropped in this breakneck premiere were true, I’m excited to watch our Paterson superstars battle it out for another batshit season!

Esteemed poet laureat of Paterson, NJ.

Join me and my own rock hard nipples next week to recrap a girls trip to Lake George, more developments in the case of Jackie vs Teresa: Jersey Crime Story, and hopefully another cameo by breakout superstar Dog Catania! Please share this recrap with the prostitution whores in your life if you enjoy and follow me on Tumblr (engaged19times), Insta (@engagednineteentimes), and Twitter (@_engaged19times)! I’m recrapping weekly but I don’t get screeners (yet) and it takes me a few days to catch up so please be patient!

XO engaged19times