Real Housewives Of New Jersey Recap: Takin’ Care Of Bizness

On last night’s episode of Real Housewives of New Jersey, the ladies of Jersey continued to fragment – but surprisingly so did the men! There was drunken debauchery, poison expulsion, and a fight! Oh, Joe G-to-the-iudice, why you such a mess?

Things begin with Jacqueline Laurita throwing the wayward Hatley Holmes out of the house. Except, Ashlee’s hatless now – she’s Lohan-esque instead (I would call her Injectibles Holmes, but people might think I’m talking about Jacqueline). Anyway, Jacs didn’t seem at all sad to see her go. And poor, once-promising Albie Manzo was sentenced to drive Ashlee to the airport. In the car she whines and fussed about flying and begs the aeronautics gods to make her 21 so she can get wasted before her flight. Then she brags about the time she drank a bottle of cough syrup through a straw to ease her fear of flying. That’s not completely cracktastic or anything! #rehab.

Albie compares Ashlee to Ke$ha but I think that’s too generous because at least Ke$ha has some semblance of talent (maybe?) and a career of some undeserved recognition.

Melissa Gorga pays a visit to Non-Juicy Joe where he is hard at work overseeing the development of buildings. She’s wearing some sort of tight, mini dress and Joe gooses her as they tour the facilities. Joe owns three buildings on the same street – one for each of their children. Melissa doesn’t get a building – she gets Joe and his poison instead. #luckygirl #sarcasm. They reminisce about a time when they had no money to buy diapers and were poor, poor while Joe was developing his buildings.

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Anyway, back to the airport – Ashlee misses her flight. Which is classic. She misses her flight wandering around the airport mooning over Dunkin’ Donuts. Can’t you just hear her nonsensical warbling; stumbling through the terminals bleating “powwwwdeeeerrrred suuuuuuuuugar…”  Ugh. Too bad she tweeted her missteps so Albie could relay them to her parents. Yeah, then she cabs it back to Joisee and everyone’s like ‘Oh, why are you here? Go wait upstairs until tomorrow when we ship you out again, ingrate.’

Alright, moving on from that debacle and onto Ashlee‘s future, if she doesn’t put down the cough syrup and the powdered sugar… Joe has yet another failed business venture under his belt. The pizzeria he opened when all his other businesses folded – yeah, that’s kaput too. Apparently, he just couldn’t get there everyday since he lost his license and all and it kinda became a hassle. Poor Teresa Giudice. The look on her face when he was telling his own tale of woe was very telling. She’s over it, she’s frustrated, and she’s at a loss for what to do. And now Juicy is opening a gas station? That will become retirement homes?! What?! Stoppit. That’s a recipe for disaster!

Speaking of recipes, Lauren Manzo is visiting Dr. Perricone. He’s gonna, like, help her starve herself on some metabolic diet comprised of berries and egg whites. Lauren looked supa sad to not see cheese on the menu, didn’t she? Or ham! Apparently she’s been depressed and ONE DAY after opening her cosmetics depot at Chateau Salon she closed it, citing no one respected her. Hmmm… Nothing like really giving it the old college try! Hope that diet is more successful because I’m really tired of Caroline Manzo telling us how fat her daughter is. This time she wished the fatness on her blessed sons. Because type 2 diabetes is so much better for boys. Maybe she should use Teresa’s meatball recipe – it doesn’t involve frying!

And speaking of meatballs…. Jacqueline is whipping up a fried batch of her own for a poker night party that everyone is invited to – even baked meatball queen, T Giu. Do we think The Caroline threatened to take away all the wine if Jacs didn’t make meatballs using her recipe? She’s 1/16 Italian, you know…

So Teresa bustles into the kitchen, conveniently right after Joe G-to-the-orga got done talking about how he tries so hard with Teresa and it’s difficult for him to deal with her. Didn’t they make up last week? That was last week, c’mon – they’ve got a TV show to do here! Anyway, here comes T and she’s brandishing an apology about guess what?! The Cookbook! It’s #OliveGardenGate, y’all! Teresa tells everyone she loves them and she was just jowek-king, but she’s sorry she hurt their feelings and there was, like, some really nice stuff about most of them in the book! If yous read it! She directly asks Non-Juicy Joe if he’s read her first book – which was dedicated to him – and he sheepishly answers no. He so did not read it because Melissa refused to read it aloud to him! And we all know he can’t read!

Breaking the awkwardness, Melissa snarks that she’ll take one for the team so Teresa can make some extra cash. Hmmm… that was pretty zingy! Props where props are due. BUT kinda unfair. I mean she and Joe came on this show to make a little extra cash and I would say Teresa took one for the team there! Amirite?

After this whole apology thing happens, the menfolk descend into the basement where an argument about height ensues and Joe G-to-the-iudice and Riche Wakile – who used to be quite close – end up wrestling. Yeah, Juicy grabs Richie’s balls, which he likens to peanuts and then Richie elbows him in the face giving him a black eye. One question: How did Joe grab Richie’s balls – weren’t they contained in his pants? Was something else happening in that basement? Too bad we didn’t see said fight, but alas, the camera crew was upstairs filming The Caroline‘s glare instead! #wastedeffort

The next day everyone’s still up in arms about the brawl and it’s unanimously Juicy‘s fault, as he always has something to prove these days. Melissa intones that because Juicy is unhappy with his own life and Teresa is now the breadwinner, he feels the need to prove his manhood. And cue Teresa heading to a book signing while Joe is hooking, oh I mean cooking, in the kitchen.

In the middle of all of this there’s some Wakile family stuff. It’s the producers attempts to give Kathy Wakile a storyline besides hating on T and looking all wide-eyed skittish. So Joseph was elected Sophomore class president and we finally learned what Richie does for a living – he owns gas stations. Except he doesn’t spend much time there, he hires people to run them, which explains why he has so much time to loiter around the RHONJ camera crew. Also, his gas stations serve hard-boiled eggs. EW!

One day Joseph will take over these fine establishments – and he plans to have an even more lax work perspective than his father, who he believes adheres to the rules too stridently. Richie warns Joseph you can’t start out cheating or you’ll end up like Juicy!

What else happens in Wakile-world? Oh, Joseph had some girl send him naked photos through the tweeter which Kathy incidentally stumbled upon. Richie‘s kinda impressed, but Kathy is kinda disgusted. She decides to send this young lady an email about self-respect. Which was pretty awesome. Way to not have peanut sized balls, Kath! “All of the sudden people’s crotches are getting into cyberspace,” Kathy muses – and they better not end up anywhere near her son! Strangely the girl from the nudie pic emails Kathy back and doesn’t seem embarrassed in the least that a middle-aged mom saw her hoo-ha (future Kim K right there!).

Next, Melissa attempts singing. “Attempts” being the key word. She had to keep starting over and her producer was like, ‘Hmmm… yeah… aaaahhh… about your vocal range… You know what, lemme just get this here autotune rigged up and ok! We’re good to go!’ Melissa is recording a ballad for Joe to express her everlasting love for him. See – she is so not a gold-digger. There was this one-time when they only had $3k in the bank and she couldn’t buy diapers (they didn’t have a credit card?) and she stood by him! And sometimes she can cook stuff too. So there!

Really, I’m happy they are so in love and they seem to have a wonderful marriage. I just wish Melissa wouldn’t express it with singing. Hasn’t she heard of Hallmark? She should talk to Brooks Ayers.

While Teresa is out signing books, the Manzo spawn and Chris Laurita pay a visit to stay-at-home Juicy, who has assumed the childbearing and domestic duties while Teresa conquers the world one cookbook snub at a time. I have to say, Joe Giudice – father of the year! While Audriana scrapes her knee and Milania grabs Albie‘s balls (HA!) he pours wine and threatens to kick their asses. Poor Gia. Earlier Milania screamed that he’s not a cooker, he’s a hooker. Which may be true – who knows what goes on over there in Marble Manse de Giudice.

Over dinner, Joe becomes more and more morose the more wine he consumes. One of the Manzos asks him how driving is going and the subject of Juicy’s arrest for a fraudulent license comes up. Chris Laurita tells us he doesn’t approve and he was pretty unimpressed with the whole deal. It is pretty terrible. Weasley Chris Manzo explains that Joe has become strangely competitive and he’s not so fun and happy-go-lucky anymore. He recounts – with a pitch perfect impersonation – the story of when a drunk Juicy insisted he had the biggest brain in all the world next to God. Almost bigger than God’s, but not quite. Maybe he meant biggest rap sheet or beer gut…

Juicy then whips out the newspaper, which has Joe G-to-the-orga‘s photo on the front cover over a lawsuit he’s involved in. Apparently, he believes Non-Juicy is a bit of scammer who lied to the contractors about being broke in order to avoid paying them. Everyone around the table looks awkward, because while they were once friends with Juicy they are now friends with Non-Juicy. Conflict of interest! Maybe they could just wrestle it out…

Meanwhile at Teresa‘s book signing, a fan brings up Juicy‘s arrest, but says she loves Teresa despite it all. Teresa looks like she wanted to cry. It was a pretty tense moment and I felt terrible for her. She put on her Teresa happy face, signed the book and took a photo, but it’s gotta be rough when the whole world knows your hubby is a loser.

Finally, Melissa has prepared a very romantical evening for her beloved Joew where she will unveil the ballad she wrote and sang for him. They sit on opposite ends of a mammoth table like pseudo royalty. I’ve never understood why people do this. It’s so pretentious and what is romantic about having to shout across the twelve-seater dining room table to each other? Sit next to each other and stop showing off.

Joe thinks the surprise is Baby Gorga no. 4 – Melissa assures him its way, way better than that! He naturally assumes its sex. Cause that’s all he cares about. After dinner he practically skips to Melissa’s end of the table to pour her more champagne, cause he’s, like, positive something’s gonna happen. Something dangerous, something poisonous!

Melissa is disgusted that he is bringing up poison talk with her while she’s trying to act like lady of the manor and do something caring for her husband. She snaps that she doesn’t want that “visual.” Now see – this is where she’s taking one for the team. Cause I don’t want that visual – or that dialogue – either. Melissa wants him to stop the poison talk and Joe reminds her that poison gave her three beautiful children … that share Teresa’s genetics!

Melissa changes the subject and tells him she wrote him a song expressing her love. Joe is confused and then she plays him the song. He’s moved – and turned on. And he carries her to the bedroom for round two. Ok, it was a cute song. Admit it, you kinda liked it a little. Just a little.

Finally, Ashlee is departing. And making sure she is getting on that plane Chris L will be escorting her to the airport personally, walking her through the process, and hiring a babysitter to walk her to the departure gate. No Dunkin’ Donutting around this time! Ashlee is freaking out in the car about her fear of flying, which Jacs believes is a cry for attention and not a fear at all.

Chris doesn’t play into it and basically tells her if the plane crashes she’ll probably die. Chris explains that he is tired of the negative affects Ashlee‘s behavior is having on Jacqueline – and no doubt their other children.

As Ashlee is leaving NJ, Jacqueline looks at a photo album and begins to cry. She muses that she hopes Ashlee had a happy childhood and will remember the positives instead of their fights. It was very sad.

Next Week: Teresa and Melissa get into it!

WAS JACQUELINE RIGHT TO KICK ASHLEE OUT? WOULD YOU ACCEPT TERESA’S APOLOGY? THOUGHTS ON MELISSA’S SONG? IS MILANIA THE BEST HOUSEWIFE KID EVER OR WHAT?!

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