The Real Housewives of New Jersey Recap: Autopiloting and Altercating
Even after all the things that Jennifer Constance Aydin (not her real name) has said on this here television program, there was one thing she said in this episode that I was not prepared for. It was so wonderfully nasty, so mouthwateringly disgusting that I had to rewind the program to make sure I heard her correctly. She said, “I’ll have the garlic-knot chicken parm.” Excuse me, the who say what now? What in the type 2 diabetes is this and how do I get my hands on it immediately? I live in London and we do not have chicken parm here (as much as New Jersey Italians might tell you differently, it is an American creation), and we also don’t have garlic knots. To get the two together? Oh me, oh my, give me a freakin’ cardiac arrest, you disgusting beast.
But how is that possible? How is this thing constructed? Do they take stale garlic knots and use it as the breading on a classic chicken parm? Well, I did a little bit of research and found the menu for Capital Craft, the establishment where Teresa and Jen have lunch. Whatever you thought it might be, it’s even better: A chicken-parm sandwich where the roll is an enormous garlic knot. I don’t know if you just heard that faint rumbling on the horizon and thought that it was a summer thunderstorm, but it is not. That was my stomach, all the way from the United Kingdom, buying a premium economy ticket to Newark airport to get my ass to that garlic-knot chicken parm as soon as humanly possible and hating myself for it as I lie in the passenger seat of my rental Volkswagen Gulf in the parking lot trying to recover from eating two of them (and a couple cannoli) in one sitting.
But the lunch at Capital Craft, which has just been awarded 19 Michelin stars for gastronomic innovation, was interesting for other reasons as well, namely Jen finally confronting Teresa about how she never has her back. Of course she doesn’t! Teresa has never had another person’s back her entire life. She reminds me of Donald Trump in so many ways: She creates her own reality, she only listens to the yes men surrounding her, she wants her mediocre family involved in everything she does, she demands blind loyalty, she drags all of her associates down to the lowest level, and as soon as they are no longer useful to her she disregards them and lets them deal with the ignominy of everything they did in her service all on their own.
Jen calls the lunch because she says that Teresa hurt her and she needs to tell her about it or else her “autopilot” to defend Teresa will diminish. This idea of “autopilot” defense is what is ruining this show (and if we want to continue the political metaphor above, also modern American politics). Jen never weighs the facts or Teresa’s argument before rushing to her defense. The same thing with the other women and Marge or Melissa. The only one who looks at things objectively and follows her own code of ethics is Dolores, and that is why everyone loves her. It’s everyone else sticking with their side no matter how ridiculous the arguments they come up with are that makes us all roll our eyes and focus, instead, on an impossible sandwich that sounds so much more appealing than this trench warfare.
At the lunch, Teresa seems to understand Jen’s point and says that of course Jen is a better friend to her than Danielle, but that Teresa couldn’t really defend Jen in that moment because she was about to go wow the crowd with her diary entries at the N$m$st$ B$tch$s live podcast taping. Okay, swept under the carpet. But Jen did say that she often sees Teresa “altercating,” which is the best word usage I’ve heard on this show since “ingredientses.”
What Teresa is really worked up about, however, is this court case that Luis has against his ex, a therapist. She’s looking for a permanent restraining order against Luis because she claims Bo Deitl sent a woman in as a patient who then pressed her for information about her relationship with Luis. I don’t know, based on what we’ve heard about Luis and Bo Deitl so far — contacting John Fuda’s ex, calling Marge’s son at his job — this totally sounds like something he would do. (You can read all about her lawsuit, which was denied, here.) Dolores and others are worried that Luis is getting Teresa too worked up about this whole thing and she’s not eating and too stressed out. Teresa is worried that it’s not going to wrap up before the season is finished filming so that she can expose Margaret’s part in the whole lawsuit. Now, I don’t doubt that Marge got involved somehow. I also don’t doubt that Teresa is totally blowing her involvement out of proportion and has jumped to conclusions about Marge that are just totally untrue.
Teresa’s problem with the lawsuit, as she explains to Gia while Gia studies for her LSATs, is that Luis’s ex is spreading rumors about him. “You don’t put lies out there about someone and try to hurt them in any way. You don’t do that,” Teresa says. Oh you don’t? Hmmm. I wonder what Evan Goldschneider would think about that, considering Teresa spread the lies about his supposed affair at the gym. Or what about her sister-in-law Melissa? Wasn’t Teresa lying about her being a stripper and put that on television? Weren’t her and Jen also behind Danielle bringing up that Melissa was cheating on Joe just to hurt her? But we don’t put rumors out there to hurt people, right, Teresa? Well, here is a rumor I’m putting out there to hurt Teresa: She buys her panties at Dollar Tree. As far as I’m concerned, that’s totally true.
Speaking of Marge, Joe and Melissa go over her house so that Joe Gorga, who used to be a landscaper, and Joe Benigno can fell a dead tree in the Josephs-Benigno backyard. While the boys are outside playing with their enormous wood, Marge is inside telling Melissa about how Joe Benigno might have prostate cancer. Okay, the last time I talked about this, I was a little bit flippant about prostate cancer, calling it, “the easiest of all the cancers.” That wasn’t very nice and I ask for both Joe and Marge’s forgiveness. All cancers suck. (Isn’t it Victoria Denise Gunvalson Jr. who implored us to Kill All Cancer?) People die from prostate cancer all the time and I shouldn’t be making jokes about it. Also Joe B. has always been a wonderful, stand-up guy and a great partner to Marge. He deserved better than that and I hope that he is all right and has a speedy recovery.
In other prostate news, when all the women gather at Rachel’s for an upscale slumber party, Jen Aydin tells the women that she “milks the prostate” but makes a hand motion like she’s giving head and using her right hand to sweeten the deal. I don’t think that Jen knows what this means and that it usually includes a few fingers up the man’s butthole. I have, in fact, had my prostate milked and it is fucking amazing and I implore every man to give it a whirl. However, if that gentleman’s wife has nails like Jen Aydin’s, or really any of the women on the cast, I would suggest getting one of those double-headed dildos they were so upset about in the premiere, rather than the wife’s fingers. Those talons are going to perforate a colon with a swiftness, and no one wants to go to the emergency room with a gel tip stuck in the rectum.
Other than that little detour, the pajama party is a low-stress event. Everyone gets along; Jen Fessler and Rachel put their weird beef behind them. (This beef might as well be an Impossible Burger because it is both fake and I want nothing to do with it.) The one highlight is that Danielle shows up late with a sheet cake she made with little wafer-cookie portraits of the ladies in the cast on the top. However, she also made a Jen Aydin that’s falling off the cake, has messy hair, a bad nose job, and an attitude problem. Everyone asks if that’s Jen and Danielle says, “No comment.” We knew exactly what it is, though. It’s some petty bullshit. It’s some unserious clownery, and I commend Danielle on her efforts. This is the kind of stupid behavior that we should be encouraging. No more autopilot-ing, no more altercating, no more launching diatribes at people just because they’re on the wrong side of the divide. Just a dumb cookie falling off a cake, holding on for dear life, knowing that, in about an hour, it will wind up in the same place as Melissa’s famous sprinkle cookies: right in the trash.