Real Housewives of New Jersey: “Have a good life…or die, I don’t care.”
I…I just…I don’t know where to start. There’s just too much. It was too good. And just to think, the Real Housewives of New Jersey has only just begun. So we’ll go one by one, I suppose, until we get to know the ladies (broads?) better and get more of a storyline.
We’ll start off where the show started - Teresa. Teresa might be the tannest person on the show (which is quite the…accomplishment?) and may also be the tannest person I’ve ever seen in my entire life. We won’t even talk about the hair line, because I’ve yet to decide if it’s natural or a lace front yet, and if it’s a weave, she needs to find a new weavologist. Her husband is so swollen, oiled-up, and greasy that I felt like I needed to go wash my face after seeing him. She describes him as “juicy,” which is just about as disgusting of a word as I can even imagine to describe his state of being. He owns a “construction business” which they might as well just call a “concrete business” - it smells like a mob front from all the way over here. Teresa watches the three kiddos (two of which are cute, the oldest of which looks like she might be possessed by Satan), pretends she’s not a stage mom, and spends her husband’s juicy money on tacky furniture for their palatially tacky new house. She’s also contemplating spending some of it on new “buhbbies,” which are forthcoming. Can you wait? I can’t. Teresa isn’t part of The Family (I’ll explain in a moment), but she actually does appear to be friends with the rest of the women in real life, unlike a lot of the Real Housewives in other cities. She also makes the best facial expressions of any of the women, by FAR.
Next, Caroline. She’s the matriarch of sorts of The Family - three of this season’s housewives are related. She’s the oldest and toughest of them and she’s got three grown kids with her husband. One is going in to law school and the other two work at the Brownstone banquet hall, which is the family business. My FAVORITE moment of this episode was watching her two grown sons fight over which of them was more of a douche - to which, I think, the only answer is that they are both TREMENDOUSLY douchey. And they both obviously know that. Which is part of the charm of this season so far - these women appear to at least partly understand that they’re ridiculous, and they embrace it. Caroline’s part in this episode was fairly tame, but if the previews are any indication, I am going to be terrified of her by the time we’re done with this.
And then there’s Dina, Caroline’s sister and wedding-reality-show alum. Dina also works at the Brownstone as an event planner since she is married to her sister’s husband’s brother - try to wrap your head around that for a moment. Two sisters, married to two brothers. Dina, I think, is a bit quicker on the uptake than she seems. Which is to say, she seems like a total idiot at first, but I don’t think she is. She has a daughter from a previous marriage that seems to be so spoiled that she will surely make some poor guy totally miserable in a few years, and she also has a feud going with Housewife Danielle, which seems totally reasonable, based on what we know about both of them.
The most interesting information about Dina and Caroline? The brothers that they married are the son of a real Made Man. Their father-in-law, Alberto ‘Tiny’ Manzo, was found shot to death, naked and hogtied, in the trunk of his Lincoln back in the 80s. There are very few times in my life where I get to use the phrase “naked and hogtied,” so just let that one sink in for a second.
And we’ve got Jacqueline, sister-in-law of Dina and Caroline. She’s married to their brother, and has therefore been inducted as part of The Family. She’s the non-native Jerseyan (Jersian? Jerseyite?) of the group, but that doesn’t mean she can’t still fall victim to the terrible hair that the state of New Jersey apparently imparts on all of its residents (or maybe just its residents that star in reality shows). She, like Dina, also has a daughter from a previous marriage and also a son with her current husband. She wants more babies (not to be confused with buhbbies - she already has plenty of those), and apparently can’t have them, which we’ll learn more about as the season goes on. She seems generally good-natured, but I guess most people do after about an hour of airtime.
Lastly, Danielle. Holy crackers, Danielle. She’s friends with Jacqueline and really NOT friends with Dina, which will assuredly be a problem for her in the future. Danielle takes up most of this episode’s mini plot by attempting to meet up with an internet interest named GucciModel with whom she has been having naughty phone conversations for two years. She has no idea what his real name is, and apparently won’t ever know it because he totally stands her up at their date. Jacqueline and Teresa had played detective, though, so they were hiding at the restaurant (with enormous binoculars), ready to swoop in. And they did, although no one knows what they actually did after that. Danielle seems totally and utterly unstable, particularly when it comes to men, which should make for some FANTASTIC television in weeks to come. Also, she has one of the most painful-looking boob jobs (and eye jobs, while we’re at it) that I’ve ever seen. For someone that was formerly married to a multi-millionaire, you’d think she would have invested a couple grand in getting some buhbbies that don’t look like bolted-on grapefruit halves. Seriously. Ouch.
But that’s the moral to the Jersey story, folks: money doesn’t buy taste or decorum. And these ladies - who are actually housewives, unlike a lot of the other seasons - know it. And they love it. They seem a lot more candid and real (in a ridiculous way) than some of the others, and that’s what’s going to keep me coming back week after week. I can’t wait until the real plotlines get going…
Original post by Amanda Mull