Even Vulture readers who aren’t huge fans of The Real Housewives of New Jersey have likely heard by now that series star Teresa Giudice and her husband Joe are both going to prison after pleading guilty to multiple counts of mail, wire, bank, and bankruptcy fraud. Teresa will go to jail for 15 months starting in January, and when she returns, Joe will serve 41 months. Over the weekend, the two future convicts sat down with Bravo bigwig Andy Cohen to do their first post-sentencing interview, which aired last night. Well, the first part did, anyway — part two will air at a later date because this is Bravo and if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing, chopping into a million bits, and airing in bloody chunks over the course of a month. So while Real Housewives junkies had expected this special to answer all of our questions, it only brought up more. Here are 98 questions I had while watching the interview.
1–2. Couldn’t we tone Andy Cohen’s clubhouse down just a little bit this one? Is a Coney Island–themed gay bar really the right atmosphere for an interview about prison?
3–4. Is this the nicest Joe Giudice has ever looked? Where do you buy a three-piece suit that comes both that wide and that short?
5. Did Teresa get her outfit from the Lindsay Lohan for Court line at Sears?
6–7. Joe didn’t think he was going to get that much jail time? Isn’t three and a half years a lot less than the 50 years that they were facing if convicted of all counts?
8–10. Has Teresa ever not known what to say before? Does she sound like Miss White from Clue to you? Is “Um. I was getting … I was so nervous yesterday, I was shake-shaking. My nerves, my nerves were pulling …†her “Flames. Flames, on the side of my face�
11–14. Is Andy Cohen’s only reaction-face one where he nods with a side-cocked grin? Is the speed of the nod indicative of how he feels? Does he do a slow nod for concerned and a fast nod for excited? Is Andy Cohen’s side-cocked grin-nod like a dog’s wagging tail?
15–16. When Teresa says, “I do need to read things before I sign them. I do need to understand things before I sign them,†does she realize that, if her husband wasn’t breaking the law, he wouldn’t put things in front of her that would be illegal to sign? If you can’t trust your husband not to do things to send you to prison, who can you trust?
17–18. Is Teresa going to cry? When is Teresa going to cry?
19–23. Teresa didn’t understand that her plea bargain could send her to prison for 27 months? Didn’t she just say that she needs to understand things before she signs them? Did that take effect after she signed her bum plea agreement, or after she signed all those falsified bank documents? Also, what would make Teresa understand? A crayon drawing on a Denny’s place mat, maybe?
24–26. Wow, is Teresa really this messed up? Is she going to make it through this ordeal without having a mental breakdown? Am I actually feeling bad for Teresa Giudice, a convicted criminal?
27. Is it wrong for them to think that Teresa shouldn’t go to jail when she was guilty of signing things?
28–30. Is Andy Cohen trying to get a Pulitzer for this interview, holding their feet to the fire like this? Do you think he went over to Anderson Cooper’s West Village firehouse and they worked out shirtless while going over pointers on how to interview criminals? Did I just write slash fiction?
31–32. Does Joe even know the danger he was putting Teresa in by making her sign false loan forms? Does he think that he’s going to convince us he didn’t know exactly how he was breaking the law when he was doing it?
33–35. Joe is a simple guy who didn’t want more money to keep up with the Joneses? Have you two seen the onyx palace you live in? If you didn’t want all that money, why did you break the law to get it?
36–38. Teresa doesn’t spend money she doesn’t have? Then how are they $11 million dollars in debt? Isn’t the very meaning of debt spending money you don’t have?
39–44. How much do you think Joe Giudice’s suit cost? That is a $125 suit? Where do you even get this two-suits-two-shirts-two-ties-for-$250 deal? Is it a store in a strip-mall in New Jersey next to Porsche? Why won’t Andy tell us how much his suit cost? Is he embarrassed?
45–47. Is Teresa not going to cry? Even after talking about seeing her mother after her prison sentence, she’s still not going to cry? What is it going to take to get Teresa to cry?
48-51. How messed up is poor Gia going to be now that her parents are going to prison and she has to help raise her sisters? Guidance counselors meet with students whose parents are going to prison? Is that going to help Gia? My guidance counselor used to give me passes to go smoke cigarettes outside of the school — was that wrong?
52–57. What is life going to be like in the Giudice house when Teresa is in jail? What will happen if Gia gets her first period while her mom is in the slammer? Can you imagine her having to go to Joe and tell him and get his advice? Wouldn’t it be better to just Google “How to put in a tampon†than to have Joe Giudice walk you through it? Oh my God, would they call Melissa Gorga and have her come over and tell her? Would they film it for the show? That would be an amazing scene on the show.
58–60. How are they even making money now other than the Housewives? Does Joe have a job? Do that many people buy Fabellinis?
61–65. They really haven’t told the daughters anything? Those kids have no idea what is happening? They don’t think Milania and Gabriella know what’s going on? Seriously, they don’t think one kid’s parent who watches the show said anything to their kid, and that kid hasn’t told one of them? If you’re old enough to understand Adventure Time, aren’t you old enough to understand that your parents are going to prison?
66–67. Is Joe going to cry talking about his dead father? Is Joe going to cry before Teresa?
68–71. Am I really feeling sympathy for these people right now? Sure, I know their kids and feel for them and understand it’s hard to lose a parent, but am I supposed to feel bad for people who committed actual crimes and are now going to jail for those crimes? I wouldn’t feel bad if some random guy who committed white-collar crime went to jail, would I? Am I just conditioned to root for the people I follow on reality-television programs?
72–75. Is she really not going to tell the kids she’s going to prison? How is she going to explain where she is to the kids when they, you know, come to visit her in prison? Will her daughter ask, “Mommy, why do we have to talk to you on a phone?†Or “Why is there a glass wall between us?â€
76–80. Are you more scared for Teresa in jail than Joe? Have you seen the way Teresa can wig out on a person and flip a table or yank out a weave? Do you really think she won’t be able to handle herself in the slammer? Isn’t she more ready than stupid Piper on Orange Is the New Black? Do you hate that limp-haired sniveling jerk as much as I do?
81. Can either Joe or Teresa string together five words without an “um,†“like,†or “you know�
82–85. Do you think Teresa is going to come out with a book of beauty secrets that she learned in prison? Can “Just Slick Your Hair Back and Go About Your Day†be the first chapter of a best-seller? Oh my God, is this Teresa being humble and eschewing the evil, materialistic, beauty-obsessed harridan that she used to be? Is Teresa going to (gulp) actually learn something about being a good person from this experience?
86–87. Does Teresa finally realize that all that matters is her children? Can she do without the huge palace and the $3,000 purses and the Ugg boots in every color and the Swarovski-encrusted iPhone cases?
88–91. If Teresa isn’t the same person who pushed Andy Cohen at that reunion, as she says, do you think maybe she should become that person again to get through prison? Also, former Housewife Danielle Staub went to prison, do you think she has any tips for Teresa before she goes away? What do you think Danielle Staub is doing right now? Do you think she’s in a condo in Wayne somewhere, wringing out one of her wife-beaters she just washed in the sink and staring out the window into the little bit of woods behind her house, wondering what is out there, wondering what is next for her, wondering if this is what revenge feels like, this warm glowing in the pit of her stomach and the heavy, leaden dread weighing her feet down to the floor?
92–98. If no one can push Teresa’s buttons like they used to be able to, is she ruined as a Real Housewife? If she’s lost the ability to scrap, is she worth anything to Andy Cohen anymore? Shouldn’t Bravo pay the Giudice’s lawyer fees? Or at least the $829,176 in fines they were sentenced to pay? Don’t they owe them that much? They’re getting all these ratings and have been making all this money off of Teresa and Joe for all these years, can’t they kick in a little bit, too? Or should they just be fined for aiding and abetting, for harboring these two remorseless criminals all these years?