I know we’re only one episode in, but I am so glad New Jersey is back. After the heaviness of the past seasons of RHOP and RHOSLC, where everything is infidelity accusations, actual crimes, or mysterious black eyes that will never be solved, there is something delightfully unserious about New Jersey. Example: Everyone shows up to an ’80s roller-rink party, and they don’t even need to go to Party City for an outfit. (That no one showed up in a vintage Bon Jovi concert T-shirt is a little shocking and disappointing to me, to be honest.)
The great thing I feel about New Jersey is how full it is. We have the regular cast but also all of their husbands. We have Frank’s girlfriend, Brittany (not spelled with an I, but it should be), and Dolores’s new boyfriend, Paul. We have Traci Johnson and Tiki Barber getting more time at Melissa’s party than they ever got at the reunion. We have Jackie and Evan hiding along the fringes. We have Lexi, Marge’s assistant and the only person on Earth with an accent more inscrutable than Hilaria Baldwin’s.
Let us not forget about the new people. There is “friend of†Jennifer Thessler, who will hereby and forever be known as “Jent†so we don’t confuse her with Jennifer Aydin. Jent is possibly the chair of every single PTA board in all of America. There are two full-time newbies. Rachel — who, at 32, is younger than the entire cast of Vanderpump Rules — is the mother of Melissa’s son’s best friend. She also used to train with Frank and Brittany because this is Jersey and that’s how things go. Teresa brought a friend, Danielle (not Staub), whom she met because her stepmother is married to Caroline Manzo’s brother, which means she’s also married to Dina Manzo’s brother. I mean, the gene pool in these parts is shallower than Teresa’s birthday gifts.
But I like all of this. I like this big fat extended universe of people you have to invite to parties even though you secretly hate about half of them. This is what I grew up with, albeit with an Irish family in Connecticut, but the similarities are still there. Melissa’s roller-rink party is a good example of this. Everyone comes, they all chat, they show their petty grievances, there’s an argument or two, everyone talks shit about the other people behind their backs, and then they go home. This is not only how the Catholic Jesus intended us to act, but it makes for good, fun, light reality television.
The problem with the season is that no one is over their old shit. Teresa and the Gorgas still hate each other with the burning fire of a million UTIs. Jennifer is pissed at Dolores for something I don’t even remember. Margaret and Teresa haven’t talked since the reunion. It’s as if this whole franchise has been spinning its wheels a little bit.
The good thing about all of this is that the sides have split open. Last season, it was way too much Melissa, Jackie, and Marge against Teresa, Dolores, and Jennifer. Now it’s a mishmash mêlée, and everyone likes one another or hates one another or likes one another but hates their spouses. It always keeps you guessing, and now that Melissa and Teresa have a new avatar in the fight, who knows how things will shake out as the season progresses.
Speaking of new people, I’m a little worried about Dolores and her new boyfriend, Paul, who looks like a gorilla that fell in a vat of Nair. He wants all of Dolores’s attention for himself, and she wants to wrap herself up in his enormous arms and never leave. (I don’t blame her.) The problem is that Dolores and Frank have a modern arrangement. They are exes and co-parents who happen to be best friends and business partners. Paul needs to realize that Frank isn’t going anywhere, and Dolores needs to realize that if there is a man who won’t make room in his life for her unique dynamic with Frank, then it’s never really going to work.
It’s as if Dolores and the rest of the women are cursed. Jennifer is at home doing ancient Turkish ceremonies to get rid of the evil eye. I think all of these women could use it. Even after the ceremony, Jennifer breaks her toe. Then, at the roller rink, Marge breaks her wrist. Frank is in the hospital because all he eats are steroids and beef jerky, and you can’t possibly poop that out. Melissa has a debilitating case of needs-a-story-line-itis. It’s bad news all the way down over here off the Garden State Parkway.
At the roller-skating party, most everyone gets along because they were all just lying on their couches imagining Evan Goldschneider in Zack Morris cosplay and lightly touching themselves. Oh, wait — that was me. Sorry. But mostly everyone gets along because Dolores is avoiding Jen, I think because neither of them remembers what their fight is even about. Teresa also avoids the Gorgas, which is good for getting along, but she does invite Margaret over to her house to air their differences.
I was skeptical when they were getting ready to meet because both women sought an apology. Teresa is still mad that Margaret was saying negative things about Luis, and Margaret is mad that Teresa is an idiot who doesn’t understand that just because Margaret was bringing these things up doesn’t mean she believes them or endorses them, just that she wanted to give Teresa a chance to address them on her own terms. Teresa is now in therapy and talking about how Luis is helping her to be a better person. I didn’t see it until Teresa apologized to Margaret, and they decided to move on.
But let’s be real here: Teresa is going to bring this up the first chance she gets. She says she is working on being a person who doesn’t hold a grudge, but out of the other side of her lightly Botoxed mouth, she’s still saying Melissa is the one who is keeping her and Joe apart. Teresa still doesn’t see how she could have any blame in this scenario, so she’s holding onto this age-old playbook. Supermarkets should ask Teresa her secret and apply it to their produce because nothing ever expires in Teresa’s mind. She’s like a grudge hoarder, taking each one out of its individual wrapper, examining it, and deciding that all need to survive. All of these wrongs (which Teresa brought on herself) must be righted.
Next, everyone gets together at Marge’s house, where Dolores is having all the husbands take shirtless photos for a charity calendar. Dolores has a whole catering spread for all of the guys and their wives and even hired a professional photographer named Jessielyn Palumbo, which is not a real name but a character from a Saturday Night Live sketch. And that is how the “Dad Bods of New Jerseyâ€Â calendar came to be. Special shout-out to my lover, Evan, who makes the finest shirtless basketball player I’ve seen since the dream I had where Juan Dixon and I ran away together and started an all-male, clothing-optional resort in Belize.
While all the beefcake is cooling itself off by eating baked ziti from catering tins, Jennifer is going around telling everyone how Dolores is avoiding her. Then Dolores gets mad that Jennifer is talking about her to everyone without actually talking to her. When Dolores goes over to her, she’s angrier than Frank’s doctor when he shows up to an appointment with a syringe and a Slim Jim. The whole thing devolves into a stupid fight I won’t pretend to understand or care about. I don’t even want this fight. I want more of the guys hamming it up. I want more of the wives taking good care of their boys. I want more jokes in which Joe Benigno tells Joe Gorga to put a hot dog in his mouth because even offhanded homophobia is better than whatever is happening here. And quickly the whole fight is shrouded over with a giant “To Be Continued …†on the screen. But does this need to continue? Jen left the party. What is the continuation? Is there more? There better be more because, with this many new faces around, we’re going to need some new bullshit to fight about.