As it always does, the Real Gabaghouls of the Bada Bing gets off to a rip-roaring start and, as it always does, settles into something not nearly as exciting. I didn’t think it would get there by the third episode, but that’s how inflation works, baby. Or is it climate change? Or is it COVID fatigue? Or is it cancel culture? Or is it Wordle? Is it all of them? Is it none of them? I don’t know anymore. I just want some of those delicious-looking chicken wings and mini sandwiches and a nap that lasts until the next Trump presidency is over.
We still have the conflict over Marge exposing Bill Aydin’s past affair, and it’s a storyline I think curdled like last week’s half-and-half. I get why Margaret did it, but I still don’t buy her justification. Of course Jennifer doesn’t like women who cheat; she was a woman who was cheated on. Her talking about women cheating but having a husband who cheated isn’t hypocritical; it’s understandable. But I also agree with Team Marge in that Jennifer has said lots of awful things to most of the women on the show, it’s time for a taste of her own medicine, and by medicine, I mean Turkish plastic surgery. (Wait, is this why I keep getting browser ads for Turkey’s Number-One Bariatric Surgeon? Is it cause I write about Jennifer?)
But like Traci, an “It’s Wine O’Clock” pillow from HomeGoods in a skimpy top, I think that the women are gloating a little too much over Jennifer’s suffering. She is right about Margaret; she has such blind hatred of Jennifer she can’t see a woman who is truly in pain. And poor Bill, the sad collateral damage in this whole thing. He always seemed like a nice, fun guy, and now he has to have his indiscretion paraded around in front of everyone like the contestants in the Miss Franklin Lakes pageant brought to you by Tremont Morgan Tire Irons, the Official Tire Irons of the Garden State. We need more for this season.
Maybe we’ll get it in the fight between Jackie and Dolores. That is the one spark to the episode, and, of course, we have to wait for next week to see the guys break it up and nothing really happen. It is time that Dolores gets called out on her loyalty. She is always trying so hard to play both sides of any issue that she’s worn out the crotches on all of her jeans riding the fence. I didn’t think it was going to be Jackie to expose this, but here we are. Jackie is trying to tell Jennifer that Dolores isn’t a good friend, and the implications of that would be like a grenade going off inside a pineapple-shaped ice luge. (Didn’t I tell you that pineapples are so last season?)
If this storyline fizzles out, where will the drama come from? Is it going to be that everyone hates Teresa’s new man Luis who has the complexion of that weird piece of paper that you have to peel from the bottom of a pound of ground beef? He looks like a villain, but I don’t know. He decides to be a peace broker to the Gorga/Giudice clan so that Milania can not be mad at Zio Joe for something he said about her father. What’s weird about this, though, is that it’s not something he even says in front of the girls; he says it in front of his sister, who continues to defend the indefensible. The only reason they know about it is because they watched it on the show so can they even be mad? I don’t know. Sure. Why not?
Luis has everyone over to his house, which has a pizza oven on the back deck because apparently his home was made over on an HGTV show. They all eat pizza, and then he tells them to write something they want to gain from the group on a piece of paper and something they want to let go of on a piece of paper. Is this what you learn when you go to the beach and hang out with a bunch of naked guys? No one really plays this game, but they all decide to let go of their anger for Joe Giudice or Joe Gorga or whatever Joe they’re mad at, and we all move on. I don’t know; Luis seems kinda sweet to me.
So is the drama going to be between Jackie and Evan? I don’t think so because he seems like a very supportive partner, and the picture of him as a shirtless frat boy holding a keg just had me renew my subscription to Fraternity X. (That is a joke for gays only. If you don’t get it, don’t Google it.) I was very interested in Jackie talking about her eating disorder and how the stress or last season made her relapse. Eating disorders are awful, insidious things, and, just like we saw with Kyle Richards before her, the thing that Jackie is the most worried about is passing her bad relationship with food onto her children. That could be some good drama on an individual level, but will it sustain us for the season?
What about Dolores and David? Oh wait, that ended. And just like that (don’t worry, there is no Che Diaz here), they are broken up. Dolores says she realized that she wanted more from him. Oh? Really? You mean just what everyone on the cast has been telling her for the last three seasons? I would never have guessed.
Maybe the drama will be with Dolores and Frank and their kids, who strangely both call him Frank. I guess it’s not that strange that they never lived in the same house as him because Do divorced him when Dr. Gabby was 2 and Frankie was still in utero (which is also Nirvana’s best album). I would actually watch a sitcom about this family even if the actor who played Frankie is only half as hot as him. This could be good, but I’m not hanging my hat on it.
We know that the drama will come from Margaret, but it will be by attacking the other women, and I hope this time it is Teresa’s turn. Maybe she’ll bring the drama because it’s not coming from Joe Gorga, who says “expresso” with no irony at all, or Margaret’s assistant Lexi whose accent is just a million Russian bots put in a Vitamix and then gargled with some razor blades. Who else do we have left? Jennifer? Tiki Barber? Tony the Pool Guy? I don’t know, but if there is only one fight that I’m already sick of this season, it’s going to be a long year indeed.