I get it, I get it. Given that this is the penultimate episode of the season, there was going to be a lot more talking and a lot less action than we might like. Action, I think, we get next week, when Joe Gorga probably starts throwing punches and Teresa ugly cries and Penny kicks off her high heels and runs for her life as Jacqueline rips the weave off her head and Kathy desperately asks, “WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?” It’s pretty clear the wheels are about to come off the wagon, but no way are we going to see anything more than a loosening of the bolts this week.
What we did see, however, is that Melissa really can’t sing. Wow, can she not sing. While watching her 24-hour music boot camp in Florida (to which I ask, why just 24 hours? Bravo couldn’t afford a bigger bribe? Because seriously, she needs the full two weeks and even then I don’t have much hope), we join her for a singing lesson. Either the coach is a miracle worker or Melissa lip-synched (horrors!) while performing for an audience at XL 106.7, because I cannot understand how someone who sounds like a cat in a blender one minute can suddenly hit all the right, suspiciously amplified notes just one day later.
Even though Joe says he’ll be the “first one to tell you she’s not perfect” as a singer, he still thinks she has the voice of an angel, which suggests to me that Joe thinks angels are really hot chicks who can sometimes hit the right notes while crooning tunelessly in the shower. I’m now wondering which church Joe to learn about angels, but I suspect he probably wasn’t paying much attention in any case.
While Melissa is now on the path to thirtysomething mom pop stardom (is this a Lifetime movie, because it feels like a Lifetime movie), Teresa is having lunch with her “Celebrity Apprentice” co-star Victoria Gotti. Victoria knows something about having a husband in the slammer, and even though she wants to offer Teresa helpful tips, like how Joe can hide a shiv during a cavity search, Teresa doesn’t want to “talk legal.” What’s almost cute is that the show is putting an emphasis on how Joe is facing jail time for trying to get a driver’s license posing as his brother. He could face ten whopping years for that! Aww, remember the good old days, when Joe Giudice was only facing ten years instead of, like, 50?
Ah, ignorance is bliss! So, Teresa is able to shrug off the idea of anything bad happening to her boo boo and just worry about whether or not Penny is going to throw her under the bus at the Posche 2 party. And because a battle featuring Teresa, Melissa and Penny isn’t enough fun, we also discover that Penny’s husband has been tweeting crappy things about Jacqueline’s autistic son, so she is also going to be there to poke her fingers into Penny’s bony clavicle. Kathy and Caroline show up because it’s the season finale and they might as well add to the screaming.
After most of the episode being spent on Melissa, Teresa and Jacqueline quietly talking to friends and significant others about what they want to say and what they think will be said when the Pennypalooza happens, we finally get to the party (oh, there’s also some time spent on Caroline’s sons restaurant opening, which looks all kinds of sucky). Jacqueline is the first to spot Penny across the room, and soon all of our “RHoNJ” stars are stomping through the crowd like assassins in a James Bond movie, and Jacqueline gets to throw the first hammer. Why is your rank husband writing nasty things about my kid? WHY, PENNY, WHY?
Penny babbles that he isn’t, and that she and her husband are being asked to do this by someone else, which even Jacqueline realizes is totally contradictory. But Penny, who is drowning before the fun has even begun, tries to desperately swim to safety. “I love autistic kids!” she croaks. “I taught autism!” I am really hoping she didn’t teach autism OR teach autistic kids, because either one sounds like a terrible option. Anyway, things are just getting interesting when time runs out and gosh, we’ll just have to watch that season finale next week, won’t we?
Even more exciting? Andy Cohen’s “Watch What Happens Live” will feature Teresa and Joe Giudice breaking their silence, which I’m fairly sure means them staring at Andy balefully and saying, “On the advice of our lawyers we have no comment.” The thrills never stop!
Will you be watching next week? Do you think Joe Gorga will throw punches? Do you think all that nutty twiggy stuff in Arizona was a total waste of time except for the massages and booze?