Well, Teresa Giudice and Joe Gorga finally did go to therapy in this week’s episode, but it wasn’t as memorable as I’d imagined. The build-up was more interesting. In fact, that part of the process produced the night’s funniest line:
“By the time we’re done, that therapist is gonna need a therapist,” Joe Gorga said.
By the time they’re gone, that therapist might follow the same trajectory as Richard Dreyfuss’ character in “What About Bob?”
First, though, let’s recap what else was happening this week.
One day in Montville, the Giudice family is stucco-ing the garage that Joe Giudice has just built. The girls all look adorable in matching overalls and bandannas. Milania is being mouthy, as usual.
A visitor arrives. It’s Rosie! “Who’s Rosie?” one of the girls asks. You know how she is, Teresa says, and with that, we get a flashback to when Rosie was watching all the kids down the Shore (and was so harried later, she needed a drink, pronto).
Rosie is there to confront Teresa about all the stories in the tabloids, especially the ones that attack Rosie’s sister Kathy. “This tabloid [expletive] has to stop,” says Rosie, who really has a way with words.
Teresa assures Rosie that SHE is not the source of the tabloid stories and kisses up to Rosie by saying how much she’s always loved her. “I became a paper route girl because of you,” she tells Rosie.
Next comes another poolside party with the Wakiles and the Gorgas. Joe G. is not too hopeful about the upcoming therapy. “I think it’s very hard to make her understand what she does wrong,” he says of sister Teresa.
Joe then proclaims, “I’m the most sane person you’ll ever meet,” an “angel of God,” he adds.
Even this supportive crowd seems unsure about that.
Rosie shares that therapy helped her. “I went to therapy. I was an angry, angry person.”
Back in Franklin Lakes, we learn that Albie Manzo has a new girlfriend and we news about Jacqueline’s daughter Ashlee, who is about to move to Los Angeles.
“She just got a brand new tattoo of a skull head,” Jacqueline shares. But she’s gotta give her her freedom, right?
“Yeah, give her enough rope to hang herself,” says husband Chris, ever the supportive stepdad.
A little bit later, Caroline Manzo pronounces, “I think Ashlee right now is on a very slippery slope.”
Then, it’s a Sunday again — time for family dinner at the Totowa home of Kathy Wakile’s mother and sister.
Mrs. Pierri tells a genuinely sad story about her childhood. When she was five years old, her dad died and her mother kept a promise to let his childless sister raise the little girl. Some years later, on a December 8 (feast of the Immaculate Conception), she and her aunt (who by then she considered her mother) had to pass her real mother’s house and the aunt asked if she’d like to pay a visit. By that point, she didn’t remember that she’d ever had another mother. Nor did she know that she had siblings. But somehow, she found a way to forgive and move on. The story leaves everyone at the table (and perhaps some viewers) in tears.
Kathy tells the camea that Rosie’s been back living with Mom for six or seven years. She also expresses hope that the Gorga siblings’ therapy will put an end to all their grudge-holding.
Finally, therapy day arrives.
Teresa tells her daughters a little white lie, saying she’s “going to lunch” with Tio Joe.
“Who cares about Tio Joe,” Milania says.
“Stop being fesh,” Teresa says.
Gia’s parting words to her mom: “No drama, right?”
Melissa Gorga then calls her husband to wish him luck.
“I think therapy is the only hope we have,” he tells his wife.
Let’s stay with the therapy story line here, then we’ll circle back to intervening scenes.
Teresa and Joe arrive at West 70 Psychology and the office of family therapist Michael Sweeney. First, he wants to talk to Teresa alone,then to Joe alone, then to them together.
We don’t know if Sweeney watches “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” or if he’s just a perceptive person, but he aptly tells a well-behaved Teresa. “I have a feeling you’re an emotional person.” Right on, Doc.
Sweeney suggests that brother and sister revive their old Sunday dinner tradition. But make sure they don’t bring along all the excess baggage.
“Old grievances get revved up….Please avoid that,” he says.
In their joint session, Teresa mentions that they’re all going on a trip to Napa, and she thinks that the Giudices should share an RV with the Gorgas.
“Don’t,” Sweeney says.
Teresa ignores the advice and says to her brother, “Let’s prove Michael wrong.”
On their way out, we hear the Gorgas bickering again. Joe says he saw a newspaper article saying that he had sold the house his parents were living in and that the Giudices were building an apartment over the new garage for the old folks. Teresa denies this. Joe wonders where such a story would come from. “Maybe Jacqueline,” suggests Teresa, who remembers he former friend talking about that supposed new apartment. Then, they argue about Teresa’s purse, a Louis Vuitton. How can she afford that if she’s broke, Joe wonders?
It’s unclear if this will be their only visit to the therapist, but sadly, it would make sense if that were so. Neither one of them seems to get the concept of therapy. They both seem to want a quick fix, without changing their own behavior. We’ll see.
Rewinding now to those other scenes…
At her Franklin Lakes home, Jacqueline has a chat with her father Jerry. She acknowledges that he’d told her never to drink beer from a bottle, but it’s her home and she feels like it, so there.
They start by discussing the incorrigible Ashlee.
“She’s exhausting,” Jerry says.
“She never accepts responsibility for the things she says or does,” Jac says.
Next topic: Teresa.
“That’s a one-sided friendship,” Jerry says.
Still, Jac says, it’s weird to go from talking to Teresa every single day to not talking at all. She adds, ”We had a lot of laughs, too. It’s a shame.”
Back to the Wakile-Pierri clan….
During that Sunday dinner in Totowa, Kathy had confided that she’d never been to a gay bar. And so, she and Rosie head off to the Cubbyhole with Heather Robinson, the sexy wife of former NET Cliff Robinson. We’d met that couple in a previous episode, at the Gorgas’ Shore house, where Rosie and Heather were flirting in the hot tub. At the Cubbyhole, Heather says, “I’ll kiss a girl.” Kathy thinks that strange.
Then, Kathy goes on a hunt to find someone for Rosie. She discovers a pretty blonde and introduces her to her sister, but Rosie keeps forgetting the woman’s name.
Previews for next week’s episode suggest we’ll be meeting Albie Manzo’s new girlfriend, Lindsey, “a professional football cheerleader.”
Caroline says that everyone thinks she’s the gatekeeper,but in truth, her daughter is. “Lauren is the one you have to get through,” Caroline says of the girlfriend screening.
And so, another Jersey tale comes to a close. But the story never ends.
Same time, next week …