It’s been overwhelming and heartening to see everyone suddenly pay attention to my greatest love, reality television, these past months, because of Vanderpump Rules and the #Scandoval.
But y’all are brand new.
You paid close attention to one season of the show, because it was in the news. Maybe you caught up on past seasons Bravo’s handy watch guide. It’s really cute. But some of us have invested a decade into this. And it’s finally paying off.
You can have your #Scandoval. I’ll have what is the greatest three episodes of my life: the Real Housewives of New Jersey Season 13 reunion.
I laughed. I cried. Mostly, I was so uncomfortable that I wanted my skin to be a sweatshirt I could rip off and burn, and then donate the embers as ash for Dolores Catania’s next smoky eye (she’s looking so good!).
I remember in Little League being told that if you put in the work, it will pay off. I still can’t hit a baseball, but I have spent 10 years following the drama between Teresa Giudice and her sister-in-law, Melissa Gorga, and—if I’m using sports metaphors correctly (who could say)—I’m finally getting my home run.
Every year, Bravo fans debate what is the best iteration of the Real Housewives franchise airing at the moment. Sometimes it’s a surprise (as Ariana DeBose would say, Potomac, you did the thing). Sometimes it takes catching up (I slept for far too long on Miami; you shouldn’t do the same). And sometimes it’s a hard truth (New York needed a reboot, but I’m still dubious). But that’s all conversation bubbling over what all Bravo fans know: No one does it like New Jersey does it.
If you watched all three parts of the RHONJ reunion, well, you’re probably walking around the block smoking a cigarette and wondering, “Was she actually speaking Italian?” If you haven’t, I would liken it to the worst family fight you could ever imagine at Thanksgiving dinner, finally coming to fruition after a decade, while everyone is wearing ball gowns.
Real Housewives of New Jersey fans have put in the work. The #Scandoval? A flash in the pan. We’ve been tracking the Teresa vs. Melissa drama since “Tik Tok” was just a song on the radio by Kesha—back when she had a “$” in her name.
The pleasure and the pain of RHONJ is just how ingrained all the relationships are. They are the most riotous, joyous, and most fun cast of any reality TV show, when they are getting along. And they are the darkest, most disturbing when they are not. Finally, we addressed the latter point, in a horrifying reunion that finally let Teresa and Melissa unleash on each other.
It was a reunion that excavated deep-rooted family trauma, and which also inexplicably referenced Bo Dietl so many times that I’m afraid people now know who Bo Dietl is.
Recapping all the history between Teresa and her sister-in-law, Melissa, would require a War and Peace (or Barbra Streisand memoir)-level page count. But suffice it to say that, both on the show and in the Bravo fandom, battle lines have been drawn: You’re either Team Teresa or Team Melissa.
It wouldn’t be outrageous to say that Teresa Giduice is the reason that Real Housewives is a phenomenon we all know about. She’s the one that flipped the table. She also hit on the reason why her franchise, RHONJ, works so well, even if it is the bane of her existence: It was built on family.
Teresa has held a decade-long grudge over how Melissa joined the show, rooted in whether or not Melissa’s desire to get on TV was thirsty. It is a complaint that not a single human cares about anymore, except for Teresa, who has seeded it, nurtured it, and watched it blossom into a reality TV phenomenon so stressful, I had to make sure my bottle of Tums was next to my wine while I watched it explode.
The fighting in this RHONJ reunion was so ugly and unpleasant. Andy Cohen, who was moderating the discussion, had the right cycle of reactions: He lost his patience and screamed at everybody to shut up, then felt bad about yelling, but ultimately was right for doing so. I also lost my patience while watching them go at it.
Here’s my take: Whatever the initial drama between Melissa and Teresa was, it happened so long ago that it’s ridiculous to keep bringing it up (which Teresa does every other minute). It motivates every sentence Teresa speaks on the show, which has become, a decade later, unreasonable. So when Melissa attempts to talk through actual, new drama on the show with Teresa, she’s met with a brick wall of irrationality. I think they are both in the wrong, and I think that their respective spouses, Joe Gorga and Louie Ruelas, are the two most vile men on television. But when one person is coming from a place of logic and reason, and another is screaming delusions, it’s enough already.
This is something I think about during every Pride Month: how many times in my life I am forced to come out. What I didn’t realize is, as a Bravo fan, how many times I would have to come out as Team Melissa.
My Real Housewives Group Chat still refuses to acknowledge that truth, but I am who I am, and I stand behind it. Teresa has spent the last years as a human fire torch, attempting to burn Melissa and Joe to the ground. If you watch each reunion and every (or most) fights, you know they try to reason with her. But she’s basically just a human air horn at this point, blaring any time either one of them speaks.
I thought I was so over this Teresa and Melissa drama, but lo and behold, this was the most captivating I’ve ever found a season of RHONJ to be. That said, I need the fighting to go away. It was gratifying for this reunion trilogy, but it’s too dark to continue. RHONJ is always a little more disturbing than the other shows in the franchise. As my friend (rightly) joked, “What other reality show is giving, ‘He put my mother in her fucking grave?’”
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