Last week on The Real Housewives of New Jersey, the twins decided not to confront Amber (after she called Nicole a homewrecker) at her home in front of her kids because they thought it wasn’t the time or place. While it’s a relief they came to that decision, their new plan isn’t much better. Teresa and Nicole are going to wait until Bobby’s party to bring it up. Poor unsuspecting Bobby.
She’s a Wreck
Joe and Melissa bring the car into the dealer to have Melissa’s Bentley fixed. She keeps wrecking it, and when the dealer sees they’re back again, he’s happy because she’s his best customer. Apparently, Melissa’s done over $100,000 worth of damage to this car already. At that point, it seems like it would be cheaper to just hire a driver.
Melissa tells Joe what the twins told her about Amber’s husband, Jim. They say he didn’t want to go to guys’ night out because he couldn’t be seen with Joe Giudice while he’s dealing with all of his legal issues. Joe’s already getting worked-up that Jim is talking about his family, so when Melissa tells him that he’ll be at the First Responders party, he says he’s going to want to have a few words with him.
Dina is going through her closet with her friend Luke. She has a hall of shoes, which holds 400 pairs of shoes. She says shoes are her only vice. I’ll say. She tells Luke that she’s not quite ready to date, but she still has her needs. Being the good friend that he is, Luke suggests something of the battery persuasion.
Melissa and Teresa meet the twins at Abracadabra, a costume shop where they’re picking out what to wear to the First Responders party. They all do some more talking about Amber. Melissa says she’s definitely not the same girl she used to know. They also tell Teresa what Amber’s husband said about them. Teresa admits that it hurts when people judge her family without even knowing them, but at the end of the day, she can’t worry about what everyone else thinks of her.
Changes are Coming
Back at the Giudice mansion that stolen money bought, Milania is squirreling away change of her own in couch cushions. Besides teaching her kids to earn their money honestly, Teresa wants them to learn from her mistakes and not be so hot-headed, like she used to be.
Either Joe is trying really hard to act like a good father in front of the cameras this year or he really does realize his time is precious, because he’s being a lot more attentive to Teresa and the girls this season. He shows them the family picture they all took and tells his girls that they have to know that family is the most important thing in their lives. He says friends will come and go, but sisters are forever.
Amber’s family is shooting the commercial for Jim’s mortgage company. He admits in his confessional that he doesn’t love what he does, but he does it because it provides for his family. He lets their oldest son Michael, 13, make his directorial debut for the commercial. The Marcheses admit the commercials are cheesy, but it’s become a family tradition.
Nicole visits Dina at her home. She thinks her hairless cats are strange looking. Join the club, Nicole. Nicole complains that she’s already missing the spark she used to have with Bobby, and they’ve only been dating a few months. She’s worried that he might be too mellow for her.
She offers to set Dina up with a nice, good-looking single guy she knows. Dina appreciates the offer, but she tells her she’s not quite ready yet. She says maybe she’ll be more willing next month, when Earth is aligned with Venus. Dina is weird.
Wrong First Response
Nicole and Bobby are getting ready for the party. Nicole went ahead and invited the guy for Dina to meet even though she asked her not to. She met Bobby at a Dunkin’ Donuts, so she thinks Dina should be open to meeting someone new.
Unlike the other ladies, Dina didn’t seek out a skanky outfit to wear to the party. She tries to find something sexy to wear, but she’s never been good at playing dress-up, so she settles on wearing scrubs to the party.
Melissa dresses as a SWAT team member, even though she has no idea what SWAT stands for. Figures. And Teresa’s in a sexy nurse costume, complete with white fishnets. Joes Gorga and Giudice start in on a bottle in the limo and are slurring their words not long after. They’re already getting worked-up about meeting Jim Marchese. Lord knows it will probably only escalate from here.
Nicole is also feeling confrontational about Amber. She says the only words that she wants to hear from Amber are “sorry” and “goodbye.” Jim is Bobby’s oldest friend, so he doesn’t want to get caught in the drama between Nicole and Amber. Nicole just wants Bobby to have her back.
Teresa Aprea and Rino arrive dressed as firefighters and they move the party to the basement, so it officially looks like a college Halloween party.
Nicole’s friend for Dina is dressed as a firefighter too and he’s hot. Dina shows up in scrubs and is horrified to find out that he’s there to meet her. She tells Nicole that she doesn’t appreciate her doing this when she specifically asked her not to. She says she likes Nicole, but that was really shady. She does eventually relent to go on a group date with the Sexy Firefighter.
When Amber and Jim arrive, they’re in good spirits. They introduce themselves to everyone, and Jim does a little friendly-enough schmoozing with Joe Giudice. Joe is not impressed. He can tell that he’s just putting on an act. He asks Bobby to show him and Joe Gorga the house so he doesn’t have to hang around with Jimmy James, as he calls him.
Amber tries to say hi to Teresa Aprea, but she ices her out. She says she has some issues with her, and she just walks away toward Nicole at the bar. Amber asks her what her problem is. Nicole starts off by telling her that she owes her an apology. She says that Melissa told her what Amber said about her being a homewrecker.
Amber attempts to move Teresa, Nicole and Melissa to another room where they can talk. But she snaps her fingers and tries to summon them like they’re dogs. Nicole does not respond well to that. She snaps her fingers in Amber’s face, and then in a blink of the eye, Nicole is pulling Amber’s hair. Amber responds to Nicole’s aggression with aggression. She tries to swat Nicole away and hits her arm. Then Teresa Aprea throws a drink at Amber. The two women have to be physically separated from each other. Amber’s screaming at Nicole, “No wonder he won’t marry you!” which of course is a low blow, but this whole interaction has been low blow after low blow.
Jim tries to calm Amber down and they leave the basement. Jim has a chunk of Amber’s hair in his hand that Nicole pulled out of her head. Amber leaves the room screaming, “I hope you’re happy, Melissa.” Melissa claims to feel guilty that things have escalated to this level because of her. But Melissa is often on this side of things, and it hardly seems accidental.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Joe Gorga, Joe Giudice and Bobby are having a calm conversation in the kitchen. Amber is hardly coherent when she comes upstairs. Jim throws the piece of hair at Bobby and tells him to get his wonder under control. Bobby is just stunned.
Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, Rino comes upstairs to escalate the situation between the men. He calls Jim a jerk-off for not wanting hang out with them at guys’ night and demands that he tell them to their faces why he didn’t come. Jim, who is already obviously steamed about his wife’s fight, gets in Joe Gorga’s face and calls him a dumb-ass and tells him he can’t hang with them because he works for the state attorney general that’s prosecuting his brother in-law.
He tries to exit, but Joe Gorga goes after him. And we’ll have to wait until next week to see if Joe Gorga rips Jim to pieces.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey airs Sundays at 8pm on Bravo.
(Image and video courtesy of Bravo)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
