Real Housewives of New Jersey Recap: Revenge of the Squareboob Edition

Welcome to the first week of Real Housewives of New Jersey Minus One! Dina - aka Captain Zentastic - has left the show to focus on her family, her charity, and her horrifying cadre of hairless cats. Whatever shall we do? Wherever shall we go? There's only one way to find out, people: much like pulling off a band-aid or taking our first dip of the year into the chilly Atlantic, you've just gotta close your eyes... and go all-in.

• Now THIS is how you start an episode, Bravo — by highlighting your MVP! The moment we first glimpse PuffyChucky (not a metaphor, btw) our hearts start beating a little faster. The anticipation of waiting to hear what comes out of her mouth is like nothing else... it's like waiting for the skies to open and rain down jewels (albeit particularly stupid jewels) upon us. MVP! MVP! MVP! And on that note, she begins this week's episode at a ladies who lunch thing with Mom and Sharon Osbourne, who immediately begin discussing  how much they miss Zentastic... which serves as a seamless segue into a more in-depth discussion of (deep breath) PROSTITUTIONWHORE!

• We should note that throughout the entirety of this sequence, PuffyChucky is wearing a sequin-festooned beret. The kind you find in a secondhand store. It may or may not make her look smarter.

• Quoth PROSTITUTIONWHORE!: "I would like to talk to you about my breasts." Well... okay, then.

• But on a less snarky note, it turns out that PW needs to get a fake boob replaced because of (insert medical stuff here). Which, I guess, explains the square boob phenomena that some of you have mentioned in your comments. PW, logically, reacts to this news by... well, okay. Let's play a game here: I'll offer you three choices, and you guess which one best describes her reaction:

a) Expressing concern about undergoing major surgery, but ultimately deciding it's a healthy decision that will allow her to move forward with her life.

b) Using this as an opportunity to examine how she's spent her life using sexuality as a commodity, and maybe having an introspective moment or two where she sees how the betrayal of her body by the squareboob is a metaphor for the course her life has taken over the decades... and maybe seeing this experience as an ideal time to make a change for the better.

c) Excitement, because with her new boobs she can finally feel confident enough about herself to rebuild her social life. With someone she really cares about, who she can email videos of herself doing... uh... well, okay, I guess she already did that. But with new boobs... well, really, there's no telling what form her love will take.

• See? Learning is fun.

• Sharon Osbourne meets up with her daughter, who's going to... um... something called MUD. Is that a school? I guess it's a beauty cosmetology cosmology astronomy school. As a part of her curriculum, she's painting A Flock of Seagulls makeup on women, and being praised wildly for her efforts.

• In related news, New Jersey = Bizarro World.

• Flashing over to Mom, who's discussing her daughter's awful, awful behavior during the poker party with her husband Chris. Thank god this is the Season Where Chris Doesn't Take Crap From Anyone, because he calls the daughter over to the house to face the issue head-on, rather than have everyone dance around it and allow the drama to grow. Chris immediately calls her out: "That's enough of the bullshit. You've gotta respect your mother and respect me." The daughter apologizes at great length, says all the right things... but does all of it grinning her "I may be a little stoned" grin, which completely undermines the believability of anything she's saying. Odds that she'll do something stupid and offensive soon and completely undo any of the goodwill she's just engendered by admitting she acted like a jackass: 40:1.

• PuffyChucky brings a party planner into her gigantic horrible home to begin planning her long-awaited gigantic horrible housewarming party, and the party planner turns out to be... can I say this? I'm not sure, but I'm gonna say it anyway: she's an incredible bitch. She immediately begins criticizing PuffyChucky left, right and center for not having a nanny, cleaner, cook, driver, a pool, a floormat next to the back door... EVERYTHING. Look: I'm as critical of PuffyChucky as anyone, but whatever her failings may be she's clearly very dedicated to her life's work - taking care of home and family - and listening to her getting bitched out by someone named Elvira (because, of course: the Party Planner is named Elvira) for not subcontracting out that work... well, it just makes my skin crawl. Congratulations, Elvira: you've just made the Real Housewives of New Jersey look reasonable by comparison. Remarkable.

• Back to a Mom & Chris scene, where the awful daughter tries to negotiate her way back into her house. She doesn't want a curfew, she doesn't want to adhere to the rules, she... well, she moans and bitches but finally gives in. By agreeing to follow their rules, she instantaneously has a huge and expensive roof restored over her head. Estimated time until she does something stupid and Chris kicks her out again: Immediately.

• Sharon Osbourne scene: she's talking to her son Albie, who's heartbroken by the fact that he's struggling at law school and "the school does not want me back" because of his grades. He tells his mother that they're saying he cannot be a lawyer because of his learning disability. She's caught between blowing a gasket with rage at the law school and completely melting down because her son - who's apparently struggled through high school and college with his learning disability, with the goal of going to law school and becoming an attorney - feels like his dream is going up in smoke in front of him, and there's nothing he can do. Her reaction is... well, it's perfect.

• I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've watched any of the Housewives on this show do anything and felt honestly like, "That's exactly what I'd do."

• (pardon me. Sharon Osbourne and I are having a special moment together. avert your eyes, if you must.)

• (it's okay. we're just friends. there's nothing untoward happening. this an entirely platonic back-rubbing.)

• Quick commercial break, and then back to Sharon talking about her son's law school situation with her husband. Sharon: "Nothing in life comes easy." Well said. We're totally simpatico on this. Her husband's simpatico, too. We're a menage-a-simpatico.

• (cue 70s porn-style whammy guitar)

• Over to PuffyChucky, who's going clothes shopping with Mom at the boutique owned by PROSTITUTIONWHORE's kinda-friend... the boutique appears to be stocked entirely with upscale whore clothing. PuffyChucky points out that it's a little shady that the boutique owner is going to PW's events despite badmouthing her to our own Housewives crew. The owner responds by doing a fancy little dance - basically claiming "it's business" - and... I dunno. We're suddenly launched back into the world of high school politics, and I'm overwhelmed by the feeling that all of these people suck.

• Meanwhile, PROSTITUTIONWHORE! gets ready for her surgery - and let's point out: this is her FOURTH breast implant surgery - and appears to have no trouble dropping her top for the camera. EVEN WHEN SHE'S NOT THE ONE HOLDING IT.

• Anyhow... the surgery turns out to be more complicated than the surgeons expected. Apparently, the surgeons behind boobs #3 were hacks. Boob hacks. Bad, bad boob hacks.

• Back to the Osbourne family, who are out to dinner celebrating their daughter's upcoming graduation from Nightmare Fashion school, and son Albie starts feeling bad for himself. Which, granted... he's kinda fucked, and I don't really blame him. But Sharon and her husband are having none of it: self-pity is not tolerated in the Osbourne family. They're Social Darwinists, and right now Albie is lookin' a little Australopithecus to them.

• That's right: I just dropped an Australopithecus bomb on ya. THAT. JUST. HAPPENED.

• Back to the PuffyChucky part planning. PuffyChucky is dressed in one of those "pricey Chauffeur/prostitute" outfits that are apparently all the rage these days in certain social circles in New Jersey.

• We can only presume she bought it in the Upscale Whore Store.

• Elvira the party planner is trying to sell PuffyChucky on renting ginormous gold furniture. PuffyChucky seems legitimately excited by this idea, which only goes to show that - in case we'd forgotten - SHE IS VIOLENTLY INSANE. Marie Antoinette would be embarrassed by this stuff, but PuffyChucky? She's buzzing.

• Then we switch back to chez PuffyChucky — Elvira the party planner shows up in a half-length purple leather coat, gigantic sunglasses, and a voice that cuts glass. I want to strangle her. I know I'm not alone in this... can we strangle her? Please?

• Dear Santa: I have been a very good boy this year. Please let me strangle Elvira the party planner. Thanks!

Love, TwoBusy

• Meanwhile, the party prep continues energetically. Gold furniture is showing up. A hairdo is getting did. Kim G - fence-sitting/quasi-PROSTITUTIONWHORE! pal extraordinare - is getting invited last minute.

• Meanwhile meanwhile, PROSTITUTIONWHORE! comes out of surgery.

• PROSTITUTIONWHORE! waxes philosophic: "My new breasts symbolize - for me - everything new. It's just... fresh."

• AND BACK TO THE PARTY!!!

• The party features wait staff dressed like Playboy bunnies. Stay classy, New Jersey.

• "It's so over the top. It's so me. It's so gold." I think PuffyChucky just had an orgasm.

• Kim G shows up, and Sharon and Mom look verrrrrrrry uncomfortable. Despite the fact that Mom basically guilted PuffyChucky into inviting Kim G to the party.

• The party includes break dancers and fire eaters. As most parties do. And then PuffyChucky gives a speech in which she references how she and her HomunculiHusband christened the house, before everyone showed up for the party. I think this may be a subtle sex reference, but as I have the intelligence of a toaster I'm not quite sure.

• I wish PuffyChucky used less nuanced language. 

• Meanwhile, the Upscale Whore Store owner shows up trashed, and gets trashed-er. Trashier? Possibly both.

• Kim G grabs Sharon Osbourne and tells her that Mom is a bit obsessed with PROSTITUTIONWHORE! Sharon reacts by coming THISCLOSE to punching her in the throat. However, Mom overhears that conversation, and totally calls Kim G on her double-faced bullshit — "You come TO ME to talk about Danielle, and I'm obsessed?"

• Oh, Kim G. I so very, very much hope you're the next Housewife. Bravo? Please? Yes?

• Preview of next week shows another dinner showdown - this time between PROSTITUTIONWHORE! and PuffyChucky - and a voice crying out in alarm: "SOMEBODY WITH A KNIFE..."

It's like my dream come true: a shanking! At long last... a shanking! PLEASE, GOD, LET THERE BE A SHANKING!

••• ••• ••• ••• ••• •••

Okay. Two things: first off, if you're watching the show and not catching the live, half-hour follow up airing immediately afterwards with the Bravo dude and a rotating squad of Real Housewives - taking phone calls, answering emailed/tweeted questions, and occasionally singing (allegedly) heartbreaking lullabies in a duet performance with faux lesbian overtones - you're depriving yourself of a rare pleasure. Check it out.

Secondly... our question of the week: who on this show do you most want to see get shanked, and why? Best answer gets obsequious praise from me in next week's recap post.

. . . . .
TwoBusy does not own any berets, either of the sequined or non-sequined kind.

Comments

[Sarah Lena]

You have no idea how much I look forward to this.

1) Caroline's protective nature for Albie this week literally had me in tears, which I'm not proud to admit. But yes .. she is a fantastic mother.

2) Was I the only one who thought that when Danielle was dropping her towel and re-wrapping it that she was doing it in a porn-fashion, like MAYBE she'd done that before?

3) I hate Kim G and Elvira. I'm all about a little squabble between girlfriends, but people who are just out and out ugly? Not a fan.

Tortured lullabye. Sophie B Hawkins stye.

[Jen.]

"That's right: I just dropped an Australopithecus bomb on ya. THAT. JUST. HAPPENED" Love It.

I think the shank-guy should shank himself. just sayin'

[KBestOliver]

I was really surprised that Danielle didn't have Danny posted up outside the operating room. I mean, clearly people with a REAL vendetta (and mob ties) would try to axe someone at their most vulnerable. Like when their boobies are cut open.

I would like to see that brat Ashley get shanked. She's everything I hate about bratty, spoiled kids reaching "maturity".

[Lynne]

Agree with KBest - Ashley needs to get shanked.

Anyone notice the shot of the surgery place at night - where they obviously can't afford to keep the lights on in their signage? Awesome.

[tonya]

I would so love to see Elvira get shanked. After that, Kim G - simply for stupidity's sake.

[JennL]

Thank you so much for this re-cap! It is exactly what I needed after a shit day.

Something else that would brighten my outlook on life is to see 'Little Miss Entitled' get shanked. I am so sick of that one's lousy attitude. "I want to live at home, but I don't want to work or go to school because I'm taking a year off (from what, I as you?!?)." She deserves a knife in the ribs just for that...

Oh, and if that soon-to-be-discovered-child-star GIA got a paper cut, I'd be ok with that, too.

[TwoBusy]

I'm deliriously happy with these responses. BRAVO! THE CROWD DEMANDS MORE SHANKING! WIN THE CROWD... AND YOU WIN YOUR FREEDOM!

[Jill Berry]

I was confused by the names. But then was like right! Caroline = Sharon Osbourne. Mom = Jacqueline? PuffyChucky = Teresa. PW = Danielle. Great recap. You cannot write this RH stuff...well maybe you can. It is scripted reality, right?

[Sarah Lena]

I did not vote yet!

Um .. I would like to see Kelly Bensimon shanked. In a systematic bullying crossover.

[tonya]

I would also like to add that it would be great to see Danny get shanked. Mostly because he's been to prison and would probably provide a nice little fight scene.

[Peggasus]

I want Ashley and her boyfriend (with that hideous thing on his face) both shanked. Shank that smirk right off her face. I have a son that age, that is NOT normal behavior for an 18yo. Bitchez, please.

And Sharon/Caroline saying her daughter's 'passion' is MAKEUP? Oh, what lofty goals your children have!

I didn't think a RH could be less interesting than the Atlanta babes, but I think this one might well be. Snore.

[Silver]

Elvira and the Kims have a shank-off to see who gets to be the next housewife.

[JellyBean]

All the people in the fundraiser for baby cancer should get shanked for not providing adequate seating for Danielle & her gang, I mean entourage. They were way too focused on baby cancer and not enough on Danielle.