Ask any reality television non-believer what they dislike about the genre, and they’ll roll their eyes before pontificating, “Those shows are staged,” and “It’s not actually real, you know.” But every rule has an exception; every addiction a gateway drug. In reality TV and the Housewives franchise specifically, the veracity and verisimilitude of The Real Housewives of New Jersey cannot be denied.
RHONJ’s brand has always been about family. It follows the fallings-outs and make-ups of mostly Italian-American first cousins, in-laws, and neighborhood friends in and around Bergen County, New Jersey. The first two seasons saw Teresa Giudice’s famous table flip and fashion show fights with frenemy Danielle Staub. Lines like “Prostitution whore! Engaged 19 times!” and “Is ‘Bitch’ better?” (said in response to “Don’t call me ‘honey’”) were seared into the cultural lexicon forever. Giudice is the kind of made-for-reality-tv character that no writer could conjure in their dizziest daydreams; so blissfully unaware of how over the top she is, so unapologetic in her antics, she’s like the proverbial car crash from which you can’t look away.
She’s also always—even if she claims not to be, even if it doesn’t look like she is—at the center of the conflict. The real Teresa Giudice and her real problems aren’t met until season three, when her one and only sibling, brother Joe Gorga, and his wife Melissa Gorga, join the show. You thought the table flip was the most shocking thing you ever saw on reality TV? Try Joe and Melissa’s son’s christening, when a fight between the Gorgas and the Giudices broke out that was so epic, it was the crux of conversation between the two siblings for seasons to come. And that was in the first five minutes of meeting the Gorgas.
These are real family members fighting a real fight that would be going on whether or not there were cameras in their faces. Joe Gorga had a chip on his shoulder when it came to his sister’s husband, Joe Giudice, because he felt that Giudice damaged his relationship with his father. Giudice and Gorga families immigrated to the United States from the same small town in Italy. Teresa, Joe, and Joe all grew up together, but Joe Gorga has always maintained that when his sister and Joe Giudice got married, everything went downhill. Teresa is nothing if not a staunch believer in tit for tat, so she blames everything on Melissa, who, if Teresa is to be believed, makes the Whore of Babylon look like a classy broad.
But it’s Joe Giudice’s inability to properly file taxes and American citizenship documents that lands first his wife and then himself in prison, and then gets him deported. This brings Teresa and the Gorgas together again, briefly. For a couple of seasons, they had a common enemy in Joe Giudice, and they banded together to support Teresa and her four daughters as well as Joe and Teresa’s elderly, ailing father. But then the elder Gorga finally passes, and the ink dries on Joe Giudice’s deportation and divorce from Teresa, and we bear witness to a rebirth of sorts. Teresa is single for the first time in her adult life, her children are all teenagers made numb by childhoods spent in front of cameras, and she’s achieved a level of fame the likes of which no housewife from Bergen County has ever seen. She is no longer a literal housewife; she’s risen to capital-h Housewife status: she’s making the show before it makes her.
We saw the beginnings of Teresa’s evil genius in one of her early conflicts with her sister-in-law, when some random guy came around the hair salon while Teresa just happened to be there and claimed Melissa used to dance at his strip club. This is the inception of Teresa’s method of storytelling: she brings people in, gets them to say something bad about whoever her enemy is that day, and then throws up her hands, claiming it wasn’t her, it was them, and by the way, there’s no evidence that she even knew them at all or asked them to say anything. It’s transparent, in that everyone can plainly see that she’s behind the gossip being vocalized on national television, but she wouldn’t be found guilty in a court of law. She usually has “soldiers,” one or two women she claims as besties, to whom she preaches about loyalty. These soldiers unwittingly do Teresa’s dirty work—most recently, Jen Aydin persists in telling various newcomers that she heard a rumor about Melissa cheating on Joe Gorga, though it never sticks—so when shit hits the fan, Teresa’s hands are clean, and she has a scapegoat. We have seen all of these soldiers rise and fall—Jacqueline Laurita, Kim D, and even Danielle Staub—because the thing to remember about Teresa is that she expects unyielding loyalty, but she will never return it. If her experiences with her ex-husband and her brother have taught her anything, it’s that you can’t trust anyone. Not even family.
But now Teresa’s remarried, and any truce between her and her brother and sister-in-law went out the window when her husband, Louie Ruelas, and his past relationship foibles started driving the conflict of the show. Joe, Melissa, and long-time cast member Margaret Josephs all claim that as soon as Ruelas—the human personification of a cartoon flame—came onto the scene, his exes and former business associates and third and fifth cousins all started reaching out to them to disparage him (in Melissa’s words, to “be very afraid”).
This has led to Teresa no longer being on speaking terms with Joe and Melissa, which has made for a boring season 14. It’s not like in past seasons when they scream and yell every time they’re in the same room—this time, they’re hardly ever in the same room, and simply act as if the other person doesn’t exist if they have to be for the purpose of filming. Until Sunday night’s finale.
This season has been such a disappointment that there will be no reunion, and there have been talks of a “shakeup,” whatever that may entail. To make The Real Housewives of New Jersey without the Gorgas and Giudices would be impossible at this point—I’d sooner see it canceled than both of them be gone—but to fire only one of the sisters-in-law would be the same as taking a side in the conflict, and that would see ratings tank. In lieu of a reunion, a “Last Supper” was staged, in which all of the women of the cast assembled in their most intimidating garb for a luncheon at Rails Steakhouse, with “closure” as the goal.
“I hope Margaret and her family suffers,” Ruelas said to his wife before she left the house, but it’s clear that Teresa is the one suffering. She’s lost so much weight that her botox-ed, filler-ed face looks three sizes too big for her body. You can see every vein and tendon through her skin, and she never says a word that isn’t “You’re a liar,” and “Fuck you.”
Josephs has taken the place of Melissa in Teresa’s burn book of late, but we’re not here for that. At the end of the day, we’re here for Teresa versus Melissa, both of whom were determined to ignore each other the same as always when they entered the lunch, until one of the other women said something about another woman’s husband, and the latter tried to jump over the table and throw a wine glass at the former. Teresa told the jumper to cut it out, and Melissa was like, “That’s the pot calling the kettle black, Mrs. Table flip,” and Teresa went straight to the “Fuck you, whore,” and Melissa was like, “I’ll tell your niece you think I’m a whore,” and Teresa said, “My brother married a whore,” and Melissa just stood there smiling at her. All told it was, like, two minutes of footage, and it was the best two minutes of the whole season.
The real tragedy is that Melissa talked to her husband before leaving for the lunch, where Joe admitted that he’ll always worry about his sister on some level. They both agreed that they didn’t want Teresa and her family to suffer, that it made them sad to say they were truly done with her and the toxicity that seems to follow her through her life, but they simply had to be for their health. But there ain’t no rest for the wicked, so Teresa and her soldiers stay alert. Teresa had to post something on Instagram recently, calling for her fans to stand down and stop harassing her sister-in-law.
“I look at this sit down like a death,” was the final word of the season from Dolores Catania, the show’s best hope going forward. The Gorgas clearly agree, and Melissa said on Watch What Happens Live! last week that she’s not naive, and she’s open to whatever happens with the show. Frankly, I bet she’d be happy to be done at this point.
But for all of her attempted takedowns and revenge plots, something tells me that Teresa Giudice is going down with the ship.