Week two! The Deuce! Two episodes into the second season of RHONJ, and shit hyst keeps getting better. We got mother-daughter fights, mother-daughter bonding, mother projecting all her hopes, dreams, and unrealized ambitions onto daughter, and brother-brother-sister ham fights. What the eff more could you want?!
We start this week's episode with Danielle, who is showing off her dilapidated hive to her real estate agent and "good friend." Honestly, I think to qualify as one of Danielle's "good friends" you just have to have a pulse and the resolve to look her in the eyes without bursting into tears and crapping your pants. Other "good friends" of Danielle: Carlos the grocery store bag boy, Sharon at the highway toll booth, and Patches, the hobo outside Walgreens who carries his feces around with him in a mason jar.
Anyway, Danielle shows off her crumbling manse, pointing out the faulty wiring, peeling wood panels, small electrical fires, and her most prized posession: her bidet. Seriously, she was all "this is the bidet, which I think is very very important." She went on and on, and I kept barfing and barfing. Later, they sit down, and Danielle starts crying and over-sharing to the real estate agent until she winds up hanging herself with a loose electrical wire, and then Danielle just continues talking to her corpse.
Once we leave Grey Gardens 2: Franklin Lakes, it’s off to lunch with Jackée, Teresa, and Caroline, where they talk about how Teresa is late all the time before setting their sights on poor Jacks. The whole Danielle ex-friendship thing is still a big deal, apparently, and both push her to give up the goat (literally. Danielle is a goat). Jacquee, kind, simple soul that she is, says she's still going to be cordial, and Caroline tells her she smells like trash, or something to that effect. Poor Jacqueline. Oh, and Caroline also says that Danielle's children have had their souls stolen by their demon mother.
Once Caroline and Teresa finish devouring Jacqueline with a side of red sauce, it's off to the Manzo household for the best scene of the night. The Manzospawn Three are caught in media res playing the famed Ham Game. What is the Ham Game, you ask? Why, it's the game where people take ham out of the fridge, and fling it at each other and all over the house. There was ham on people’s faces, ham on the cabinets, ham on the walls, ham on the ham, ham EVERYWHERE. It was like the aftermath of some sort of weird porno.
So, the kids are having a grand old time hamming one-another until Caroline comes home, at which point they all freeze in terror, knowing their mother’s extreme dislike of the Ham Game. Caroline knows all there is to know about the Ham Game. There is nothing good that can come from the Ham Game, she says. Nothing. The kids try to suggest that she buy cheap ham just for throwing, but she is adamant: No ham game, so they give up the goat (what is Danielle doing at the Manzos in the first place?), and we move on. Ham Game!
Next, it’s back to Danielle’s Zerg Lair, where she has exciting news to deliver to her dead-eyed daughter Christine: IMG Models wants to siiiiign heeeeeer! Danielle goes on and on about how great this is, and the daughter is like “Oh, cool. Yeah, that sounds fun” in her zombie voice. Seriously, more dead-eyed than the Kardashians.
So, the two head off to New York City for Christine’s big fashion shoot, and it’s with Noted Fashion Photographer (and Kelly Bensimon ex) Gilles Bensimon. Christine stands in front of the camera with her deep-sea stare and Danielle watches, loudly saying how beeeeeaaautifuuuul and goooooorgeous everything is, feeling free to get her Gypsy on. At the end of the shoot she weasels herself into the shoot, being all “Oh, what? Me? Take a photo? I simply couldn’t.” before immediately finding the light and mugging for the camera.
Also there was a woman there named Brandusa, presumably the terrifying Greek patron god of healthy digestion. This fact is inconsequential, but I had to point out ahat a dumb name that is.
Not to be upstaged, Teresa and her daughter Gia head to a local Jersey PR company to try out for a fashion show. Teresa is proud of her daughter, who is uncomfortably good at the whole pageant talk thing. However, Danielle interviews that she doesn’t see Gia being a model, since she’s not even 4 feet. Which would be a valid criticism if the girl wasn’t 7 years old, you psycho.
But anyway, the audition goes well, and she winds up getting the part, hopefully setting the stage for a bitchy walk off between the daughters in the next episode.
Over at Sad Clown Hollow (aka Jacqueline’s house), she, Teresa, Dina, and Caroline are talking about babies and such. Not much of note happens, but they do talk for an uncomfortably long time about how one’s “chuckie” gets puffy during pregnancy and/or after prolonged lovemaking. They would keep talking about this fact, but Jackie’s baby starts crying and barfing, presumably from all the puffychuckies.
Meanwhile, Danielle is busily planning a congratulatory party for Christine’s success, to which neither Christine nor any of her friends are invited. Yeah, see, by congratulatory party, I meant “I’m Danielle look at me” party. Seriously, that’s pretty indefensible, right? I mean, I know there’s editing and stuff, but how is there a good angle to having a party for your daughter that she’s not invited to?
Anyway, Danielle extends an invitation to both Dina and Jacqueline, who politely decline because they aren’t particularly fond mantis cuisine. However, the next day at the party, we see that Danielle left chairs for them anyway so she has an opportunity to talk shit on them to her other “friends,” who were mainly people we had never seen and then Kim the Mantis. As custom when around other she-mantids, Danielle makes Kim and the other ladies swear their allegiance to her before they can leave. Apparently, there’s been rumors that a few of them were also friends with the dreaded Caroline Manzo. Danielle cannot abide by this, and to quell her fury, the ladies link mandibles in a circle, and their allegiance is sworn. For now.
And that was that! Until next time, friends, when Danielle jealously pushes Gia down the stairs before her fashion show, sealing Christine’s fate as the new star of “Goddess.” Can’t wait!
