Real Housewives of New Jersey: The Birth of Vesuvius

Hot on the heels of rumors that Danielle Stab has been fired from the Real Housewives of New Jersey (neither Bravo nor Danielle will actually cop to this, although Danielle did some sidestepping - "I'm not even thinking about Season 3 in light of all the incredible opportunities coming my way" - that leads me to believe the rumor mill may have accidentally stepped into the truth on this one), comes Part II of The Real Housewives of New Jersey visit the Mamaland.

Opening scene is on the cruise ship, which has finally landed at Naples. The Giudices are trying to get off the boat. Rather than leaving all of their luggage in the room for the porters, they take everything with them. Because they have more bags than have ever been manufactured in the country of China, this makes chaos ensue. Garbage cans and kids get knocked all over the place. The garbage cans, being more pleasant in general, do not set up caterwauling whines when they get knocked over. At some point, Joe even suggests throwing one of the kids overboard.

I don't think he was kidding.

Funniest scene ever when Joe decides to walk a stroller down the steps instead of just manning up and carrying it. It was an umbrella stroller, for Pete's sake! It weighs exactly nothing! Even loaded down with all the kid crap the Giudices carry (an entire suitcase for hairbows), it still weighed less than the burden of their incredible debt.

Teresa says that Joe hates to be away from his business for a whole week. I think that Joe is hearing from America what the repercussions of the Giudices bad acts are, and he's anxious that he doesn't know the full extent and crabby about the fact that it hangs there over his head.

So Joe goes hunched and bow-legged down the stairs with his stroller bouncing this way and that, in his big green sweater and his too-tight boy-man jeans with the pockets ending around mid-thigh. And it makes me laugh.

Jacqueline makes fun of Teresa's inability to allow her children to go outside without a bow on their heads. This is true. It is the reason her children look vulgar. By looking vulgar, I mean they look like trash. The bows are not the reason they have vulgar behavior. The parents are the reason they have vulgar behavior, even as kids go.

They get into the bus and Teresa's kids are whining. One of them is sitting, in her puffy, pink fur jacket, on Albert's lap. This ticks off Caroline, who is really up-to-here with kids. This was going to be her alone time, and, to put it frankly, they aren't her kids.

So the girls cry and whine, and Teresa says later that Caroline seems to be in a crappy mood, but she should feel better now that she's not on a cruise ship. She said that she doesn't feel at all responsible for Caroline's mood - it's it's her problem and she needs to suck it up.

Teresa is just mad that Caroline appears to be criticizing her children. She likes it when people say how cute they are - no doubt because they don't know what else to say when confronted by all that leopard print and poly-satin. She definitely doesn't like it when people purse their lips and glare at her little Giudiettes.

Cut to the new hotel in Naples and one of the little Giudettes is amazed over the bidet. She says, "oh, a little sink!" and Teresa, ever the informing mother, says it's an au bideh. She pretends she can't speak English, as if she's suddenly some Persian princess who is trying to communicate in a Whole New Language. For confirmation of her suspicions that this thing is an au bideh, she turns to her husband, her promptly dismisses it as something that they don't even use in America anymore. However, he tries to educate his daughters by explaining that au bidehs are "like douches."

In Albert and Caroline's room, sadness reigns. They don't speak Italian because their parents didn't teach them, trying to assimilate as they were. They can't go to Pompeii because there are too many people, and quite frankly, though they didn't say it, they are aware that Pompeii, not having a Chanel store, is not of interest to Teresa.

Caroline and Albert are tired and they won't say anything bad about the little girls, but they do believe that Teresa and Joe need to parent with "more iron hand." Caroline realizes that perhaps she looked a but bitchy on the bus, so she points out that they are finished raising kids, but adds that they will be great grandparents.

You can just tell that they are done babysitting.

Now, we go to Danielle, who had an awesome day and needs the kids to listen to her without looking at their cell phones. She needs their full attention because she's sensitive about her "birth mom" search. She never wanted the kids to know about the fact that she was looking for her birth mother, but rather than making the whole issue seem unimportant (seeing as how she didn't want them to know), she decides to make it really important.

Kim G has told people that Danielle was looking for her birth mother, and there are allegations that Teresa found out and gossiped about it, and Danielle tells us all, via talking head, that Kim G has "stabbed her in the proverbial back." I need to know: is this different than stabbing her in her actual back?

Danielle says that Teresa should not have talked about something so sensitive, and her daughter says that everyone deserves respect, even if you don't like them.

Actually, this is not true. Everybody deserves to be treated respectfully, but that it different from actually having to give everyone respect. Respect is an earned honor, and it is different to have respect for people than it is to treat them respectfully.

This is not a concept that Danielle could grasp, becuase it is the appearance of respect she wants. She doesn't have the discernment to understand the nuances between mere good manners and actual admiration.

Anyway, Danielle decides that she was a baby left without a mother and she turned out to be a great mother; therefore, the girls are lucky to have her as a mother. She thinks that the fact that everyone around town knows about her birth mom search is an omen that means she is supposed to share this quest with her daughters. And then, despite the fact that her mother was the one who left her as a baby without a mother, she says that she wants to find the woman who risked everything to have her at the age of 15.

The daughter says that if Danielle doesn't end up finding her birth mom, that's okay, because as least she didn't sit on her ass and do nothing about it. Danielle decides to be shocked and tell her daughter not to use that kind of language, which is a little disingenuous because Danielle likes to wave her middle finger and drop nasty language all the time. The kid backtracks and says "butt" in the way that kids do when they thought they were being cool and grown-up and realize that they have been called out for behaving badly.

Danielle was right to correct her daughter, but really - lead by example, babe!

The older girl felt really smacked and could barely look at her mother after that.

Back in Italy, Caroline and Chris get to look around the storefronts of Naples, which is where their parents are from. Their parents are with them, and they are teary-eyed and emotional; after their big moment, Caroline says, "Let's get the f*** out of here."

They eat in a pizza place that supposedly has the best pizza in the world. Everyone eats a lot, and Teresa lectures about how they did this and that, but the next part of the adventure will be the best because it's about family, by which she means her family.

Joe, who has been surly for the entire trip, gets a little sentimental. Teresa tells them how difficult it will be because of the hill they will have to climb to get to her family home, and is somewhat surprised and a little ticked off that Jacqueline agrees that it will be difficult to get there because of the climb that will be even harder because of strollers and old people (meaning parents). Teresa puts an end to this conversation by saying that there are old people and babies in Italy, too. Which is what she should have said in the first place. Forewarned is forearmed or whatever - but to create a sense of dread is just not hospitable.

Back in New Jersey, Danielle's ex-con hangeraround Danny is at the house, looking as if he has just crawled in from a road trip with Rick Springfield. Danielle is eating snacks, and Danny chastises her. Danielle is doing some kind of act about how she is super-thin naturally and eats all the time. But Danny was taking her to eat.

Where is he taking her? Why, to the supermarket in Franklin Lakes.

Danielle says she won't go there because that's where Mean Caroline, Back-stabbing Kim G, Phone Neglecting Kim D, Mean Jacqueline and Mean Teresa live. Danny says, "they're not there," and Danielle gets excited, thinking that perhaps they have been killed or fallen into a giant crack in the Earth's crust. No, Danny says. They're in Italy.

Now, one would wonder how Danny knows this. Danielle, however, is not interested in how Danny knows this, because she assumes he's some kind of Italian muscle who knows everything. No, Danielle is more interested in why they would be in Italy when she herself was not asked to go. Is this a Bravo trip? Is this Caroline and Jacqueline's share of the Bravo goodies, since they didn't have Sweet 16/Housewarming/Christening parties? Will there be cameras there?

She pretends very hard not to care about the fact that the other Housewives are maybe being granted audiences with the Pope (trumping her vile priest meeting) and having their effigies carved into quivering hunks of ricotta cheese.

Meanwhile, Danny has that weird look of strange success in his eyes that Kim G had before Kim G decimated Danielle at their local Applebee's. You know that he has turned on Danielle, or would at least consider turning on Danielle, if a better opportunity arose.

Danielle is driving (is Danny not allowed to drive?) and gleefully crying "panini" at intervals. It seems odd to be so gleeful about a pressed sandwich that one can get in any number of mediocre sandwich shops that are way better than supermarkets, anyway. I have to wonder if Danny or Danielle bounced a check at the Franklin Lakes supermarket or had them cater the porn video shoot and offered to help them realize their ROI by showing that this supermarket has panini that people will drive literal minutes for.

Market Basket is so great that she has fond memories of it from way before she ever met Jacqueline. Trying to prove how deprived she has been by her feud with the Other Team, she points out that she and her girls used to get ice cream there. Ice cream! The All-American Treat! Plus, the world's best paninis, which she should totally put on a T-shirt - pressed meat all around, folks.

Danielle has new lip plumping. Her lips look like twin hot dogs in her talking head moment.

She is afraid, afraid, and she doesn't care what they're doing in Italy. Though she hopes that Italy is not another Titanic. By this, of course she means that she's very jealous that they are on a cruise ship right now and that she is not, and the only thing that would make this OK is if the boat sank and everyone on it was killed.

Then Danny drops a bomb: he has met one of Ashley's friends. Danielle leaps to say that Ashley has no friends, she assaults people,  and pulled Danielle's very own hair at a country club. She has terroristic tendencies. Danny says that this little girl who is a friend of Ashley's asked Danny what she could do for Danny and Danielle (us, as he says), and so he is going to use her as an avenue to keep tabs on Ashley.

Translation: he is going to get as far with this child as he can, having given up most of his own youth in prison. This is his chance to be young again, and by golly, he's not givin' it up. This will be prom night, long nights drinking beer out of bottles on the step of the 7-11, movies with groping, etc.

Danielle throws in that she used to drive Ashley to school in the hopes that Ashley would not get thrown out of yet another school.

I have to say that I despise Ashley, but Danielle has lost Ashley-despise points by continuing to make these digs. Ashley is revolting on her own.

But she hopes that Ashley is in Italy - because if Ashley would attack her in a country club, she would certainly do it in a supermarket. We are supposed to think that Ashley will leap out of the banks of shopping carts brandishing eggs and spray cheese. It doesn't happen.

Danny just humors her, and suddenly, the thought creeps into my head: was it Danny who told this friend of Ashley's about Danielle's birth mom quest, and the friend told Ashley, who told Jacqueline, who told Teresa? Is Danny the Manzo's source for All Things Danielle?

But then the idea of a panini becomes overwhelming, and she keeps crying it out over and over again, like the Delta in 1984 who keeps yelling, "Roof! Roof!"

"Panini! Panini!"

Back in Italy, the Giudices are transferring their luggage again. In the bus, Joe is demented over the cost of everything. He hoped that when he went to Italy, he would leave his world-heavy financial woes behind. Instead, he is finding that despite the cameras, everything in Italy costs money. Perhaps he thought that the rustic Italians would believe they were all Big American Stars and fall over themselves serving them the Very Best for Freeeeee. But no, the Italians served them and then handed them bills, and Joe is getting madder and madder. He curses and throws out amounts, and scorns the breakfast, which was just coffee and ham sandwiches, and loathes the brandy and the whiskey on their bills at dinner, and he didn't touch the damned minibar and he derides that cost of the hotel. Not being used to actually paying for anything, he is demented with fury.

I wondered at this point if perhaps Teresa had told him that this trip would be paid for by Bravo and that he wouldn't have to worry about anything.

Teresa tells him to shut up. It sort of looks as if she's telling him to stop sucking everyone else's joy and not to curse in front of her children (it doesn't seem that she's giving Jacqueline's sons any thought, and nor do you see anything much at all of them). But really, I thought she was just telling him to stop embarrassing her by talking about money, in that way that people do when they want people to think they have lots of money and shouldn't be worried at all about it.

Finally, as they get close to Joe's hometown, he realizes that he has been on a rant, but in that way that truly disturbed and anxious people get - as if it happened to him rather than being caused by him. So he tells everyone that they're gonna "eat and they're gonna be civilized - no more bullshitting around."

Caroline thinks this is hysterical, and laughs her head off.

Joe then becomes happy in that way that people are when they are showing something off that nobody else knows anything about. He tells everyone all about the scenery.
Jacqueline tells the old people to remain behind, and they do. The Giudettes are dressed so horribly I can't quite voice it: fake Burberry plaid plush and rubber boots and black plush with appliques, and it's simply dreadful. Heinous hairbows the size of peonies that look like bad carnations plopped on the end of each eyebrow. Giant man-sized Converse sneakers.

Teresa points out her Italian house, which she hopes to be able to renovate and refurbish when she has the money. I certainly hope that before she is allowed to do this, she has to repay her debt.

Everybody is walking and then crawling up the steps leading to the top of the hill, and Joe starts tour-guiding and pointing out houses and the former use of donkeys to get stuff up the hill. He doesn't know why they got rid of then.

They get up  to the top of the hill and everybody's kissing and hugging and speaking Italian and Caroline has nobody to speak to except for Teresa's Giudettes, who are hanging around bored and annoyed. Jacqueline makes an ass of herself by grabbing one of the relatives and hanging on them because she is so tired from walking, and then she sits right there in the public street like a bag lady.

In New Jersey, night has fallen, which makes it the perfect time for Danielle to go meet a private investigator to whom Danny has introduced her for the pursuit of her birth mom quest. She only has these two facts to help her look for her birth mom: date of birth, place of birth and her ethniticity. She describes her ethniticy as Catholic and Italian, though of course she has no clue. She would like to be Catholic and Italian, and therefore, poof! She says she is. She could be Native American or Lizard or Icelandic. She has no clue.

The private investigator tells her that he doesn't know that it will be easy or fast to find this now-62-year-old woman. Danielle says that her life is just her two kids, and she would like to have another adult in her life. She just wants to be part of a family.

This makes me think that Danielle is realizing that it might be time to check in with Birth Mom in case there's a chance if wiggling in on the inheritance.

Danielle then adds that if her mother is homeless or addicted to drugs or alcohol, she doesn't want that in her life. The guy says any choice to see the birth mother is up to the birth mother. Danielle says is not finding her to make the mother better; she's finding her to make Danielle better.
If the woman doesn't want Danielle, the investigator has to tell her, not the mother, because Danielle can't take that kind of rejection.

Cut back to Italy, and Teresa is throwing out minor Italian words like somebody whose family spoke it at home. She says in her talking head moment that the reason she sometimes doesn't speak English so good is that she didn't speak English until kindergarten.

Caroline is isolated and bored, and Albert is keeping her company. Since her parents and grandparents wanted to seem as American as possible, they stopped speaking Italian.

Jacqueline can only thunk that she wishes Danielle would move to another country or another planet.

There is tons of food, and the little Giudettes eat like monkeys right over the serving platters, foods dangling out of their crumb-laden mouths and landing back on other foods. Then the rest of the crowd go out and wave across town at some uncle of Teresa, and Caroline and Jacqueline eat pasta out of some stranger's beat-up cooking pot.

Jacqueline adds that before she entered the Manzo-Laurita family, she didn't eat like this. I got the impression that she never intends to stop and she intends to make up for lost time. Caroline and Jacqueline obviously feel out of place, so they are glad to be sitting in the fire-warmed kitchen and eating pasta.

They wander down the steps through the town and Teresa might fall because of her bad shoes. She demands that Joe apologize for treating her badly. Joe's Italian accent is getting really strong, though he left Italy at the age of one. She again demands an apology; he tells her she better learn a little respect. She is really mad, and she tries to kick him. This is not a joke: look at her eyes. Then she tries to turn it into a joke and she pretends to kick him again. Her doesn't apologize to her; he tells her that with one kick, he could send her flying over the hill and into the valley. He says it in a kind of funny way, so she takes it as her apology, and then she makes him apologize to one of the kids he yelled at for running all over the place like an on-the-loose chimpanzee. Then they both yell at the kids some more in the waning light of the sun, over near where Joe was born.

Back to Danielle. Danielle is playing with the dog, and when the phone rings, she says it's her private detective. Hers. He updates her and tells her that it will take a little while to find the information about her birth mom because her birth mom was a minor, which she already knew.

Danielle said that she had waited 47 years to find her birth mom (Danielle's speech impediment made me think she was saying four to seven years, which made me think of a prison sentence), and she believes she's out there, so another 10 years won't matter. And then she breaks into strange, hysterical-bordering tears.

The Italians are having a big party with a big table in a restaurant with white cloths and a minimal number of wine bottles in shelves against the wall. They have erected a curtain that Teresa and her family can emerge from behind, and when they do, it's horrendous. Teresa is in a slip that maybe fit her 10 years ago. Not a slip dress, mind you, a slip. One of the kind your grandmother wore, but with some rhinestones and fake pearls added. It was Bedazzled. And Bewildering. He breasts are popping over the top in a strangely unsettling manner and her hips and thighs make the dress do strange things at the sides.  Joe is wearing a sweater and a mailman's kind of jacket.

The Giudettes. Oh, the Giudettes. This is the kind of thing that makes kids stop talking to their mothers.

They are wearing the ugliest f-ing dresses (I don't like the f-word, but I am trying to explain how bad these dresses are, and I am using the terminology of the Queen Bee from Mean Girls) ever created, anywhere in the world, for anyone. Uglier than a prison dress from the 1930s, uglier than the 1980s, uglier than toddler pageant dresses. These dresses are just vomit-inducing.

Pink poly-satin ruffled shepherdess dresses with leopard overskirts. Ruffles, lacing, bows. Pantalettes. Giant ugly headpieces. Hoopskirts.

The Giudices have one pretty child, the middle one. This dress made her look ugly.

It was as if all the strippers in New Jersey got together and donated their outfits so that Teresa could compile this mess. Which she paid for and called beautiful custom-made dresses.

Caroline is giggling at them behind her napkin, There is over-the-top and then there is tacky. This was just tacky, laughably so. When you consider how much money they spent on gaudy things that aren't even enviable, it just makes me cringe. Those dresses are worth at least four years in prison.

Joe is speaking with such an Italian accent that he sounds as if he is trying to be a waiter at a restaurant in Iowa.

Salut, yadda, yadda.

Back home they all go, and Caroline's house is in one piece and Teresa wants the kids to go to bed. Milania, who can only scream, yells that she doesn't want to go home. Teresa and Joe are back home and it takes Joe three prompts to say he loves Teresa, too.

Ashley is guilty of pulling Danielle's hair, Jacqueline admits.

Next week, Caroline is going to meet one-on-one with Danielle.