Review Rewind: The Real Housewives of New Jersey Season 2 Finale

B-  /7

Alright, so I was a month late to leave the most ridiculous and no-holds-barred Housewives party of the year. Sue me. But you’ll have to get behind Danielle and her entourage first.

A season that seemed scripted in many ways (Who goes to say “hi” to someone who makes her react like a rubber ball elastically strung to a plastic paddle? I guess Teresa does. She’s very nice to do that.) was also a season that continues to prove that the (upper-class, white, assumedly Catholic, etc.) housewives of New Jersey are both stringently focused on family and unafraid to avoid politeness. Sans the reunion special, the finale proved to be Danielle’s final appearance on Housewives’ cameras and it shoved in our faces the divide that continues to persist between the two “families” of the show. This consistent attraction to family, unfortunately though, sacrifices and shrinks the extravagant drama over which we’ve been salivating this season.

Throughout the finale frequent flashes of familial events pop up to remind us of what keeps these women connected. After an extravagant trip to Italy, the Giudices get together with the Caroline and Jacqueline branches of the Manzo family. The women discuss the Danielle-Ashley affair, continually reminding themselves of why Danielle is such a horrible person and why Caroline, the unofficial Mafiosa of the Manzos according to Danielle, must arrange a meeting with the woman of their ire. Reaction shots of all the Manzos present at the dinner while the discussion takes place lead us to believe that every member of the family is engrossed in an unofficial battle.

Review Rewind: The Real Housewives of New Jersey Season 2 Premiere

B- /7

If there’s a way to refine trash, then the Real Housewives of… franchise has figured out a way to do it. We all have a guilty pleasure, something that we’re not entirely proud to claim as viewed but something off of which we scopophilic addicts can’t peel our eyes. When viewing or listening to or reading any form of media — film, television, music, books, etc. — my analytical cap is snug on my head. So, when I first stumbled upon this cult franchise a year ago with the Real Housewives of New York City series, I labeled it a wonderful sociological study of perceptions of middle-aged, upper-class, mostly white women, but also their thought processes in social relationships and situations, all over the U.S.A. Well, NYC‘s season had to end sometime, which is when New Jersey premiered.

Each franchise is fascinating because (1) each has an ensemble cast that, much to the cast members’ approval, sheds light onto all in the exclusive members of the Housewives club, and (2) each has a unique tone (the polished but b**chy banter of NYC, the southern faux-hospitable aggression of Atlanta, etc.). So far, the only series I have been unable to bear is Orange County. There’s a difference between watching refined trash and losing brain cells: in the former, one willingly accepts the lack of “high culture” immediately and abandons it, allowing the overwhelming stink of the show to pull out the attachment (or desire not to be a part of the chaos); in the latter, the plot is too simple and the “characters” too static to care about or bother following (when the botox seems to be blocking sparks between neurons, it’s too much). Orange County is basically the latter. New Jersey, though, walks a very fine line between NYC and Orange County. Thankfully, it leans slightly closer to the “Big Apple” than the “Plastic Orange.”

The Real Housewives of New Jersey (from right to left, Danielle Staub, Teresa Giudice, Dina Manzo, Caroline Manzo, and Jaqueline Laurita): Pigs or People?

In its first season, New Jersey, more or less, provided 5 characters — older sister Caroline Manzo, younger sister Dina Manzo, sister-in-law Jaqueline Laurita-Manzo, Teresa Giudice, the Manzo family’s close friend, and Danielle Staub, the “outsider” of the series — with overdoses and combos of passionately protective, calmly logical, fun-loving and passive, idiotically unaware, and creepily possessive. After a season of familial pressures, shouting matches, and infamous table-flipping drama, I thought it couldn’t get any more fascinatingly dramatic or more (un)realistic a presentation of Italian-American women. Astoundingly, it seems to be changing my mind.