The Real Housewives of New Jersey Recap: Strep Throat! Bikinis! Camel Toe! Oh, My!

So this week was part one of yet another two-parter wherein the NJ guidos and guidettes get to travel on Bravo's dime outside of their great state in order to...HEAL! Shit, even the Atlanta ladies (fuck, ESPECIALLY the Atlanta ladies) don't need this much out of town lady time. Two trips for these wackos but this time without Dr. Eyetalian Vajayjay. No, this time they've been whisked off to that epicenter of spirituality, Arizona. Just lucky none of them is Hispanic, amiright? Anyhoo, in honor of wife Melissa's b-day, JSTA decided it would be way cool to get the whole gang to join them on a jaunt way out west. Melissa was less than thrilled with the idea, but hubby wasn't buying it. Largely because that's the way the season has been written. One by one the familia were invited and accepted to jet out to Healing Central...some dude ranch whose specialty is spirit "energists" and open doors and windows which, one evening, let a fucking bat into someone's bedroom. Everyone, including the dudes, hid behind pillars screaming like girls while Big Al SR shooed it out with an M-16 that he brought with from The Brownstone. Not really, it was just a broom. Once again, Melissa was deathly ill with something that was making her throat hurt with "the worst pain I have ever felt in MY LIFE!" To this JSTA scoffs, calling bullshit by reminding her that she's had three kids. No, says Melissa, this pain is way worse. Every week and in every way, Melissa is getting my wholehearted vote for most annoying after Jacqueline. And for anyone reading this that knows my feelings on Jacqueline, that is saying something. Speaking of Jacqueline, she, Chris Laurita, Dirty C and Big Al SR are on a later plane from the rest of the bimbo contingent and get waylaid in some airport for a really long time so, yeah, we get to see THAT. Jacqueline's even boring when we're not hearing specifically about her boring-ass, first world "problems".

So they get to Hacienda Healing and everyone retires to their open-air rooms, which, truth be told would NOT work for The ABIB. The ABIB and the great outdoors do not mingle well. I was getting the creepy crawlies just watching people unpack and prepare to sleep in rooms with no screens in the giant windows and no doors. See above: BATS!? Of course, King Douchebag has to make an obnoxious spectacle of himself, and when told to SHUSH that he's walking through the "quiet room", he chooses instead to trumpet out a giant fart. To which Drunk Ass Rosie yells: "JERSEY IN DA HOUSE". Oy. So, right away everyone's headed out to some pool/hot tub gizmo outside of JSTA and Melissa's room, and they are OF COURSE, deep into the vino already and Thereser's doing some seriously butch push-ups in one of her several tiny bathing suits. We hear the voice of (presumably) Juicy Joe in the pool with JSTA, tell her that after all these years she still looks sexy. She girlishly thanks...her husband? her brother? We'll never know but her coy little giggle is way icky considering we all know that Thereser has bigger balls than any man on the show. Hell, she's even got bigger cohones than Dirty C. Yeah, I went there. Well, just about this time King Douchebag enters the picture, with, of course, his wife, the long-suffering Kathy and proceeds, ONCE AGAIN, to out-douchebag himself by warning Melissa, reclining on a chaise lounger and catching some rays, to be careful because the bottom of her tiny bikini is displaying some serious camel toe. Yes, that's what he said in front of HIS wife and Melissa's husband. Melissa, being the numbnut that she is, just tsks gratuitously but doesn't seem at all disturbed by the fact that King Douchebag is looking directly at her twat and announcing it, without a hint of shame, to everyone within earshot. King Douchebag: he's always good for bringing the class and lowering the bar on what is already a gutter-dwelling affair. JSTA splutters some kind of "offense" wondering aloud why KD is looking at his wife's twat, but everyone laughs because this low brow chit chat is right in their wheelhouse. Yay! I should take a shower now...

So, after a day at the pool the rest of the gang finally arrives from their 16 hour trip from HELL and the party swings into serious HIGH HEALING gear. It's now nighttime at the Cozy Corral and the first special guest is some lady who introduces herself as someone who does "energy work". Turns out that means that she's some kind of half-assed medium and starts immediately to fish for hints from the gang about people that have "gone on". At this point I'm picturing a Family Guy episode that parodied the medium shows that used to be on..."I"m getting a "J"...any "J"....how about an "M"? No "M"...well stop me when I get there..A? B? C? D?" You get the picture. This lady is sitting with a group of Italians so she goes for the safe guess..."I'm getting a Maria? Does Maria mean anything to any of you?" In spite of his desperate attempt to remain skeptical with the other manly men, JJ offers that his grandmother was named Maria. The look on the medium's face says it all: "like shooting fish in a barrel". She tells JJ some trifle about how his grandmother is watching over them and blah, blah, blah. Certainly no specifics. Then she turns her focus to King Douchebag and Kathy and asks if there was anyone with a weak heart...heart trouble in the family? King D looks shocked and says that his father died of a heart attack. Again...not to be too cynical here, but is it any wonder that among a group of middle-aged people SOMEONE would have a relative SOMEWHERE in the family tree that had had heart trouble? Sheesh. Anyway, King D got real emotional real fast and before we could say "Bob's Your Uncle" he was sobbing over his deceased father and well, I just didn't know what to do. Fuck, I'm thinking: this is KING DOUCHEBAG and he's crying on TV! Even in his talking head sequence he couldn't continue talking because he was so choked up. The ABIB is nothing if not honest and I'm not proud of myself here, but shit, man, I had to grab for a tissue, folks. Kathy was crying and all the other dudes were looking up and down and side to side, anywhere but directly at KD for fear that they, too, would end up boo hooing on national TV. I mean he's still a total dick but DAMN, he sure did love his father! ABIB's gotta respect. So, the medium got Kathy next, once again invoking the spirit of HER dead father with some vague "details" that apparently were all the proof that Kathy and Drunk Ass Rosie needed to convince them that their Dad was whispering sweet nothings to them through the medium's attentive ear. This brought some more crying and soul searching as Kathy confessed that she had not had a chance to tell her father that, in spite of their differences, she loved him before he died. Yeah, I was about ready for a commercial break at this point. Blessedly I got one.

Next day it's time for a hike and we join Melissa and JSTA in their room where M is chugging down some horse pills and moaning that she's dying and has never, EVER felt pain like this before. As captured above, JSTA's response (which I found very amusing) was basically to call "bullshit" on her and say: whatevs, he's going for a hike in the Arizona cacti. When next we see Melissa, everyone has left her for said hike but she don't care because she's back out on her sun chair slathering on the baby oil to catch some more rays. Cop to it, Melissa: that was SO an act to get rid of everyone because clearly THIS is what you wanted to do all along. Hey, it's your birthday; go for it! Everyone else, including a whining Dirty C, head out into the desert with their hiking guide, who looks eerily like Opie from the Lake George incident, but, whatever. They hike for a little while and then stop at this next spiritual station where a ring of chairs are around a firepit and some new lady spirit guide is waiting for them. Turns out this next ritual is that everyone has to write down something that they want to rid their life of and then put it into the firepit and let it go as it burns up. I gotta be honest with you guys, I really only one quarter watched this part because it was kinda boring, but I did tune in when Jacqueline called Thereser up to stand next to her as she burned up her paper which had something like "resentment and bitterness" written on it. So, Jacqueline has been hinting that she reallllllly missed T, but that she can't reallllllly trust her so much after all the shit that's gone down between them. But, never mind! This little paper burning exercise seals the deal and she and T embrace and alls well again in their world. That is, until Thereser makes the mistake of saying that from now on she (T) wants to be better because when you're shitty to other people it can bring bad karma on your kids. Now actually what I heard was Thereser specifically saying that SHE didn't want HER bad behavior to bring bad karma down onto HER DAUGHTERS. What Jacqueline heard was Thereser alluding that since Jacqueline had been such a shitty bitch, the karma gods cursed her kid with autism. Yeah, she really, really, really heard it go down that way. But I'm here to tell you that it didn't; Jacqueline is a crazy-ass, confused little ninny.

So that's the set up for next week's Arizona storyline: Jacqueline getting Chris all riled up over the imagined slur that Thereser never uttered but which Jacqueline will swear that she heard. Oh yeah, and also: there appears to be some more "healing" with some old dude who has a horse and is asking Big Al SR: "were you abused?" Oh, yeah, it's gonna get all kinda weird up in there. Join me, wont' you?