The ‘Real Housewives’ Debate: Team Melissa or Team Teresa?

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An amazing Real Housewives payoff.

I know how to fix The Idol.

The Tony Awards healed my soul.

An amazing Amy Schumer joke.

A Netflix restaurant???

The Real Housewives Episodes 10 Years in the Making

It’s been overwhelming and heartening to see everyone suddenly pay attention to my greatest love, reality television, these past months, because of Vanderpump Rules and the #Scandoval.

But y’all are brand new.

You paid close attention to one season of the show, because it was in the news. Maybe you caught up on past seasons Bravo’s handy watch guide. It’s really cute. But some of us have invested a decade into this. And it’s finally paying off.

You can have your #Scandoval. I’ll have what is the greatest three episodes of my life: the Real Housewives of New JerseySeason 13 reunion.

I laughed. I cried. Mostly, I was so uncomfortable that I wanted my skin to be a sweatshirt I could rip off and burn, and then donate the embers as ash for Dolores Catania’s next smoky eye (she’s looking so good!).

I remember in Little League being told that if you put in the work, it will pay off. I still can’t hit a baseball, but I have spent 10 years following the drama between Teresa Giudice and her sister-in-law, Melissa Gorga, and—if I’m using sports metaphors correctly (who could say)—I’m finally getting my home run.

Every year, Bravo fans debate what is the best iteration of the Real Housewives franchise airing at the moment. Sometimes it’s a surprise (as Ariana DeBose would say, Potomac, you did the thing). Sometimes it takes catching up (I slept for far too long on Miami; you shouldn’t do the same). And sometimes it’s a hard truth (New York needed a reboot, but I’m still dubious). But that’s all conversation bubbling over what all Bravo fans know: No one does it like New Jersey does it.

If you watched all three parts of the RHONJ reunion, well, you’re probably walking around the block smoking a cigarette and wondering, “Was she actually speaking Italian?” If you haven’t, I would liken it to the worst family fight you could ever imagine at Thanksgiving dinner, finally coming to fruition after a decade, while everyone is wearing ball gowns.

Real Housewives of New Jersey fans have put in the work. The #Scandoval? A flash in the pan. We’ve been tracking the Teresa vs. Melissa drama since “Tik Tok” was just a song on the radio by Kesha—back when she had a “$” in her name.

The pleasure and the pain of RHONJ is just how ingrained all the relationships are. They are the most riotous, joyous, and most fun cast of any reality TV show, when they are getting along. And they are the darkest, most disturbing when they are not. Finally, we addressed the latter point, in a horrifying reunion that finally let Teresa and Melissa unleash on each other.

It was a reunion that excavated deep-rooted family trauma, and which also inexplicably referenced Bo Dietl so many times that I’m afraid people now know who Bo Dietl is.

Recapping all the history between Teresa and her sister-in-law, Melissa, would require a War and Peace (or Barbra Streisand memoir)-level page count. But suffice it to say that, both on the show and in the Bravo fandom, battle lines have been drawn: You’re either Team Teresa or Team Melissa.

It wouldn’t be outrageous to say that Teresa Giduice is the reason that Real Housewives is a phenomenon we all know about. She’s the one that flipped the table. She also hit on the reason why her franchise, RHONJ, works so well, even if it is the bane of her existence: It was built on family.

Teresa has held a decade-long grudge over how Melissa joined the show, rooted in whether or not Melissa’s desire to get on TV was thirsty. It is a complaint that not a single human cares about anymore, except for Teresa, who has seeded it, nurtured it, and watched it blossom into a reality TV phenomenon so stressful, I had to make sure my bottle of Tums was next to my wine while I watched it explode.

The fighting in this RHONJ reunion was so ugly and unpleasant. Andy Cohen, who was moderating the discussion, had the right cycle of reactions: He lost his patience and screamed at everybody to shut up, then felt bad about yelling, but ultimately was right for doing so. I also lost my patience while watching them go at it.

Here’s my take: Whatever the initial drama between Melissa and Teresa was, it happened so long ago that it’s ridiculous to keep bringing it up (which Teresa does every other minute). It motivates every sentence Teresa speaks on the show, which has become, a decade later, unreasonable. So when Melissa attempts to talk through actual, new drama on the show with Teresa, she’s met with a brick wall of irrationality. I think they are both in the wrong, and I think that their respective spouses, Joe Gorga and Louie Ruelas, are the two most vile men on television. But when one person is coming from a place of logic and reason, and another is screaming delusions, it’s enough already.

This is something I think about during every Pride Month: how many times in my life I am forced to come out. What I didn’t realize is, as a Bravo fan, how many times I would have to come out as Team Melissa.

My Real Housewives Group Chat still refuses to acknowledge that truth, but I am who I am, and I stand behind it. Teresa has spent the last years as a human fire torch, attempting to burn Melissa and Joe to the ground. If you watch each reunion and every (or most) fights, you know they try to reason with her. But she’s basically just a human air horn at this point, blaring any time either one of them speaks.

I thought I was so over this Teresa and Melissa drama, but lo and behold, this was the most captivating I’ve ever found a season of RHONJ to be. That said, I need the fighting to go away. It was gratifying for this reunion trilogy, but it’s too dark to continue. RHONJ is always a little more disturbing than the other shows in the franchise. As my friend (rightly) joked, “What other reality show is giving, ‘He put my mother in her fucking grave?’”

The Only Reason I’m Still Watching The Idol

The Idol is unequivocally the worst show airing on TV right now. At least, it’s the worst show that I’m forced to watch as part of this job. So I am surprised and confused that, even with the show generally being absolutely miserable, the most recent episode also had the best single scene of any series I watched this week.

In fact, that scene made me realize something: Somewhere inside this catastrophic orgy of faux provocation and toothless seediness hides a TV show that could be great. It’s one that’s centered on Jane Adams’ character, record-label executive Nikki.

The unfiltered, crass, and unapologetically ambitious puppetmaster of pop star Jocelyn’s (Lily-Rose Depp) career is not only the most fun, but also the most fully realized of the show’s cast of underdeveloped showbiz stock characters. I’m far more interested in her exasperated struggle to control Jocelyn’s unpredictable whims than any of the clichéd, blatantly misogynistic, and poorly written drama surrounding Jocelyn as a fallen star—especially when we see her work to keep her compassion for the artist’s personal demons at bay, while still presenting as ruthless and powerful.

That spectacular scene from this week’s episode happens in the first moments, where Nikki reacts to Jocelyn’s desire to scrap the sexy, surefire hit that’s supposed to relaunch her career, in favor of an experimental remix that’s more “her.” Nikki isn’t having it and erupts into a vicious monologue recapping every sacrifice and leap of faith the record label made to rescue Jocelyn’s career, after Jocelyn had a career-ruining breakdown in the wake of her mother’s death.

There is something both volcanic and unsettlingly controlled about the way Adams blisters through her diatribe, not so much ticking off boxes in a list of all the things she’s done for Jocelyn as setting each item on fire. It is scorching and could be construed as mean, but Adams’s delivery also somehow exudes shades of kindness. Her stance is irrefutable, and it’s better for Jocelyn to just understand that.

I find everything that Jocelyn’s team goes through to keep her comeback on track to be fascinating, infinitely more so than the fetishized take on a pop star desperate to be freed from the constraints of her celebrity. What if The Idol was an Entourage-like series, with Adams’ Nikki as a version of Jeremy Piven’s Ari Gold? I’d happily watch that, instead of begrudgingly tuning into this garbage attempt at prestige edginess, for no other reason than to stay abreast of the controversial show’s endless discourse.

An Award Show That Was Actually Good

It’s been nearly a week, and I’m still reeling from the surprise of Sunday night’s Tony Awards: an award show that was actually fun to watch.

Part of that surprise stems from the fact that, because of the WGA Strike, there were neither writers not any script for the telecast. That turned out to be a great thing, as the ceremony focused on the art and the artists themselves, instead of scripted bits and silly banter. The year’s Broadway shows were given a grander spotlight, and winners’ speeches were allowed to go long—which meant that the winners were actually able to say something meaningful instead of rushing to list names before being played off.

That was especially gratifying considering that the winners were so great: deserving and refreshingly inclusive. People like Brandon Uranowitz, Bonnie Milligan, Michael Arden, Alex Newell, and J. Harrison Ghee—the latter two making history, as the first gender nonbinary Tony winners—spoke from the heart and to the moment, acknowledging the need to nurture art, be unafraid of what makes young people unique or different, and stand up against the rising tide of antisemitism, homophobia, and transphobia.

I couldn’t wait to add theirs to the playlist of award speeches I watch whenever I want a good, cathartic cry, but they haven’t been added to YouTube. CBS, what gives?!

The Perfect Skewering of Hilaria Baldwin

There was so much about Amy Schumer’s new Netflix comedy special, Emergency Contact, that I really enjoyed and found, in some instances, disturbingly relatable. (Thanks to Schumer, I have now convinced myself that I have a hump on my upper back, and I will never stop obsessing over it.)

There’s great content about the state of comedy, body image, getting older, and relationships, but a segment where she talks about what makes marriages work—you and your partner miraculously found the other person who is able to stand you— had me gasping in shock through my laughter.

She absolutely destroys Hilaria Baldwin, the wife of Alec Baldwin who made headlines for pretending to be from Spain and faking a Spanish accent. But, Schumer says, “I’m not trying to bully a sociopath. I have a point.” That point: She and her husband who “shot someone” achieved that miracle: They found the other person who could stand them.

Binging Takes on a Different Meaning

It was announced this week that Netflix is opening up a pop-up restaurant, which is both silly and wonderful. Silly, because why in the world is Netflix opening up a restaurant? And wonderful, because Twitter jokes! TV critics especially had fun using Netflix’s most frustrating quirks to mock the service’s restaurant experience. Here are some of my favorites:

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