In case you missed that part, Andy went pretty hard on Teresa for Joe Giudice's never-ending use of the word, "faggot" while the camera's were rolling.
Andy made a point of highlighting the fact that the word has been used in instances of bullying, and worse, (hate-crimes, and violence), but as usual, Andy's personal offense was wrapped in an enigma of irony, sandwiched in hypocrisy, frosted with BLING.
Cohen's defense was no excuse for what viewers of The Real Housewives of New Jersey Re-Union Part 1, and 2, witnessed. I really think they could have named this finale' The Bloodbath in Redbank.
Teresa made sure that her star would shine the brightest by wearing a giant BLING-badge on her dress. Maybe it was in her contract that she alone would have the biggest BLING-for-the bang, but it turned-out to be a booby-prize in my opinion.
When we were first introduced to Caroline Manzo's son Christopher in Season 1, he came attached to the "joke" that he aspired to running a car-wash that featured strippers.
In Season 2, we even got to see the hilarity come true. It was clearly the intent of Caroline, Christopher, and Bravo, that this stripper/car-wash idea was supposed to be a cute, funny, joke.
In Season 3, when Teresa mentions the gimmick in her cook-book, all of a sudden, the "joke"-is fighting words?
And speaking-of bitches, when did Caroline Manzo become the The Queen of Mean? The Re-Union editing in general was very "choppy" in my opinion, but they certainly didn't delete the eye-rolls, grimaces, sneering, evil-eyes, (or as they say, "ma-loinx" in Italian), and just-plain rotten-dirty-looks that Caroline directed towards Teresa.
Caroline's body-language was as over-the-top as a Gorga/Giudice Christening party, and it wasn't pretty.
Neither was what she said.
Caroline has said some pretty nasty things about her step-niece Ashley, Danielle's young daughter's, and even her own daughter, but she saved the worst for Teresa's daughter Gia.
In commenting on Gia's performance of a song that Teresa's daughter wrote and sang at her sister's birthday party, Caroline shouted at Teresa that it was "A DISGRACE!"
I went-back to watch the scene again on Bravo.com, and Bravo made a point to caption Caroline whispering to her husband Albert that Gia's song was "stupid". In other commentary of Gia's sad-song, Caroline refers to it as, "tragic".
The Real Housewives of New Jersey Season 3 - Singing in the Pain, pt.5 - Video - Bravo TV Official Site
After Part 1 of the re-union, I noticed that some online commenters were wondering if Teresa had been sedated. I hadn't considered that myself, but at the conclusion of Part 2, after the entire ambush ended and the worst they got-out of our body-slammin', table-throwing Teresa was "Go Scratch!", the tranquilizer idea made sense to me.
I was particularly offended by the criticism of Gia. How could Bravo have even allowed those remarks to stay, when as I mentioned above, the whole production was so heavily-edited?
For one thing, Gia's number was cute. And it was a perfect demonstration of what most normal 10 or 11 year-olds would come up with. It wasn't real entertaining, but it was what it was, and it was short, and very sweet.
Caroline had no right to make those pronouncements on that child. Gia's little a' Capella Birthday performance might not have been the kind-of thing that makes the charts, but we all can see that that little girl is one hard-working trouper when it comes to talent.
Caroline's scorn might be something that the grown-ups like Kim G., and Danielle, in Jersey,Franklin Lakes, New have to learn how to avoid the hard-way, but we don't allow that old skool Spirit-crushing to go on here any more when it comes to children.
That's why your widdle Cwitofer was allowed to get-away with his, "cute joke" about the strippers and the the car-wash for too long honey.
Yet it was Caroline who's eyes almost popped-out in her overly-dramatic display-of frustration with what she wanted us to think was Teresa's lack-of-insight.
It was all just too much, and yes they got their ratings but at the expense of disgusting the viewers in a way that cannot be justified no-matter how many sock-puppet comments they pay to pollute the www with.
But it wasn't just Caroline who grind-ed her ax on Teresa, Andy made sure to mock, highlight, and dwell-on in a mean-girl-way every mis-pronunciation, and misunderstanding that Teresa made.
Teresa's confusion with the English language is part of what makes her unique and interesting. Somehow this season, her quirks were presented as ignorance and a lack of intellect. Its never a fair-fight when you take-advantage of someone who is weaker-than you. Isn't that the definition of a bully?
The fact that Teresa grew-up in a home where English was not spoken, did not go un-noticed by the audience when we paused to wonder how Teresa changed from being charming into being "un ucated".
We may not all have an Italian heritage, but everyone who is not a Native American has ancestors who immigrated here at one time or another. Teresa's husband may be a serial-offender at using the word, "faggot", and I think that Andy may have got his message across to some die-hards, but I'm not aware-of when it became politically correct to insult immigrants either.
Or-for the host of a panel to join-in on a "slam-session" against an individual.
Melissa Gorga tried to get-away with sitting-pretty, but her contributions to Teresa's interrogation did not go un-noticed. Was it really necessary for Melissa to correct Teresa when Teresa was trying to make the point that she had scaled-back on over-spending? Of course it wasn't. And if Melissa had not piped-up and informed everyone that Gia did indeed have an I-phone, then Teresa would not have had to explain that yes, Gia does have the I-phone now, but she did not receive both that, and another very expensive gift at Christmas-time.
Melissa also demonstrated her acting-ability, which wasn't much better than Caroline's in my opinion, when she used the phrase, "Its all public-record?(isn't it)." to telegraph to the audience, "We all saw the public-records of the horrendous legal and financial problems that your family has."
Real subtle Mellisa-not.
Melissa even came with her own electronic shit-list of her complaints with Teresa, in case they ran-out of material. She did admit that she's a double-talker when she owned the remark, "at least we pay our bills", and confessed that what she really meant was that Teresa and Joe are deadbeats.
Kathy made-out "OK", but she didn't bother to try and defend Teresa, or if she did that was edited-out.
Speaking-of editing, for all that was shown on the Re-Union, the audience doesn't know what was left-out, or how "real" what we saw was. But we did see Teresa saying, "This is me, this is real."
What kind-of "real" mother would allow a blow-hard like Manzo, get-away with calling their child a "disgrace", on national television no less? Yet Teresa posted a message to Twitter that the only reason that she wasn't promoting the Re-Union along-with her cast-mates, was because she was busy working-on the set of Celebrity Apprentice. She also Tweeted that she did not have a chance to see the edited version of the Re-Union part 2, before it aired, but hey she was there.
Most-of Gia Giudice's 10 and 11 year-old peer-group are old enough to know better, to know that little Gia is not a "disgrace", as Bravo allowed Caroline to proclaim. But by not having a disclaimer to point-to Bravo has left Gia, (and other child reality cast-members) to her own devices when it comes-to explaining things to their friends.
We already know that Season 4 has mostly been recorded, and rumor is that Caroline drops-out somewhere during Season 4, we really don't know how much longer Caroline Manzo will be part of the cast.
Since Bravo took the unusual route of mixing-up the timeline by doing the Re-Union to Season 3 while Season 4 was being made, the audience lost the choice to speak-out on our casting wishes for Season 4.
The only choice that Bravo has left the viewers is to "Watch what happens", or not.
I'm leaning-towards "not" at this point.
